Verdi - Attila (Milan, 2018)

Giuseppe Verdi - Attila

Teatro alla Scala, Milan - 2018

Riccardo Chailly, Davide Livermore, Ildar Abdrazakov, Saioa Hernández, Fabio Sartori, Simone Piazzola, Gianluca Buratto, Francesco Pittari

ARTE Concert - 7 December 2018

Attila is a dog of an opera. You can make excuses for it being an early Verdi work, full of youthful passion and fury, you can make claims for it being an expression in defence of national unity and liberty from foreign oppression, and you can even point to it anticipating Verdi's great mid period of Rigoletto, Il Trovatore and La Traviata, but at best Attila is workmanlike and at worst ridiculously old-fashioned. Other than the fact that it was first performed at La Scala in 1846, I can see no reason why the Milan house would choose Attila to showcase their traditional December season opening extravaganza.

Well, there's one valid way - maybe two - of making it work and possibly have something worthwhile to put in front of a modern audience. As was proved earlier this summer with Alzira at the Buxton Festival, even the crudest Verdi operas can be rehabilitated when they have truly great singers capable of singing the principal roles, particularly the extraordinarily challenging writing for the lead soprano role. In practice this is rare and there are few singers of that calibre willing to push their voices to such extremes for the sake of a hokey melodrama.

Which brings up the other challenge of making early Verdi palatable for a modern audience; finding a way of updating the production to make it relevant and not look like - as is the case with Attila - an am-dram Gothic melodrama in period costumes. Unfortunately, early Verdi rarely supports any effort to bring nuance or indeed substance to the works.

As far as the Teatro alla Scala di Milano is concerned however, they wouldn't dare present such a work without the necessary singing forces on such a prestigious opening night, even though the brave lead soprano Saioa Hernández taking on the role of Odabella is a complete unknown to me at least. On the directorial side there's a little more room to risk the disapproval of a thankfully decreasing but still vociferous minority of boorish traditionalists at the opera house, and Davide Livermore - who has produced some imaginative and thrilling work at the Rossini Opera Festival to showcase the underappreciated value of Verdi's predecessor - is a good choice that offers some hope for Attila not being a complete disaster.

The question remains whether Verdi's Attila can sustain any deeper human sentiments in this context. Based on Livermore's record it's not likely that he will attempt the impossible, but you can expect him to at least find a way of illuminating Verdi as an operatic spectacle. And indeed it soon becomes obvious that Livermore has dispensed with the heavy fleeces, fur-hats with horns and the swords and shields for a more recognisable and relatable vision of war. The director goes for spectacle that includes jeeps, motorbikes and helicopters (ok, not the last one, but he would if he could) but also finds a good balance of showing us familiar modern imagery of the nature of war atrocities without going too far down the Damiano Michieletto Guillaume Tell route of explicit realism.

Plumes of grey smoke spiral into dark murderous skies and ruined buildings set the scene as Attila's Huns overrun the Italian capital during the Prologue, gunning down ordinary men, women and children in summary executions. So when Odabella launches into a defiant condemnation of Attila's brutality against the Italian people, against Italian women ("Ma noi, donna italiche... sempra vedrai pugnar"), you need to see why she is sufficiently roused, why she might be capable of carrying out her threats, and why the Hun leader might be impressed enough to spare her a similar execution. You need to hear it too, and when Saioa Hernández launches into this opening scene you're left in little doubt of how formidable this woman can be, particularly when she is facing an Attila as deeply sonorous as Ildar Abdrazakov.

There's nothing clever or revisionist or high concept in that, it just matches and brings into realisation the full force of Verdi's intentions in dramatic and scenic terms, playing up the Gothic, which is the best you can do. Addressed to an Italian audience, with its nationalistic flag-waving in the face of foreign invasion ("la tua patria in cenere" - your country in ashes) it could be seen as risky in these times of far-right insurgence (particularly in Italy), but Livermore's vision (perhaps more than Verdi's vision of noble sacrifice) shows what war means to the ordinary people caught up in it in terms that we are rather more familiar with today.

There are plenty of little touches that keep the drama grounded in this way, with cinematic back projections showing the death of Odabella's father that chrysalises her implacable quest for vengeance against the Huns. There is also plenty of spectacle and fireworks elsewhere in the impressive set designs and some good ideas that strive to get into the nature of Attila and his worldview, notably in the visualisation of Attila's dream turning to reality in Act I, and in Act II's party scene that has some sinister and decadent 'The Nightporter'-like Nazi imagery. Most of this works as well as can be expected for an opera like Attila.

