It’s always interesting to follow the Viaggio a Reims of the Accademia in Pesaro, one can hear interesting young voices which might be successful one day. Excellent, I thought, was the Lord Sidney of Nicolò Donini, with not only fluid coloratura but also the emphasis he put on pronunciation and interpretation. Milla Mihova’s Cortese was also quite good with a strong voice, fluid embellishments and a steady top register. I would have loved to hear her as Corinna. A tenor I also enjoyed was Anatoliy Pigrebnyy as Belfiore, with a nice extension and a ductile voice. Corinna, Folleville and Trombonok all simplify the quick coloratura, Sennikova is a bit mellifluous. I would have loved to see Carles Panchon, who sang the role of Antonio the 17th, sing the role of Sidney the 14th (the students of the accademia alternate roles in two different dates). His voice was quite beautiful and strong and convinced even in the small role of Antonio with a funny mimicry. The orchestra was adequately conducted by Hugo Carrio.
Ricciardo e Zoraide was one of the main events in Pesaro this year, the opera was composed in Naples in 1818 but was not, also in modern times, very lucky with revivals. Juan Diego Florez comes back for yet another role composed for Giovanni David, the tenore di grazia active in Naples at that time. (In fact most of Rossini’s Neapolitan operas have 2 tenor roles, one tenore di grazia and one baritenor. The latter was Andrea Nozzari, for whom Rossini composed the roles of Otello, Rinaldo (Armida), Pirro in Ermione, Rodrigo (La donna del lago), Antenore (Zelmira). Juan Diego Florez, after over 20 years of activity (he was “discovered” in Pesaro in 1996 when he had to replace the main tenore last minute to sing the murderous role of Corradino in Mathilde Di Shabran) still startles with the ease he reaches all the notes, his musical elegance, his impeccable coloratura. Romanovsky sang the role composed for Nozzari. Romanovsky has all the technical skills, the coloratura and the extension, and this is already quite impressive. However the voice sounds a bit muffled and does not expand. Pretty Yende is a credible Zoraida, the clear top notes flow with ease, the interpretation credible. Also Victoria Yarovaya convinces as Zomira in the difficult Pisaroni role. An incredible surprise was the third tenor, Xabier Anduaga, a very resounding voice with easy top notes and an incredible projection. I hope to hear him in more Rossini soon. Dull on the other hand the direction of Marshall Pynkoski. He moves the plot from Nubia to a very generic oriental place. The settings are pleasing and the colours beautiful, but except for a handful of ubiquitous ballet dancers who constantly accompany the plot, there is no action on stage except for minimal and very generic standard movements, the singers being mainly turned towards the audience. The excellent orchestra sinfonica nazionale della RAI was adequately conducted by Giacomo Sagripanti.
For the 150th anniversary of Rossini’s death this year, the ROF commissioned a new Barbiere di Siviglia, a choice much criticized on- and offline. The reason being Barbiere being one of the world’s most performed operas and the detractors wished a more rare opera. Nonetheless, in my view, it turned out to be a very good production. The setting is beautiful. In an atemporal Seville, Pizzi plays with the airy space and just a few touches of contrasts and colours. The singers’ movements are very generic, some good ideas but not everything convinces (Basilio’s stutter, Bartolo’s French R…). Very elegant the costumes.
What makes this Barbiere so special is the importance put on the text and this is thanks mainly to the 3 low male roles. I always was a big fan of Spagnoli and I was very happy to hear him sing in this Barbiere. Even happier I was to see a young singer I value, Davide Luciano. If the acting was good, it was mainly thanks to these two singers. (I liked the delicate rapper movements of Spagnoli, as if to underline the modernity of Rossini in his time, the rapid sillabato being our rap). 
Maybe Spagnoli is more delicate in the search of the right nuance, though I found his voice not always as round and soft especially in the higher register, but both have an excellent musicality, are wonderful actors, have wonderful body gestures. The phrasing is excellent, each word adapts to the flow of the music, the pronunciation impeccable. Two charismatic top singers. Mirinov is very good as count, not a big voice but he nimbly flies over all runs. Not very big isn’t Rosina’s voice either. I’m not sure why the ROF keeps choosing her in the mezzo or alto roles. The vocality does not suit her very much. The voice is placed high and one can hear that even in the recitatives which don’t have necessary weight in these low roles. In the rapid embellishments she’s not always audible. When she gets time she does reach the low notes, her coloratura is fluid, her pronunciation good and she moves well on stage. Elena Zilio is lovely as Berta and Pertusi a correct Basilio.
Adina is a little comic opera Rossini composed in the heights of his Neapolitan success in 1818, exactly 200 years ago, as was also Ricciardo e Zoraide. Written for a still unknown commissioner, the opera was composed using either own music from lesser known operas or composed by Rossini’s collaborators. Not even a handful of pieces were freshly composed for this work. Eventually the opera was first staged only 8 years later in Lisbon.
