Gaetano Donizetti - La Favorite
Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse, 2014
Antonello Allemandi, Vincent Boussard, Kate Aldrich, Yijie Shi, Ludovic Tézier, Giovanni Furlanetto, Alain Gabriel, Marie-Bénédicte Souquet
Opus Arte - Blu-ray
There are any number of Donizetti operas to choose from that deal with similar sentiments, but for sheer overwhelming swooning romanticism, La Favorite - the composer's 1840 four act French Grand Opéra - is hard to beat. Performed in its original French version at the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse - it's more often played in the Italian translation when it's played at all - it's given a simply gorgeous production here under the direction of Vincent Boussard that matches the warmth and the sweeping beauty of Donizetti's score and arrangements.
The subject of La Favorite has all the necessary qualities that enable such a deep, romantic treatment. It's an epic romance and an impossible love with a historical context increasing the stakes that involves the king, threatens the very fate of the nation and even has the Pope getting involved. The nature of those sentiments are fully laid out and explored in the first Act. Highlighting the fact that religious matters underlie and add to the complications that arise, Act I takes place in 14th century Spain in the monastery of St James (and to complete the construction Act IV also returns to the monastery), where a young monk, Fernand, has fallen in love with a mysterious woman. Fernand ignores the advice of his Superior Balthazar and prepares to leave his office. If he doesn't act, he knows that he might otherwise never know true happiness. All of this is accompanied by lush arrangements that capture the sweep of the cruel injustice of fate, accompanied by fervent prayers to the heavens. Giuseppe Verdi, take note.
The reason why Fernand's love is an impossible one, is that the enigmatic lady is Léonor, the "favourite", mistress of King Alfonse XI of Castille. This is also an impossible love that threatens the nation, since the King wants to divorce the Queen and thereby risk the displeasure of the Pope. Unaware of the identity of the mysterious woman he has fallen for, Fernand is taken blindfolded after leaving the monastery to meet her secretly on the island of Leon in the second scene of Act I. Warned by Léonor that cruel fate means their love can never be and that he should forget her, Fernand joins Alfonse's army where he distinguishes himself during the battles with the Moorish invaders. Fernand - still unaware of Léonor's identity and position - asks the king for her hand as a reward for his bravery. It's then that Alfonse becomes aware that his mistress has a lover.
The subject of La Favorite has all the necessary qualities that enable Donizetti to explore familiar subjects in a deeper way with a more romantic treatment. Donizetti had of course already written a number of royal historical intrigues in his Tudor trilogy of Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda and Roberto Devereux, but the tone of La Favorite is quite different. There's less of the wild contrivance and heightened emotions of bel canto singing here, the French grand opéra giving Donizetti the opportunity to adopt a more sombre tone that explores the fatalistic nature of the drama. The subject and the treatment of it here mean that the opera works almost in abstraction as a study of guilt and betrayal, but the vivid score is tied closely to the drama, which is similarly well-constructed and developed even as it elevates the highly romantic situations and fervent declarations.
Whether it's a reflection of the composer writing specifically for a French audience to a French libretto, or whether it's evidence of a growing maturity in his writing, La Favorite is indeed a more substantial work from Donizetti in this respect. There's a stronger dramatic inclination shown in the writing that is closer to Bellini and it's not hard to see that the work would form a model for many of Verdi's historical romances, even bearing comparison to Don Carlos (not coincidentally also a work written for a French audience) or at least La Forza del Destino. It's also worth noting that Wagner was a fan of La Favorite and transcribed an arrangement of the work for piano, and one also, I believe, for two violins. Echoes of the themes from Donizetti's La Favorite can even be heard in Der fliegende Höllander.