The singing however is just superb. You couldn't ask for better than Ildar Abdrazakov and Saioa Hernández for total assumption of the roles of Attila and Odabella. Hernández is spectacularly good, nailing an extremely difficult role. There's still some standing, gesturing and striking of operatic poses, but the figures they play do often seem possessed and they try at least to make the Verdi-istic feel a little more naturalistic, or at least in the spirit of the work. The other performances are also outstanding; Fabio Sartori is a clarion-voiced classic Verdi tenor perfect for Foresto, with Simone Piazzola's Ezio and Francesco Pittari's Uldino also impressing.

Musically it's another matter, or another challenge if you like. In an interval interview Riccardo Chailly makes the case for Attila richly showcasing three musical colours for military scenes, for sacred scenes and for the supernatural, which sounds like typical Verdi by numbers to me that is done much better elsewhere. If it's insipid one moment and heavy-handed the next, Chailly at least tries hard to brings a little more uniformity and lyricism to the musical arrangements. It doesn't change my opinion that Attila is weak and démodé, but if anyone can make a case for it, they'd be hard pushed to improve on just about any aspect of this impressive La Scala production. A surprising success.

Links: ARTE Concert, Teatro alla Scala

Rossini - L'Italiana in Algeri (Pesaro 2013 - Blu-ray)

Gioachino Rossini - L'Italiana in Algeri

Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro - 2013

José Ramón Encinar, Davide Livermore, Anna Goryachova, Yijie Shi, Alex Esposito, Mariangela Sicillia, Raffaella Lupinacci, Davide Luciano, Mario Cassi

Opus Arte - Blu-ray

Their productions might not be to everyone's taste, but every year the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro consistently show that they have the composer's best interests at heart and, better than anyone else, they really understand how to get great neglected works by Rossini across to a modern audience. Director Davide Livermore has come up with several innovative productions for the festival over the years, including a Hollywood silent movie epic for Ciro in Babilonia and a backstage haunting of the ghosts of Demetrio e Polibio. As the groovy 60s Austin Powers styled the cover of the DVD for his 2013 L'Italiana in Algeri indicates, the approach taken here is again playful and imaginative but also completely faithful to the intentions and the spirit of the work.

Livermore's argument for this approach is that a work like L'Italiana in Algeri was never meant to be treated with po-faced classical opera seriousness, but was meant to raise huge laughs from its audience. There's no attempt in this opera to make any serious points about social and cultural differences, or even culinary tastes (Pappataci!) - it's just a broad farce, albeit one with a gifted composer at the helm. Livermore's point of reference for translating the work to a modern context - exactly 200 years after the work was first performed - is found in the films of Blake Edwards. (The Austin Powers movies are also clearly an influence, but they themselves are heavily indebted to Blake Edwards' Pink Panther movies). In theory this is a brilliant concept, in practice, it's not as much fun as it really ought to be.

Livermore's concept is definitely appropriate in its tone and workable in the context of the opera. It sees Lindoro as a secret-agent super-spy on a special mission, who is inadvertently caught by the henchmen of the nasty foreign evil-villain Mustafà and, perhaps unaware of his secret identity, is put into the Bey's service as one of his underlings. Just before he is captured however, Lindoro Powers manages to send off an SOS to his super-sexy sixties-styled sidekick Isabella, who comes to Algeria to his rescue. Arriving there (in a more modern fashion than on a shipwrecked ship, although a downed flight is a little bit of a sensitive issue at the moment), she finds herself embroiled in Mustafà's power games as he attempts to offload his wife Elvira in favour of this groovy chick who has just arrived from Italy. She's going to need to play clever to get out of this one without causing a major international incident.

The idea is a great one, and there's a lot to enjoy in the fun production, but the execution unfortunately doesn't entirely live up to the promise. Davide Livermore is a good opera director, but it seems he's not such a good comedy director. He's no Blake Edwards and he doesn't have a Peter Sellers or even a Mike Myers to work with here and everyone just seems to be trying just too hard to have fun. The opening sequence during the overture is much too busy, using intentionally cheap-looking cut-outs for opening-credits with 60s Batman TV-series sound-effects (Crash! Pow! Aaaaggh!).

