Paer - Agnese (Turin, 2019)

Ferdinando Paer - Agnese

Teatro Regio Torino, 2019

Diego Fasolis, Leo Muscato, María Rey-Joly, Markus Werba, Edgardo Rocha, Filippo Morace, Andrea Giovannini, Lucia Cirillo,Giulia Della Peruta, Federico Benetti

Dynamic Blu-ray

While there have been some wonderful and worthwhile revivals of forgotten works by Donizetti, Bellini and of course Rossini, there's been less attention paid to other little-known works and neglected composers from this period who helped pave the way from the baroque and opera seria of the 18th century to the dominant form of Italian opera that the masters Verdi and Puccini would perfect. The occasional work revives interest in this period now and again with regular efforts to rehabilitate Giacomo Meyerbeer, a Saverio Mercadante here, a very rare Giovanni Simone Mayr there, Giovanni Paccini almost never, all of them nonetheless providing clues to the link and development of opera into its familiar popular mid-to-late 19th century form. Somewhere in there Ferdinando Paer has also been largely forgotten.

And if the Torino production of Agnese is anything to go by, probably unjustly neglected. A tremendous success in its day his 1809 opera Agnese hasn't been performed anywhere in earnest for a couple of hundred years. Following a critical edition of the work made in 2007, the 2019 Turin production does much to make this fascinating work accessible and entertaining. Conducted by early music specialist Diego Fasolis with sympathetic direction by Leo Muscato and a colourful stylised set design that neither makes fun of the work's strange opera semi-seria conventions nor attempts to modernise it into something unsuitable, it's a production that does much to reveal Agnese's undoubted qualities.

Perhaps even more than Meyerbeer's 5-act grand opéras, the opera semi-seria is a tricky proposition to put before a modern audience (Muscato I'm minded to note directing one of the best Meyerbeer productions I've seen, L'Africaine). Characterisation is exaggerated, situations are scarcely credible and plot developments feel contrived. These are often based around a poor innocent country maiden whose reputation has been unjustly impugned in an uneasy blend of comedy and tragedy, the sentimental mixed with buffo elements. Paer's ability to make something more of such material however is laid out impressively in the dramatic storm and chorus opening of Agnese which reminded me of the ominous opening of Bellini's La Straniera (1829). Believed lost in the woods, Agnese is not a maiden but has indeed been unjustly treated and betrayed by her husband Ernesto and has run away taking their young daughter with her.

There is of course a tragic backstory. Having run off to marry Ernesto in the first place, a man who has turned out to be unfaithful, Agnese's father Uberto has been driven out of his mind for the last seven years. Locked away in an asylum he has preferred to believe his daughter dead. On her way to beg forgiveness for her father she runs into him in the woods, the man clearly out of his wits, unable to recognise her but easily upset at talk of fathers and daughters. At the asylum the warden Don Pasquale holds Agnese responsible for the state of her father but isn't unsympathetic to her plight and reluctantly agrees to help her. Uberto however seems beyond reach, the madman obsessively drawing coffins and graves on the wall of his cell.

In terms of the hangover from late opera seria period, Paer's 1809 opera still has a number of generic arias of emotional turmoil expressing tearful laments, outbursts of anger, regret and repentance, the arias and cavatinas separated by accompanied recitative. As is common with the later bel canto style, the plot is fairly straightforward and there's not a great deal of dramatic action but nonetheless it's somewhat needlessly drawn out to close to three hours by incidental numbers that tend to be rather repetitive in their expression, are not particularly revealing and don't always hold attention. They are there more to inject some colour and diversion, but in the vocal expression at least they can go some way to develop characterisation.

The way to make it work on the stage is of course to enter wholly into the spirit of the work and respect its original intentions as much as possible without being slavish to tradition. Offenbach's opéra-comique comedies are a good measure of how to play this, Rossini's entertainments even more so, and the renewed interest in both composers is undoubtedly down to them being treated well in this respect. Leo Muscato's stylised approach works in favour of the character of the opera, using old-fashioned scuffed and rusting medicine tins, that look like classic biscuit, sweet tins or cigar boxes, each opening up storybook-like into whole rooms.

