Alfredo Casella - La Donna Serpente
Teatro Regio di Torino, 2016
Gianandrea Noseda, Arturo Cirillo, Pietro Pretti, Carmela Remigio, Erika Grimaldi, Francesca Sassu, Anna Maria Chiuri, Francesco Marsiglia, Marco Filippo Romano, Roberto de Candia, Fabrizio Paesano, Sebastian Catana
Naxos - Blu-ray
Opera was striving to find a new voice and direction in the first half of the twentieth century. The shadow of the titans of Verdi and Wagner still loomed large and the continuation of their legacy had descended - arguably - into the decadence of verismo and post-Romanticism. Exceptions that tried to steer a new course found little foothold, although some would later exert greater influence on the development of new music. Some, like Busoni and Stravinsky, looked backward with an almost reformist agenda to take opera back to its roots, looking to Monteverdi and Mozart, and that is also the direction taken by another composer from this period who has been largely been forgotten; Alfredo Casella.
Forgotten at least as far as the opera world is concerned, Casella composing only one opera, La Donna Serpente ('The Snake Woman') in 1932. Casella didn't have any great love for the opera form, but his only opera certainly makes the most of the musical richness that comes with lyric drama and does extend his musical voice. And it's not just musically that La Donna Serpente looks back on the classic form, but it also returns to classical texts of myths and legends, like Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex (1927). In this case La Donna Serpente is derived from a work by Carlo Gozzi, who would also be the inspiration around this period for Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges (1921) and Puccini's Turandot (unfinished in 1924).
Operating under different circumstances, there's little that is obviously allegorical or deep about the fairy-tale story of La Donna Serpente. Miranda, the daughter of Demogorgòn, the King of the Fairies, wants to marry a mortal, Altidòr, the King of Téflis. Her father isn't pleased and puts a condition on her wishes. She must keep her identity secret for nine years and one day. After that time, Altidòr's love will be tested through great trials and if he curses her for what befalls him, Miranda will be turned into a snake, doomed to slither on the earth for 200 years.
Much like Busoni, who also worked on a Gozzi legend with his own version of Turandot using Mozart-like spoken dialogue, Casella looks back at the classical form as a model while striving to find new ways of expressing and extending it beyond its traditional form with newer elements and experimentation. The fairy tale story of La Donna Serpente might not have any great truths to reveal, but it provides Casella with a whole range of colours to work with. That's something that the Teatro Regio di Torino pick up on in their presentation of the work, the production bursting with magical storybook fairy-tale colour.
Casella might only have composed one opera, and it might not have made any great waves, disappearing after its first performances in 1932 and rarely revived after that, but the composer certainly used the medium to its fullest expression, including instrumental passages, sinfonias, overtures for each acts, perhaps overextending what is a simple enough story. But whether it's the humour of its commedia dell'arte inspired characters, the militaristic marches of the rather bellicose land of Téflis, whether it's exploring the tragedies and limits of human suffering or the magical release from our troubles, La Donna Serpente is rich and varied in expression.
If the fairy-tale subject is far from verismo, Casella's treatment reaches the same heights of darkness and light its dynamic range. The instrumental passages and overtures contain some lovely music (which is used very well to develop themes in the story in the Turin production through the use of dance and movement) and Act I and Act II have their moments, but Act III is the highlight of the work, from the lament of Miranda transformed into the snake woman right through to the triumphant storybook ending. It's perhaps no lost masterpiece, but Casella's La Donna Serpente adds another piece to the puzzle of opera in the first half of the 20th century that is now ripe for rediscovery.
The Turin production certainly makes the most of it under the musical direction of Gianandrea Noseda and some fine singing performances. You can't fault how Carmela Remigio meets the challenges of the role of Miranda, and Pietro Pretti gives a strident dramatic Altidòr, but all the cast are good, even if the characterisation is rather one-dimensional. Above all, Arturo Cirillo's production presents the work exceptionally well. There's not much in the ways of sets or effects, but the combination of brilliant costumes and deeply saturated colours and lighting make it every bit as colourful a spectacle as you would expect. Good use is also made of dancers to bring additional colour and movement that fully exploits the opportunities that the work offers.
In High Definition that blaze of saturated colour comes across spectacularly on the Naxos BD50 Blu-ray disc. The DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 and PCM 2.0 soundtracks provide two different options for listening to the work. There are no extras on the disc, but the booklet contains an essay by Ivan Moody that gives a good account of Casella and his approach to his only opera and gives an outline synopsis. There is also a full tracklisting in the booklet, which is very useful. The BD is all-region compatible and there are subtitles in German, English, French, Japanese and Korean.