Having set the scene, it would be enough to let the comic situation of L'Italiana in Algeri play out mostly for itself with all the terrific 60s and 70s styles and haircuts and all the psychedelic effects and colouration, but Livermore insists on trying to make it even funnier. Mustafà/Dr Evil's inability to make an entrance without accidentally firing a gun and killing a hapless henchman becomes a little tiring after a while. A pointless gag with Lindoro being dangled over a swimming-pool of sharks is a good Bond spoof, but it's more typical of how much visual effort and elaboration is put into making a gag look cheap, but in a way that is disproportionate to how funny it actually is. The stage is often cluttered, with too much going on and too many people mugging in an effort to be funny.

It's still a colourful and an entertaining production, just never quite as funny as it thinks it is (although you could probably say the same about L'Italiana in Algeri). The performance itself is likewise good, but not outstanding. The singing is fine and musically the performance is in safe hands with José Ramón Encinar conducting, but the work is missing a spark somewhere. The singing is all good, with Yijie Shi a capable Lindoro, Anna Goryachova a sassy Isabella wearing jaw-dropping outfits and Alex Esposito a spirited Mustafà with a tendency to overact, but no-one here has a personality big enough to really bring the roles to life.

The quality of the Blu-ray is good, showing off the bold colours of the production well enough, but it doesn't look quite as pinpoint sharp this time. The audio too I found a little bit low in volume, but the sound is well-recorded and all the detail is there, particularly if listened to on headphones. There's a ten-minute extra feature on the making of the production, and a cast gallery. The disc is all-region, BD50, with subtitles in English, French, German and Korean.

Rossini - Ciro in Babilonia

Rossini - Ciro in Babilonia

Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro, 2012

Will Crutchfield, Davide Livermore, Ewa Podleś, Jessica Pratt, Michael Spyres, Robert McPherson, Carmen Romen, Mirco Palazzi, Raffaeli Constantini

Opus Arte - Blu-ray

Dressing Rossini's Ciro in Babilonia up as a silent movie sounds like a bit of an arbitrary or frivolous choice, but there's no denying that Davide Livermore's production does at least inject some life into Rossini's otherwise stodgy Biblical drama.  I was going to say "inject some colour" into the work, but since the colour scheme here is primarily black-and-white, that doesn't seem appropriate, particularly when all the colour the work needs is already there in the detail of Rossini's writing for the singers, and that hasn't been neglected here either.  Singing and staging combined in this way, the impact achieved for this particular Rossini work - one that would unlikely ever be considered as one of the composer's greats - is simply tremendous.  This is another coup for the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro.

More than just being a random concept however, there's some method and perhaps even some playful commentary behind David Livermore's silent cinema concept.  The director previously styled Rossini's earliest work Demetrio e Polibio as a backstage recreation of the ghosts of the opera's first performance - which, considering that it had remained in obscurity for centuries since its first performances, was a clever and meaningful touch.  By setting Rossini's first religious drama for the Lenten festival in Ferrara in 1812 as a silent Cecil B. De Mille Biblical epic, Livermore is also in a way looking back to a past and making a commentary about the nature of art and performance, and silent cinema perhaps has more in common with opera than you might think.

Ciro in Babilonia is, it has to be said, a terribly old-fashioned work and not one that is likely to stand up well to modernisation.  It's not Mosè in Egitto (or indeed Moïse et Pharaon), and it's unlikely to be able to sustain a radical exploration of its concepts by a director like Graham Vick.  There's an acknowledgement however here that the work - like silent cinema - has nonetheless a certain charm and a quality in its unique means of expression.  The dialogue is far from naturalistic, the treatment of the Biblical story is hardly historically accurate but, like the old-fashioned gestures and expressions of silent-movie actors, the declarations and old-style operatic mannerisms are similarly a now dated means of expression used to reach out and communicate deeper sentiments to an audience.  Without resorting to irony then, Davide Livermore's silent movie concept - complete with projections, tramline scratches and even with fortepiano continuo - works on that level.

Delivered on commission, presumably rattled out at speed in the composer's customary manner, Ciro in Babilonia might not seem like a work that is likely to reveal any new depths or facets, but the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro once again prove that even the most minor Rossini works have considerable qualities and individual merits.  Ciro in Babilonia doesn't have the gravity of later Rossini in attention to musical expression and characterisation, the all-purpose melodies used here apparently with little consideration for tone of mood and situation and somewhat at odds with the inflated pronouncements of the Biblical declamations, but there is nonetheless a degree of thoughtfulness and sophistication in the writing and in the construction of the work itself.  Directing from the fortepiano, Will Crutchfield leads an fine account of the work that shows that the opera indeed has qualities worth examining.