Pesaro’s direction by Miss Cucchi imagines the plot deploying from a nuptial cake being prepared. Loads of different characters move on stage with colourful clothes in front of a stage-filling cake. The main characters were all quite good. Lisette Oropesa was almost worshipped as an excellent newcomer, despite her success abroad. I found her timbre a bit cold and her coloratura a bit too much on the “di grazia” side, but she certainly has a full bodied voice also in the lower register and the top notes are propelled with no problem whatsoever. Very good Vito Priante as calif, from the rapid runs to the more lyric moments he is a fine singer. Both are also good actors and deliver excellent actorial skills in a libretto which mixes comic with semi dramatic moments. Although still able to mature I liked also the tenor, who is assimilating the bel canto style and has no problems with the tessitura of a tenore di grazia. Good all other roles with the lovely eunuch Ali who delivers his sorbet aria with elegance and Davide Giangregorio’s Mustafá.
Ricciardo e Zoraide: Direttore-Giacomo Sagripanti, Maestro del coro -Giovanni Farina, Regia-Marshall Pynkoski, Scene-Gerard Gauci, Costumi-Michael Gianfrancesco, Luci-Michelle Ramsay, Coreografie-Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg, Agorante-Sergey Romanovsky, Zoraide-Pretty Yende, Ricciardo-Juan Diego Flórez, Ircano-Nicola Ulivieri, Zomira Victoria Yarovaya, Ernesto-Xabier Anduaga, Fatima-Sofia Mchedlishvili, Elmira-Martiniana Antonie, Zamorre-Ruzil Gatin
Il viaggio a Reims: Direttore-Hugo Carrio, Corinna-Aleksandra Sennikova, Marchesa Melibea-Claudia Verrecchia, Contessa di Folleville-Larisa Stefan, Madama Cortese-Milla Mihova, Cavaliere Belfiore-Anatoliy Pigrebnyy, Conte di Libenskof-Shanul Sharma, Lord Sidney-Nicoló Donini, Don Profondo-Peter Sokolov, Barone di Trombonok-Igor Onishchenko, Don Alvaro-Alejandro Sanchez, Don Prudenzio-Gálvez, Don Luigino-Antonio Gares, Delia -Maria Laura Iacobellis, Maddalena-Anastasia Medvedeva, Modestina-Claudia Muschio, Gelsomino-Manuel Amati, Antonio-Carles Pachon
Adina: Conductor-Diego Matheuz, Director-Rosetta Cucchi, Set designer-Tiziano Santi, Costumes-Claudia Pernigotti, Adina-Lisette Oropesa, Semino-Levy Sekgapane, Califfo-Vito Priante, Ali-Matteo Macchioni, Mustafà-Davide Giangregorio
Il barbiere di Siviglia: Director-Yves Abel, Director, costumes, set designer-Pier Luigi Pizzi, Conte Almaviva-Maxim Mironov, Rosina-Aya Wakizono, Figaro-Davide Luciano, Dr. Bartolo-Pietro Spagnoli, Don Basilio-Michele Pertusi, Berta-Elena Zilio, Fiorello-William Corrò
Foto studio Amatio Bacciardi, performances of the 17th, 19th and 21st August 2018.
What a pity that il Turco in Italia was such a disappointment this year. Davide Livermore, director of several operas in Pesaro for several years now, transports the opera into a Fellinian movie. Similarly L’Italiana in Algeri of last year was transported into the 60’s, where Livermore had to be careful on keeping the decade’s style. Differently, in Il turco in Italia, by sticking to the fellinian idea, he transforms the Turco-characters into Fellini-characters, adds several characters from the movies and has to match all the different characters among each other and with the libretto. And this sometimes leads to a boring confusion and forced situations that annoy on the long run. The set is beautiful, as are the costumes designed by Gianluca Falaschi. Musically the things don’t enthuse either. Speranza Scappucci does her best to underline the details of the score but directed the singers and orchestra without vivacity. Completely! Erwin Schrott as Selim is more interested in the setting than looking to sing in Rossini’s style…another disappointment. 
Rene Barbera has all the notes but leaves a bit cold. Olga Peretyatko, who is gorgeous on stage, could have been a good Fiorilla but she does not convince in the first act, let alone in her big aria Squallida veste bruna, which she finishes (badly) with big effort (partially excused by a note she issued saying that this was due to an allergy). Excellent, on the other hand, Pietro Spagnoli and Nicola Alaimo, who, except for an amazingly clear diction, vital for a comic opera, and the only two main characters that care pronouncing properly, understand how to sing Rossini, but alone cannot save the show from a sense of averageness.