There's no particular significance in this other than other than to package the work up nicely and stylishly, with no unnecessary modernisms to distract from the old-fashioned treatment of a drama that takes place in an asylum populated by raving madmen and women. Having said that the physician in charge of the asylum Don Girolamo might appear to be a bit eccentric but he employs some innovative and humane therapy and treatments here for curing mental illness. There at least, Agnese is somewhat ahead of its time. For the sake of sanity for all involved, Don Pasquale also does his bit to reconcile Ernesto and Agnese.

That makes it sound easy as if that's all there is to it, but as Rossini's sophisticated marriage of music and drama demonstrates, there's a particular lightness of touch that is required to makes it simple and accessible on the surface but with there being a little more depth and melodic sophistication to support the drama. Paer's Agnese might sound conventional now but it's works like this that, for better or worse, set the standard for the century to follow, and that's no small matter. And no small measure of skill is required to sing and play this opera either. Ernesto's range is very much that of pure Rossini tenor and Edgardo Rocha (an experienced Rossinian) meets the challenges well. María Rey-Joly is hugely impressive, ringing out musical top notes and carrying the explosive character of Agnese from despair to hope to joy. Giulia Della Peruta brightens up the drama as the maid Vespina, a role that also has vocal challenges that she handles well.

The Dynamic Blu-ray release of Agnese is an absolute delight. The production itself is beautifully lit and coloured and all the detail is superbly rendered in the High Definition video recording, the image clear and detailed with perfect contrast balance and deep blacks. It looks magnificent. The audio tracks are similarly detailed with lossless PCM 2.0 and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 High Resolution mixes. It's just amazing that we are able to enjoy such a rare work in a format - and a production - that presents it in the best possible light. The Blu-ray is all-region, subtitles are in Italian, English, French, German, Japanese and Korean. An English and Italian language booklet provides essential insights into the place of the work in the history of opera, with a full detailed track-listing and a synopsis.

Links: Teatro Regio Torino

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

Rossini - La Cenerentola

Gioachino Rossini - La Cenerentola

RAI Television, 2012

Carlo Verdone, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Lena Belkina, Edgardo Rocha, Anna Kasyan, Annunziata Vestri, Carlo Lepore, Simone Alberghini, Lorenzo Regazzo

BBC Television

La Cenerentola is the latest production from Andrea Andermann, who every year provides Italian television and the world with an ambitious live performance of a popular Italian opera, shot in the actual locations and at the times specified in the libretto, and broadcast live as it is filmed for television.  With operas like Tosca and Rigoletto (the latter in particular spectacularly filmed in and around the Ducal Palace in Mantua two years ago), there is an element of the works that is enhanced to some extent by being able to view them in their exact historical locations - locations that also happen to look quite stunning.  But Rossini's version of the Cinderella story, La Cenerentola?  Well, you can see the problem.  How can a fairytale possibly benefit from or even be enhanced by the kind of realism that goes into an Andrea Andermann production?

The notion of setting it in Turin has more to it than helping spread around the benefits that an Andermann production gives to the Italian tourist industry.  Turin is traditionally the home of the Italian Royal family, and since Cinderella's marriage to a Prince is a central part of the work, there is some merit and justification in the choice.  It doesn't take you long past the opening titles - the Overture at least pleasantly animated to give Cinderella a background that leads to her being an orphan now with a stepfather and stepsisters - to get the feeling however that the whole production is fundamentally misconceived.  Setting Don Magnifico's baronial mansion of Act I under harsh overly bright studio lighting for television viewing makes it look neither fairytale-like nor realistic.  There are no dark chimney corners, no opulent rooms - it just looks like a studio set with cheap stage costumes and operatic acting.  There is some benefit in how it allows the camera to flow along with the action outside the house into the garden for the arrival of the Prince, but otherwise, the opera style seems out of place in its "actual location" surroundings.

More than that, taking La Cenerentola away from the stage actually diminishes the work and reduces the magic of the opera's wonderful centrepiece scenes - the transformation of Cinderella and the coach journeys.  Here, in a live setting and in real locations, those scenes can only be done through the animation framing sequences that are inserted periodically to link scenes and acts.  Again, one can't help feel that introducing realism to La Cenerentola somewhat defeats the purpose of the work, but it doesn't even have the benefit of theatrical "magic" either.  Attempts to add some of that sparkle back in through the sprinkling of "magic dust" and kaleidoscopic effects added in post-production doesn't really make up for what is missing here, and it actually comes across as quite kitsch instead.  To its credit, the ballroom scenes filmed in a palace are every bit as spectacular as you would imagine, and much better than anything that could be achieved on the stage.