The production then plays fully to the strengths of the subject as well as the nature of Rossini's vibrant and melodic score.  The silent movie concept is very clever in the way that it allows the old-fashioned nature of the opera to actually "work".  I can't imagine any other way that this could be done that would be half as effective.  It's entertaining, it's involving, it's highly entertaining and simply just marvellous to watch.  If this were indeed a movie, there'd have to be an Oscar award just for the Costume Design and Make-up alone.  The stage concept can however only take this so far, and unless there are real merits in the work itself, it's not going to be enough to hold you for the full three hours.  The Pesaro team (and Caramoor from where this production originated) recognise however that the true worth of Ciro in Babilonia lies in the singing performances, and accordingly they bring together a remarkable cast here that individually and collectively deliver one of the most astonishing performances seen at the festival in recent years.

Evidently Rossini tailored his writing to suit specific singers, but more than just to show off their range, the composer clearly took advantage of their abilities to place it in the service of the drama.  We can never know how such works sounded in their original performances, but on the very rare occasion when you have singers of sufficient ability, stature and character who understand the nature of bel canto, you get a glimpse of the true quality of a Rossini opera.  The cast in this production are, quite frankly, just phenomenal.  The role of Ciro, for example, requires the full richness of sound and the range of tessitura that only a true contralto can achieve, and you only realise that when you hear Ewa Podleś sing the role.  Her first scene in Act I, 'Ahi! Come il mio dolore, come calmar potrò?' is astonishing in its delivery, performance and technique, but it's the combination of that contralto voice with the other singers that gives the work real depth and range - and Rossini even provides an unaccompanied trio at the end of the prison scene in Act II to show this off.

Ciro is however by no means the only challenging role in the opera, and this production benefits from - and actually needs - exceptionally strong performers in the other roles.  Jessica Pratt impressed in the Pesaro production of Adelaide di Borgogna (even if the work itself and the production were a little bit lacking), and she's even more impressive here as Amira.  It's a spellbinding performance of extraordinary technical virtuosity, but more than that it's also fully in service of the drama and the nature of the production.  Michael Spyres also plays up the silent movie villain role of Baldassare, but has a gorgeous lyrical deep rich tenor that navigates the demands of the role consistently and with wonderful expression.  Robert McPherson's Arbace is more in the style of the light Italian lyrical tenor and just glides along here beautifully in a way that perfectly complements the other voices.  Mirco Palazzi's solid, deep and resonant bass has been noted before and his Zambri here is just another element that contributes wonderfully to the quality of the production as a whole.

Released on Blu-ray by Opus Arte, the presentation is impeccable.  This is what High Definition was made for.  The image is clear, detailed and perfectly toned, and the whole performance is well filmed, with quite a lot of tight close-ups.  The quality of the PCM and 5.0 Surround audio tracks also contributes to an appreciation of the performance and indeed the music itself.  Other than a Cast Gallery there are no extra features on the disc.  The enclosed booklet however gives information on the work and the production and also has a full synopsis of the opera.  The BD is all-region, full-HD, BD50, with subtitles in English, French, German, Japanese and Korean.

Rossini - Demetrio e Polibio

Gioachino Rossini - Demetrio e Polibio

Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro, 2010

Corrado Rovaris, Davide Livermore, María José Moreno, Victoria Zaytseva, Yijie Shi, Mirco Palazzi

Arthaus Musik

There’s a wonderful double-take moment at the start of this 2010 Rossini Opera Festival production of Rossini’s Demetrio e Polibio, which turns out to be a thoughtful way to present the work and at the same time manages to strike the perfect balance between the traditional performance and more modern conceptual. The stage curtain draws back at the opening to reveal a final curtain call of a performer for an unseen audience out the back of the stage. His self-congratulations out of the way, the stage hands having moved the sets to the wings, the scene is set for some ancient ‘ghosts of opera past’ to arise out of the packing cases to re-enact a historic performance of the drama of Rossini’s Demetrio e Polibio.

It’s a clever and effective compromise between traditional and conceptual that works well for this one particular Rossini opera that needs a thoughtful and considered approach. Demetrio e Polibio, a ‘dramma serio‘ in two acts, is Rossini’s first opera, which he started to compose when he was only 14 years old. It was composed piecemeal in individual sections as a commission for the Mombelli family’s quartet of singers - some parts perhaps written by the Mombelli father - customised to meet the requirements of the particular characteristics of the singers, but also written to adhere to standard classical opera drama arrangements of arias and duets, with familiar plot devices that involve mistaken and hidden identities. It’s also one of those Metastasian-style dramas where a significant part of the dramatic action has already to a large extent taken place before the opera starts, leaving the characters in a position to bemoan their fate as they strive to find a resolution over the two acts of the opera.