Philippe Boussard's direction of this extraordinarily beautiful production of La Favorite for the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse matches the sentiments of the work well, the simple elegance of the designs, costumes and lighting also reflecting the near-abstraction of the themes explored in the work. The sets and the stage are left fairly bare, with only really a few silhouetted arches in the background, yet much is done with light, colour and with elegant costumes designed by Christian Lacroix. With reflective surfaces and shimmering costumes, the stage is awash with crepuscular colours and luminous light. As well as looking terrific, the stage setting gives all the space and ambience required to set the essential mood and character of the piece. The melodrama practically demands that the characters in La Favorite express their feelings as if their lives depended on it, and the cast here sing it much the same way.
Although he doesn't speak the language, Yijie Shi handles Donizetti in French just as well as he does for the Rossini Italian repertoire, his lovely light lyrical tone just perfect for this work. Kate Aldrich gives an intense account of the opera's mezzo-soprano leading role as Léonor, again with good facility for the French language and with great dramatic impact. Ludovic Tézier's baritone is as smooth as ever as Alfonse, sounding very comfortable in the role, even as he exudes the menace or at least the threat to the happiness of the unfortunate couple, but Tézier ensures that there is sympathy too for his regal dilemma. This is just ideal casting. Conducting the Toulouse orchestra, Antonello Allemandi weaves purposefully through the rich and varied moods of the score, with a lightness of touch that belies the force of the dramatic tone.
The Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse production of La Favorite is released on Blu-ray by Opus Arte, and it is an absolute joy that this splendid production has been recorded so well and presented so impressively in High Definition. Visually, the production is a wash of subtle colouration, and it's handled marvellously in the transfer with terrific detail, clarity and definition in the low-lit scenes. The audio tracks are also fine, allowing you to hear the detail in Donizetti's scoring for this work. The BD includes a 38-minute collection of interviews with the main cast, Allemandi, Boussard and Christian Lacroix. The BD is all-region, subtitles are in English, French, German, Japanese and Korean.
Giuseppe Verdi - Ernani
Teatro Regio di Parma, 2005
Antonello Allemandi, Pier' Alli, Marco Berti, Carlo Guelfi, Giacomo Prestia, Susan Neves, Nicoletta Zanini, Samuele Simoncini, Alessandro Svab
C-Major
George Bernard Shaw may or may not have had Ernani in mind when he came up with the generic definition of an opera plot as being about a tenor and a soprano who want to make love but are prevented from doing so by a baritone, but Verdi's opera matches this description remarkably closely. Based on Victor Hugo's historical drama, 'Hernani', Verdi's Ernani is very much a product of its time, seeped in arch-romantic sentiments of honour, nobility, love, duty, betrayal and revenge, and Verdi's musical treatment of the subject can be seen as somewhat academic, adhering closely to the Italian operatic tradition of the time, writing for particular voices in certain roles. It's how the voices are used in this work however that makes all the difference.
What distinguishes Ernani from other historical romantic dramas of this type, and provides a degree of variation from the GB Shaw template, is that there is not just a tenor and a baritone competing for the hand of the soprano in question, but Verdi also makes use of a bass as an extra cog to his musical wheel. What makes Verdi's handling of the subject interesting in this early work of the composer however is not so much the apportioning of those characters to the conventional singing roles, but in how Verdi develops the musical expression of those types in a way that would determine and set archetypes that he would often come back to over the years, particularly in how he manages to brings them together into a single musical and dramatic unit.
Essentially then, for all the romantic exoticism of the Spanish setting, with Don Juan of Aragon forced into hiding and taking the disguise of the bandit Ernani, his romance with Elvira under threat not just from her impending marriage to Don Ruy Comez de Silva, but from a rivalry with king in waiting Don Carlo, Ernani fits very much into the mold of the by-the-numbers romantic melodrama. It would be certainly lacking in any kind of dramatic credibility that would engage a modern-day audience where it not for Verdi's skillful writing for the voices. Working for the first time with the poet Francesco Maria Piave, Verdi taking the upper hand with a clear idea of how he wanted to express the drama, Ernani is consequently wonderfully structured and skillfully arranged, the scenes played out with musical consistency and fluidity that doesn't call for the action to be halted in order for the singers to step forward and do their singing pieces.