If the live on-location idea is misconceived for Cinderella, Rossini's work is magical enough to work on its own terms - severely cut though it is here to fit television schedules - and fortunately that's the saving grace of this production.  Latvian mezzo-soprano Lena Belkina proved to be very pleasing to the eyes and the ears with a classic dark beauty of Anna Netrebko and even a similarity in appearance with Maria Callas.  She doesn't really have the depth, the power or the richness of voice of those singers, or even the fullness of tone and expression that Cecilia Bartoli, for example, has brought to this particular role - but she is well suited to this slightly lighter (lightweight?) production of a Rossini work that should be played with delicacy of tone and bright wit.

Unfortunately, quite aside from the live and on-location issues, the direction of Gianluigi Gelmetti doesn't really exploit the comic brilliance of the work.  As well sung as the roles of Cinderella and Don Ramiro are, neither Belkina nor Edgardo Rocha are given enough to do, and their characters come over as rather bland.  Even Thisbe and Clorinda, the ugly step-sisters, aren't fully developed here or used to the advantages that Anna Kasyan and Annunziata Vestri are vocally and dramatically capable of bringing to the roles.  Only Carlo Lepore's Don Magnifico comes across with the requisite strength of character and voice that lifts the dynamic of the production above the merely functional.

There's no particular flair to the filming either this time around.  With Rigoletto in 2010 we had direction and cinematography by filmmakers as renowned as Marco Bellochio and Vittorio Storaro, but La Cenerentola has no such distinction.  There's an attempt to bring some visual character by involving a ball of yarn to the "tangled knot" revelation scene, but by and large the direction is rather leaden, and never manages to bring the work to life or match the dazzling wit and sparkling nature of Rossini's music.  It's a made-for-TV La Cenerentola, nothing more, that sadly has little to do with Rossini or real opera.

Rossini - Otello ossia Il Moro di Venezia

Gioachino Rossini - Otello ossia Il Moro di Venezia

Opernhaus Zurich, 2012

Muhai Tang, Moshe Leiser, Patrice Caurier, John Osborn, Cecilia Bartoli, Peter Kálmán, Javier Camarena, Edgardo Rocha, Liliana Nikiteanu, Nicola Pamio, Ilker Arcayürek

Medici Live Internet Steaming, 8th March 2012

There’s always going to be some difficulty in staging Rossini’s Otello ossia Il Moro di Venezia, and it’s not just because of the liberties that Rossini’s opera takes with Shakespeare’s work. True, the libretto by Francesco Maria Berio di Salsi doesn’t really keep to the development or characterisation of Shakespeare’s work, but it does manage to get to the heart of the drama and retain some of the dark mood of the piece. No, much of the difficulty with staging Otello is due to the often static nature of the work which is still tied closely to the conventions of opera seria, with long-winded expressions of agonising emotions and a great deal of repetition.

It’s only the brilliance of Rossini’s musical inventiveness in the scoring that makes it work so well as an opera, matching the music more closely to the moods, reducing recitative and solo lamentations in favour of concerted pieces that carry the drama through, playing out the drama through sung conversations. It doesn’t always manage to break free from the restrictions of the format however, which can be rather punishing on the singers and the audience, so a stage production requires a certain amount of inventiveness as well. Directed by Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier, who failed to enliven Halévy’s semiseria Clari for the Zurich Opera, despite the best efforts of its champion Cecilia Bartoli and John Osborn (also on board here), the team fare rather better with Otello, but one suspects that the reason for its success here – and why their previous collaboration wasn’t quite so successful – has much to do with Rossini’s rather more invigorating writing.

Initially, things don’t look promising in the rather dreary Act I. There’s nothing at all wrong with the updating the work to a modern setting, to a “corridors of power” wood-panelled waiting room, populated by figures in formal suits and high-ranking military naval uniforms, with rooms leading off in the background where various committees no doubt plan future strategies. It’s as good as setting as any for the plotting and scheming that lies at the heart of the work, but unfortunately, it proves to be rather dreary and static for the opening dramatic exposition. Figures standing around, there’s a bit of slow pacing up and down, and little to enliven the characterisation or solemn declamation as the Moor Otello returns battle, having defeated the Turks and regained Cyprus for Venice as the centre of the Adriatic Republic.