Before the opera even starts, you need to know that Demetrius, the King of Syria, has entrusted his son to a loyal friend Minteus while he is involved in a terrible struggle over royal succession. Minteus however dies before he can reveal the nature of his royal identity to the boy, Siveno, who is taken in by Polibius, the King of Parthia, as his adopted son. As the opera starts some years later, Polibio plans to marry Siveno to his own daughter Lisinga, but Demetrio, having resolved matters in Syria, has come looking for his son, in disguise (of course) as Eumeno, a Syrian ambassador. Polibius - believing that Siveno is the son of Minteaus - doesn’t accept Eumeno’s claims on the boy, forcing Demetrio to make plans to abduct his own son. By mistake, it’s Lisinga who is abducted, which leads to a stand-off confrontation between Demetrio and Polibio over their respective offspring.

The nature of this ‘dramma serio‘ dictates that Rossini’s first opera leans more towards the model of composition of the 18th century rather than towards the new Italian opera model of the 19th century that Rossini would play such an important part in establishing. The influence of Mozart is also evident in the musical approach in an early La Finta Giardiniera or Apollo et Hyacinthus style, if somewhat less adventurous in arrangements and technique, but it’s surprising just how much of the Rossini sound is evident even at this early stage. The first act is made-up almost entirely of duets, with only the bare minimum of recitative, allowing the bonds to be established between the characters much more effectively than solipsistic arias of emotional turmoil, and it builds up wonderfully towards the quartets that mark the confrontation of Demetrio and Polibio (Siveno and Lisinga are not passive figures in the drama by any means) and the brief ensemble finale. The arrangement may have been tailor-made for the Mombelli family, but it also works to the advantage of the musical drama.

Demetrio e Polibio would still however be little more than an early Rossini curiosity, a pleasant but dull and conventional drama, were it not for the wonderful effort put into every aspect of the work for the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, the first modern production of the work in 150 years. As well as evoking the spirit of the Mombelli family through the period costume ghosts that inhabit a modern opera stage and thereby taking the origin of the work into account, director Davide Livermore also uses the haunted stage element to make the opera something wonderful to watch by employing plenty of Illusionist trickery. There’s relevance in this as well as entertainment, acknowledging the “old-style” theatricality of the work, but also using handheld flames to evoke the sparking of love and anger, while the proliferation of doubles, mirror images and disappearing acts all reflect the shifting identities of the characters. It makes a rather academic work seem much more meaningful and consistently entertaining.

The consideration given towards the presentation of this extremely rare work is also reflected in the delightful performance of the musicians, directed by Corrado Rovaris, and the singing performances. Bearing in mind that the difficulty of the roles as written was determined by the capabilities of the original cast, the singing is good across all the roles. Lisinga has the most challenging singing and María José Moreno takes in all the high notes - sometimes a little effortfully - but with great expressiveness. Demetrio has the most active role in the work as the villain of the piece (or perceived villain) and Yijie Shi demonstrates a fine Rossinian Italian tenor style that suits the role perfectly. The breeches role of Siveno doesn’t have quite so many demands placed on it in terms of singing but mezzo-soprano Victoria Zaytseva is absolutely fine for the part, while Mirco Palazzi’s reliable bass fulfils the requirements for Polibio with characteristic Rossinian verve. In terms of duets and ensemble work, the combination of their voices works beautifully in these lovely little arrangements.

On Blu-ray, this is another lovely package of a Rossini Opera Festival production. The High Definition transfer looks superb, and the stage design and direction is so strong that Tiziano Mancini doesn’t have to resort to video trickery to make it any more interesting. The usual high quality audio tracks in PCM Stereo and DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 give a detailed account of the fine music and the singing performance, making this curiosity all the more fascinating to listen to. The subtitles are in Italian, English, German, French, Spanish and Korean. The English subtitles have some curiosities of translation - “No more husband have I, a villain has subtracted him from me” is one example, but they are mostly fine if a little stiff and literal. As well as some words on the production and a full synopsis in the accompanying booklet, there is a fine 14-minute ‘Making Of’ with interviews and behind the scenes footage on the disc itself.