Links: Teatro Regio di Torino, Naxos Direct
Giuseppe Verdi - Stiffelio
Teatro La Fenice, 2015
Daniele Rustioni, Johannes Weigand, Stefano Secco, Julianna Di Giacomo, Dimitri Platanias, Francesco Marsiglia, Simon Lim, Cristiano Olivieri, Sofia Koberidze
Culturebox - October 2015
I'm not sure how Stiffelio came to be regarded as one of Verdi's lesser and rarely performed operas. Sure, its plot is rather on the 'domestic' side compared to the grand melodrama of personal turmoil conflicting with political duty in Don Carlos, but other than Otello and Falstaff - all later works - you're not going to find the same level of sophisticated musical and dramatic characterisation in in any of Verdi's earlier writing. Admittedly Stiffelio is not even quite at the same level of Verdi greatness that was to see fruition soon after in Rigoletto and La Traviata, but it's clearly heading in that direction in how Verdi combines dramatic action with great melodic invention.
Like quite a few of Verdi's earlier works, a large part of the reason for it being underestimated might have more to do with its troubled history with the censor. Stiffelio (1850) ran into objections from Catholic authorities over the religious content of the work, a work moreover which features a Protestant minister, a married man of God which would have been judged to be too shocking for a sensitive Catholic audience to consider. Verdi wasn't happy with the changes that were demanded and the work consequently languished in obscurity for years until the composer came to rewrite the work in a new setting under the title of Aroldo (1857). Stiffelio received some recognition, and became a personal favourite, when it was revived by the Royal Opera House and broadcast on television in 1993, with José Carreras in the leading role.
La Fenice's 2015 production of Stiffelio plays to the strengths of the work as well as exposing its weaknesses. As is often the case with Verdi, particularly the earlier Verdi works, the measure of the weakness can often be only be determined by the quality of the singers. With the right kind of cast in roles that need very specific voices to meet the kind of challenges they pose, something appears to click into place for certain operas, allowing them to function much better than might be apparent on paper. Carreras and Malfitano, for example, demonstrated what could be made of Stiffelo and Lina in the 1993 production, but while Stefano Secco and Julianna Di Giacomo prove to be very capable in this Venice production, they aren't quite strong or starry enough to give the opera the extra boost that it needs.
Daniele Rustioni in the pit and Johannes Weigand directing for the stage do at least recognise the quality and the nature of the work. Stiffelio is not bombastic early Verdi, but requires a measure of lyricism in the playing and a dynamic that is closer to that of La Traviata. In terms of the setting, the austere approach is one that also matches the subject and setting of a Protestant preacher in a small German religious community. Like La Traviata, where questions of social hypocrisy are also to the fore, the drama in Stiffelio is very much a personal one where the internalised passions occasionally spill over into public life in a scandalous fashion.
Wiegand's very formalised period setting - dark and moody, with the characters all dressed in greatcoats - suits the buttoned-up and concealed illicit passions that lie in the work. It also finds an appropriate manner to capture the way that those passions overflow and are exposed with grander gestures. Hence, when Lina's affair is publicly uncovered in the cemetery scene that develops into a duel between her father Count Stankar and her lover Raffaele at the end of Act II, the stage explodes with the coloured light from the stained glass windows of the church. Even though religious sentiment isn't new, the choir in the church present an emotional and dramatic counterpoint that is rather different from the typical revenge scene. Verdi would use similar religious contrasts later to highlight hypocrisy and conflict, but Stiffelio is refreshingly free from cynicism here.
That and the spirit of forgiveness that is shown in the final scene of Act III are what mark Stiffelio out as a very different work from the more typical Hugo and Schiller heroic dramas that were the main source of inspiration for Verdi's earlier works. It also shows Verdi taking a rather more restrained approach to dramatic realism, or perhaps he was just a little more idealistic and tolerant than when he later contrasted Violetta's dilemma with Parisian society in La Traviata. Again, Wiegand's setting for this grand moment is well-judged, capturing the emotional power of the scene, but keeping it on a human level. That's the overall balance that needs to be maintained in Stiffelio and that's well worked out here between the pit and the stage.
Considering that it's La Traviata that is the measure against which this work needs to be judged - not one that is going to be favourable for any opera - Stiffelio holds up rather well. It is too over-reliant on the cabaletta/cavatina/aria form for it to be able to truly break any formal constraints, but even within that Verdi demonstrates a wonderful lyricism in Stiffelio, with touches - such as the trumpet solo in the overture, a bass aria, some of the clarinet accompaniment of the characterisation - that you won't find quite the same anywhere else in his work. The singing performances however are merely competent in this production, when it needs a little more personality.
Stefano Secco sings reasonably well as Stiffelio, but you don't get a great sense of him being a man of God in conflict with the emotional demands of being a mere man and a betrayed husband. It's there in Verdi's score however and this at least comes across to some extent. Julianna Di Giacomo is a fine Lina, capturing at least the emotional turmoil in a role that is quite limited in development (she's a sinner, while the main male roles are those of betrayed honour). Dimitri Platanias doesn't have great clarity of diction or the full Verdi baritone force for Stankar, but gets the emotional plight of the prototypical Rigoletto role. Francesco Marsiglia's high constricted tenor isn't all that pleasant, but that suits the character of a role that isn't meant to be pleasant either. There's a lovely fullness of tone to bass Simon Lim's Jorg.
Links: Culturebox, Teatro La Fenice