While there is professional jealousy over Otello’s success on the part of Rodrigo and Iago that is set-up in Act I, and some consideration of the Moor’s outsider status as a black-skinned African, evidently the main focus of the rivalry is over Otello gaining favour with Desdemona. In this version however, Otello is already secretly married to Desdemona, so when Iago suggests that she may be unfaithful, it really requires no great manipulation – Otello, insecure about his own position, is all too ready to mistrust Desdemona. Being somewhat opera seria in structure, the expressions of emotional turmoil are however given precedence over any consistency in characterisation or motivation, which makes this dramatically weak and inconsistent. The nature of Otello and Desdemona’s relationship has scarcely been established by the plot and by little actual confidences shared between them (Verdi would do this much better in his version), only in Desdemona’s expressions of her love to Emilia, her lady in waiting. If it’s all insufficiently established in dramatic terms, the music makes it much more compelling.

Act II and Act III in particular see Rossini at his best, breaking free of those operatic restrictions, using duets, ensembles and rising repetition to ramp up the tension and emotional fever pitch of the situation. Even if the stage direction gives the performers little to do in the absence of any conventional drama, Rodrigo’s ‘Che ascolto’ in Act II could hardly be more chilling, given a particularly powerful delivery here by Javier Camarena. In an opera that requires no less than three tenors in demanding singing roles, that intensity is matched in Otello and Iago’s Act II scene. If dramatically it’s less than convincing, musically it’s powerful, avoiding recitative and putting the emotion into the singing. Working with this kind of material, John Osborn does a good line in all-consuming jealousy in ‘Non m’inganno’ that is matched by Edgardo Rocha’s Iago enjoying the thrill of twisting people to his will, Rossini managing to encapsulate both emotions within the duetto.

Desdemona is rather less well-defined, carrying an over-urgency in everything she sings, which means that Cecilia Bartoli often sounds rather strident. No, not shrill – never that. Bartoli is still one of the finest – if not the finest – mezzo-soprano bel canto coloratura singers in the world, at her best when singing Rossini, and she is in terrific voice here. Barring her Act III ‘Willow Song’ however, the role is lacking in colour and shading, and it comes across more perhaps as exaggeratedly strident. It’s still an astonishingly display of singing virtuosity, Bartoli moreover also managing to bring real character to her role. She is absolutely chilling at the end of Act II and throughout Act III, making her inevitable fate at the hands of Otello (the scene had been reworked for a happy end, but the original is used here), dramatically shocking and highly effective. And does Act III contain the earliest example of a ‘mad scene’? It comes close and is certainly depicted as such in the production, Desdemona scrawling on the walls, the whole scene working well with the score.

Happily then, after the rather unimaginative first Act and start of the second, Leiser and Caurier’s stage direction picks up to meet the exceptionally high standard of the singing and the intensity of the musical arrangements – superbly conducted under Muhai Tang. The cold emptiness of Desdemona’s bedroom at the start of Act II and in Act III (perhaps this is how it’s intended to appear for a reason) are necessarily minimal, but the success of the production hinges on the playing out of the seeds of jealousy sown by Iago. This scene takes place in what looks like a seedy Turkish bar, with a fridge and a pool table. If the contrast to the preceding (and subsequent) scenes only underlines the outsider status of Otello, it’s effective, but it also proves to be the ideal place for the barroom brawl that erupts between the highly charged natures (wound up of course by Iago) of Otello and Rodrigo, the two men grabbing pool cues and heading for the back alley through the fire-doors at the back, despite Desdemona’s vain (over-urgent and strident) attempts to restrain them.

It’s clear then that the directors have recognised the difficulties of staging Otello and approached it well, using broader strokes in the sets to contrast the nature of the Moor with those of the state, using lighting effectively for mood, but also seeking to find smaller details to highlight. It isn’t always possible to bring any great subtlety to the work within the restrictions of the libretto and the almost opera seria-like arrangements, but this is more than compensated for by the vibrant delivery of the score and the outstanding singing performances.

The opera is currently available to view in its entirety and for free on the Medici.tv web site.