Rossini - La Gazzetta (L'Opéra Royal de Wallonie, 2014 - Webcast)

Gioachino Rossini - La Gazzetta

L'Opéra Royal de Wallonie, 2014

Jan Schultsz, Stefano Mazzonis di Pralafera, Cinzia Forte, Enrico Marabelli, Laurent Kubla, Edgardo Rocha, Julie Bailly, Monica Minarelli, Jacques Catalayud, Roger Joakim

Culturebox, Medici - Live streaming - 26 June 2014

It's not surprising, now that we are able to explore and rediscover much more of Rossini's work, to find that there are many familiar melodies in La Gazzetta that we would have heard elsewhere. The composer would often rework or reuse material written for other works, but all of the music in La Gazzetta, a comic opera based on a play by Carlo Goldoni, would all have been new to a Naples audience in 1816 when Rossini arrived there to commence what would prove to be a most productive period. Almost 200 years later, the Opéra Royal de Wallonie at Liège also manage to bring something new to the work, with the rediscovery in 2012 of the missing Act I quintet restored to the work for the first time.

The Liège company are at their best and have a good track record with productions of this kind of light comic opera, whether it's in the French and Belgian repertoire (Offenbach and Grétry) or even some of the more obscure end of the Italian comic opera repertoire in works like Galuppi's L'inimico delle donne or rarely heard early Rossini (L'equivoco stravagante). The approach is much the same with their 2014 production of La Gazzetta, and the results are equally successful and entertaining. Colourful, slightly stylised and modernised, but true to the intentions of the work without unnecessary revision.

Directed by Stefano Mazzonis di Pralafera - the Artistic Director at Liège - La Gazzetta then takes into account rather more modern means of technological communications when ex-businessman Don Pomponino arrives at L'Aquila hotel in Paris and places an advert on the newspaper website lagazzetta.com that there will be a competition held at the hotel to find a suitable partner for his daughter Lisetta. Also staying at the hotel is Alberto, a wealthy young man who has unsuccessfully been searching the world to find a woman who matches his conception of beauty and perfection. Lisetta however has her own ideas about choosing the man she wants to marry.

Evidently, the arrangement and the path to finding one's perfect partner isn't as simple as that might make it might seem, and there is inevitably a lot of comic confusion over identities and a fair bit of donning of disguises. Alfredo mistakes various women for Lisetta and ends up finding the perfect match in Doralice. Lisetta meanwhile is actually in love with Filippo, an employee at the hotel, who tries to disrupt the competition by disguising himself as unlikely foreign suitors. With both fathers unhappy that their girls seem to be choosing suitors for themselves, the two couples dress up as Turks in order to escape and get married in a manner a little bit reminiscent of Così fan tutte.

With such creaky comic plot situations there's not really any call for modernising the work. There is possibly meant to be some kind of satire on the media involved in La Gazzetta, but not so much that you'd notice it or that it would distract from the fact that this is just a silly comedy at heart. So taking notes down on iPads, posting notices on the internet, and having a TV screen on up in the corner of the hotel reception doesn't really add anything, but it doesn't take anything away either. The Liège production at least looks sharp and stylish. Stylish, but maybe not fashionable as far as the ridiculous costumes go, but even this suits the farcical tone of La Gazzetta.

The set-designs by Jean-Guy Lecat also contribute perfectly to the breezy lightness of Rossini's comic touch. There's an exterior that shows the front of the hotel which rises to reveal the busy interior, with reception, lounge and even a corridor of rooms upstairs. It looks marvellous and it also gives plenty of scope for the drama to play out and flow smoothly from one scene to the next. As if this isn't enough, just for variety there are even some street-scenes that take place via projections of old Parisian streets and sights when Lisetta goes for a walk. Other than a few set-pieces that warrant it - a duel taking place using cannons - the comic exaggeration is never over-played in the direction or in the acting.

Liège also bring together a few regular performers who are well suited to this kind of opera. Cinzia Forte (last earlier this season on the Liège stage as Marzelline in Fidelio) stands out as Lisetta. Her voice is not a big one by any means, but she can scale up to those high notes with all the agility required of a Rossinian soprano. Just as importantly, she has a bright and sparkling personality that lights up the stage when she's on. Edgardo Rocha fulfils the same brightness on the tenor side as Alberto, and there are solid performances from Enrico Marabelli as Don Pomponino and Laurent Kubla as Filippo. The newly discovered quintet might not be considered a lost gem, but it's a critical part of the work and it's great to have it reinstated and hear it sung so well. Jan Schultsz's direction of this rare Rossini work is delightful in what is another fine and entertaining production from Liège.