Ciro in Babilonia was given with a set, also by Davide Livermore, conceived for the ROF in 2012. The setting is created around the slient movie theme, with spectators in liberty style, projected intertitles, simplistic acting with emphasized body language and facial expression, and intentionally unrefined projections. it is a very clever direction which is easy to follow and extremely pleasant to watch. Musically Jader Benjamini gives a dramatic though airy and light imprint to this score of the young Rossini and accompanies the singers well. It would be very interesting to hear him in a more mature Rossini. The big star is Ewa Podles. The voice has still an amazing range, I am always impressed to hear both the almost manly-deep and the almost soprano-like high notes in one single voice. Podles is expressive and a very good actress and impersonates not only a Persian prince but a loving father and husband. 
This is singing with a capital S and shows that Podles has, with over 60 years, still many strings in her bow and she received the ovation she deserved. Siragusa is always quite good with his luminous timbre, fluency in the colorature and attentive to diction. Petty Yende was a nice surprise. The quick florid passages were not as articulated, but she showed a good control in the extreme high register and was overall convining in the Rossinian style. A bigger attention to intonation would have completed her interpretation.
La donna del lago was, in my eyes, the most refined of Mariotti s conductions so far. From the first bars of the introduction it is clear that he pays much care to the details of the score, giving much attention to soli’s and accompaniment, uncovering the sounds of gurgling water, “morning dawns”, etc. etc. His tempi are perfect, dynamic and swift, without indulging in superfluous oversentimentality, still tender and warm where required, with an incredible play of rubati and attention to details as rarely heard. It is true what one says about Florez and the coloratura that it is less fluid, but what is lost in flexibility is gained in the search of softness and phrasing, colours and accents. Unmatched. Michael Spyres interprets the extremely difficult role of Ridrigo, cockily shooting high and baritonal notes and leaping over the pentagram as if there was no tomorrow. 
Very good also Salome Jica in the role of Elena, good coloratura and good range. Varduhi Abrahamyan is very good, though lacks, in my eye, these Podles-like fullness in the lowest part of the range. Very good also the minor parts. Michieletto sets the action as flashback. The opera begins with Malcolm and Elena living together in old age, with Elena thinking with regret to the times she met the king. And Michieletto shows what Tottola and Rossini only hint at, a loving relationship between the two, so the whole direction centres around a love that could have been and is (maybe) still there. In the world of subject matter experts a well known theory but Michieletto makes it visible with the attention to details and coherence that is his trademark.
Florian Leopold Gassmann, although nowadays practically unknown to most, was one of Vienna’s court composer and organized one of the first associations of public concerts. Admired by Mozart, he was a prolific Bohemian, composing 25 or so operas, more than 50 symphonies, overtures, chamber music etc., who worked with famous librettists and composers such as Metastasio, Goldoni, Salieri. He composed operas for Vienna, Venice, Florence, and was able to merge the characteristics of the Venetian style and the German taste. The opera L’opera seria, written on a libretto by Ranieri de Calzabigi, is not seria at all, but a brilliant and hilarious rendering of the rehearsal and staging of an opera, the vanity of singers, the greed of impresarios, and the whims of dancers, composers and librettists. It is part of a widespread and appreciated satirical genre that flourished between the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century and describes the inconveniences of opera companies and which has examples galore in prose, drama and opera alike (Il teatro alla moda by Benedetto Marcello, Le convenienze e inconvenienze teatrali by Donizetti, La prova dell’opera by Da Ponte, L’opera in prova alla moda by Latilla, L’impresario in angustie by Cimarosa, Prova di un opera seria by Gnecco, and many others). 
The plot evolves around the impresario Fallito (!) who commissions an opera to a pretentious composer and librettist (Mr. Sigh and Delirium), three primadonnas (Miss Off-Key Trill, Miss Simpering, and Porporina, which show up with their respective mothers), the primo uomo and the dancer, and who are all only driven by their personal and individual glory. Act I and II sees them complain abut the libretto, the music , the costumes. They rehears among disastrous directions, singers complaining about the orchestra and ornamentation….chaos: The final act finally sees them catastrophically perform the opera on stage only to finally realize that the impresario run off with the money.
Some of the singers are excellent. Spagnoli is simply wonderful, his style, his pronunciations, the nuances he puts in every line, his taste in phrasing, every inflection, every word is in its right place and his voice doesn’t seem to have lost any of its brilliance. I found Alex Penda and Mario Zeffiri equally good, both with their own qualities, they charm with actorial talent, and musically nail their hugely difficult roles, Zeffiri clearer in his diction and jauntier on stage, Alex Penda impressive with her wide vocal range. I also enjoyed Robin Johannsen, especially in her “son fatta cosi”. Sunhae Im was an acceptable Porporina, but I would have wished a more understandable Italian and a fuller voice. A vocally correct but scenically unmotivated Marcos Fink and an good Thomas Walker complete the cast with 3 decent countertenors in the role of the primadonnas’ mothers and Nicolay Borchev as dance master.