Or at least, ideally, that's how Ernani ought to be played. With the right kind of singers and direction, it shouldn't be as dramatically rigid as it is presented in this 2005 production for the Teatro Regio di Parma, but unfortunately, neither the singers nor the direction are fully up to the task. Directed by Pier' Alli, the set and costume designs are old-fashioned and period - which is fine and suits this particular work - but there's no reason why it should also be presented in the old-fashioned 'park and bark' style, the singers all standing, looking out, gesturing and delivering the lines as if there were asides to the audience rather than directed towards the other characters in the drama. In some cases the drama can indeed to be rather expositional and declamatory, but through duets, trios and choral arrangements, and in the very tone and blending of the voices, Verdi strives to make it much more interpersonal - but in order to achieve that, you don't just need stronger direction and some dramatic input from the cast, you also need good singers.
It's for this reason that I used the term 'park and bark' above rather than 'stand and deliver' to describe the performances, because, unfortunately, there's more barking than nuanced or even accurate delivery of Verdi's vocal writing, and the weakest elements are actually the roles where it really needs to be tighter and more expressive - Elvira and Ernani. Marco Berti and Susan Neves both have their
moments - Neves notably in the highly-charged third scene where she
holds steady alongside the imposing Carlo of Carlo Guelfi and the grave
intonations of Giacomo Prestia's Silva, but elsewhere they are
terribly uneven. Guelfi is undoubtedly the best there is here,
bringing a real sense of the power, danger, nobility and clemency that
his character proves to be capable of, but alone and under this stage
direction, it's never enough to convey the true worth of the
arrangements.
The singing and the staging leave something to be desired, and unfortunately the musical presentation under Antonello Allemandi is similarly uneven. This is certainly disappointing and surprising, as the Allemandi and Alli team work much better together in the Teatro Regio di Parma recording of Oberto that is also available on Blu-ray as part of this collection. This isn't entirely a bad performance of Ernani, just a rather uneven one that at its best never really rises above merely average. Ernani however, for all its flaws as one of Verdi's earliest works, surely deserves more than that.
This recording of Ernani (previously released on DVD by Dynamic) is released here upgraded to HD in a Blu-ray release as part of the 'Tutto Verdi' series from C-Major, a collection that is made up of performances of all Verdi's opera work recorded at the Teatro Regio di Parma. Some trailers for other works in the collection are included on the disc, as well as a visual introduction/synopsis for Ernani. The quality of the HD image is generally very good, although one or two scenes lack the same kind of detail that can be seen elsewhere and some of the camerawork is a little bit rough in places. There are no problems with the audio tracks, both the PCM Stereo and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 sound clear and strong. There are however one or two curiosities in the English subtitles, but nothing significant. The Blu-ray is all-region, with subtitles in Italian, English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean and Japanese.
Giuseppe Verdi - Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio
Teatro Regio di Parma, 2007
Antonello Allemandi, Pier' Alli, Mariana Pentcheva, Fabio Sartori, Giovanni Battista Parodi, Francesca Sassu, Giorgia Bertagni
C-Major
Verdi's first opera, written when he was 26 years old, might lack the musical sophistication and dramatic characterisation of his late masterpieces, but Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio was good enough to open at La Scala in Milan in 1839, where it enjoyed a modest success, and it's a prototypical full-blooded early Verdi work that already has many of the elements that we associate with the composer. There's a historical subject based around war and revolution and an arranged marriage - but it's not Don Carlos by any means - there's a young woman whose father is outraged that she has been seduced and abandoned by a rakish noble - even if it can't stand up alongside Rigoletto or Simon Boccanegra or any of the other Verdi operas that deal with the father/daughter relationship. Oberto rather sticks closely to the established format and subject matter of the 19th century Italian number opera, but Verdi's dramatic flair, his ability to underscore those key moments with the most stirring and passionate arrangements is evident nonetheless and those qualities are brought out exceptionally well this production.