Links: Culturebox, Medici.tv

Beethoven - Fidelio

Ludwig van Beethoven - Fidelio

Opéra Royal de Wallonie, Liège - 2014

Paolo Arrivabeni, Mario Martone, Jennifer Wilson, Zoran Todorovich, Franz Hawlata, Cinzia Forte, Yuri Gorodetski, Thomas Gazheli, Laurent Kubla, Xavier Petithan, Alexei Gorbatchev

Medici.tv Internet Streaming - 6th February 2014

Judging from the critical response to a few extravagant recent productions in the UK, the themes and sentiments of Beethoven's only opera has the ability to endure even the most ill-fitting concepts and settings. There's certainly nothing quite as radical attempted in the Opéra Royal de Wallonie's production of Fidelio in Liège. Under the stage direction of Mario Martone, it's a fairly traditional presentation in the main that plays to the strengths of the work. As a consequence, the uninspired and uninspiring Liège production never really engages in a way that brings anything new out of the work either, but Fidelio still endures.

Sergio Tramonti's set designs for the Liège production are fairly basic but at least functional and appropriate for the content and for the purposes of the stage direction. Act I shows a rather grimy prison courtyard with a little hut where the rather dishevelled and dusty warder Rocco and his daughter Marzelline reside. It's a grey and dark place, with a platform of iron scaffolding above and prison gates recessed to the back of the dimly-lit stage. Act II makes more appropriate use of this scaffolding as a means to descend to the deep prison cell where Florestan is being held in chains. Darkness pervades, but as such it's perfectly in keeping with both the literal depiction of the conditions of the 18th century prison near Seville and with the dominant tone of Beethoven's subject.

In Fidelio, and certainly in this production of it, it's definitely a case of painting the picture darker to show that the faint light of human aspirations for truth, justice and liberty can never be entirely extinguished, but rather shine even brighter in what even appear to be the most hopeless of situations. And Fidelio does get pretty bleak. Florestan, a political prisoner, is being held secretly in solitary confinement in the deepest darkest vaults of the prison, never seeing the light of day, being starved to death on the orders of the governor Don Pizarro. Afraid however of Florestan's illegal imprisonment being discovered by the Minister on a sudden inspection visit, Pizarro orders Rocco to murder the prisoner, dig a hole and bury him down there.

It's a very grim subject, but Beethoven's score - worked on laboriously for nine years over several versions and multiple revisions - bears the nobility of the finer qualities of both Florestan and his wife Leonore (in disguise as Rocco's assistant Fidelio, unable to determine even if her husband is still alive, so deep is his light buried), at the same time as it depicts the nature of the darkness that they face. The libretto is littered with references to darkness and light, but Beethoven's score manages to show both sides of the coin at the same time, and not just in the central situation, but also within the smaller-scale drama of the prison warder's daughter Marzelline's love for Fidelio putting paid to her admirer Jaquino's ambitions to marry her.

The Liège production captures the tone of the work reasonably well, but only in the broadest of terms in its distinction between darkness and light. The darkness is well-established in the First Act and the beginning of the Second Act, with only the prisoner's tentative and cautious glimpse of daylight in the chorus of 'O welche Lust' at the end of Act I offering any respite from the gloom. When that brightness cascades onto the set at the arrival of the Minister then, pouring in from the lifting of the walls at the back of the stage, it achieves perfectly the sense of liberation and hope that Leonore's unwavering faith inspires. Broadly, that's fine, but it means that a considerable amount then rests also on the singers to capture the nuance of characterisation that is played out here in the most Manichean of terms.

The singers perform reasonably well, but by no means exceptionally, only really succeeding in matching the level of the production. The nobility of Leonore calls for a strong Wagnerian soprano and Jennifer Wilson meets those requirements with a pure timbre that rings out with courage and dignity. She's not best matched with tenor Zoran Todorovich's Florestan, and doesn't always hold those Mozartian flourishes steady, but it's a good performance. Todorovich isn't quite the heldentenor voice that would be ideal for Florestan and he too has shaky moments, but he makes the right impression. Franz Hawlata's Rocco is solid and clear of diction and there are notable performances from Cinzia Forte as Marzelline and Yuri Gorodetski as Jaquino. Thomas Gazheli's Don Pizarro is sung well but a little over-played with sneers and mannerisms as a caricature baddie.

The Opéra Royal de Wallonie's production of Fidelio - a co-production with the Teatro Regio de Turin - was broadcast live from Liège on the 6th February 2014. At the time of writing it's still available for free viewing from the Medici.tv, in German with French subtitles only.