There's not a lot of dramatic action as such in Oberto. Much of the important events have already taken place, leaving the principal characters involved to fume their displeasure and deep feelings of love, betrayal, anger and desires for revenge at the start of the opera through a series of cavatinas and cabalettas. At the centre of the drama - like many of Verdi's works - is a father/daughter relationship that has been affected by war and revolution. Oberto, the Count of San Bonifacio, has been driven into exile, leaving behind his daughter Leonora. Leonora in his absence has been seduced by Riccardo of the Salingherra family - Oberto's sworn enemies - under a false identity. With Riccardo about to be married now to Cuniza, the sister of Ezzelino, an influential ally, Leonora bemoans her shame and Riccardo's betrayal. Her father Oberto however has secretly returned and incensed by what has happened, he urges his daughter to go speak to Cuniza and avenge her honour, turning up before the wedding to resolve the matter himself in the traditional fashion of a duel. It's pretty standard plotting then, the drama driven by a series of arias/cabalettas, but Verdi brilliantly whips this up into something utterly compelling by adding trios, quartets and choruses to create an explosive atmosphere in manner that makes it impossible not to get swept along.
Recorded in the small, intimate surroundings of the Teatro Verdi di Busseto, this 2007 production settles for a relatively traditional setting that has an appropriately theatrical feel to it. There's nothing too ambitious attempted, the costumes are theatrically period, the sets are confined to backdrops, with minimal use of props and the stage - small as it is - left clear and open for the singers to step forward and let fly. In the absence of any real dramatic interaction, the director Pier' Alli merely gets the performers to stand looking out, look sincere, strike a few dramatic poses and make some curious sweeps of the arms and hand gestures. The presumption - a big one possibly for what is after all Verdi's first opera - is that the music and singing alone will be enough to carry the full force of the work. Fortunately, while it's not left to rest entirely on the shoulders of the performances - the lighting and setting providing an effective and appropriate mood for the work - this turns out not to be an entirely unreasonable assumption.
The singing is generally good, but in such a stripped down production and with the musical arrangements as they are, there's nowhere to hide any weaknesses. There are no concerns at all however with the male tenor and baritone roles. Fabio Sartori gives a gutsy performance as Riccardo, pitching his performance perfectly for the tone of the work and the scale of the theatre, while Giovanni Battista Parodi's Oberto is similarly well-judged, striking the right note as the outraged father looking to restore his dignity without taking it overboard. Mariana Pentcheva also gives a performance of dramatic intensity as the deceived bride-to-be Cuniza, and it's only Francesca Sassu's Leonora that shows any real weakness in the line-up. The merciless acoustics of the small theatre and the opera's musical arrangements will quickly reveal any weaknesses, and in this context Sassu sounds unable to bring any depth or drama to the lower end in her opening cavatina, but also fails to hold her own in her Act I duet with Parodi.
When fully supported however, as the opera gathers pace with Verdi works up the musical drama and lightning effects are thrown in for good measure, the qualities of the work and the production become clear. The trio at the revelation of Riccardo's betrayal - resounding with Oberto, Leonora and Cuniza cries of 'traditor!' - is the highlight of Act I, Verdi following it up impressively with a powerful finale, while Act II's quartet has much the same impact, achieving the full Verdi effect. The chorus have an important part to play in this, and do so marvellously, but the main part of the success of this production rests on the driven performance of the orchestra as conducted by Antonello Allemandi that is nicely attuned to the rhythms and dynamic of the work. The sound quality on the Blu-ray disc is simply outstanding. Every instrument is crystal clear, highlighting just how good an account of the work this is.
Released on Blu-ray by C-Major, the image quality every bit as good as the HD sound mixes, Oberto is the first of a series of performances recorded at the Teatro Regio di Parma that will form part of a complete Verdi collection, 'Tutto Verdi', released to coincide with the composer's bicentenary in 2013. Some trailers for other works in the collection are included on the disc, as well as a visual introduction/synopsis for Oberto. The Blu-ray is all-region, with subtitles in Italian, English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean and Japanese.
