Rossini - Torvaldo e Dorliska (Pesaro, 2006)

Giaochino Rossini - Torvaldo e Dorliska

Rossini Opera Festival, 2006

Victor Pablo Pérez, Mario Martone, Darina Takova, Michele Pertusi, Francesco Meli, Bruno Praticò, Jeanette Fischer, Simone Alberghini

Dynamic DVD

As far as Rossini operas go Torvaldo e Dorliska is a fairly obscure one, but then for composer of 40 operas of which less than a handful are regularly performed, there are many places for a work like this to get lost, not least since it was overshadowed by Rossini's subsequent opera, Il barbiere di Sigivlia. It's not surprising that it's been overshadowed, forgotten and intentionally ignored because Torvaldo e Dorliska is not a particularly notable work, one moreover that falls into that tricky category of opera semiseria, blending high melodrama with comedy.

Even as a 'rescue opera' it's not a work that is meant to be taken seriously or offer any political commentary. Beethoven's only opera written in that style, Fidelio, is one of the few of such works that have a serious intent, one that the composer laboured over incessantly to get right. In general the rescue opera has one purpose and that's to provide high drama, passionate expressions of fidelity between lovers and their determination to overcome the odds of the evil powers stacked against them. And, in the process, give the singers challenging arias in heroic roles to demonstrate their ability. Torvaldo e Dorlinda is designed to do just that and Rossini delivers a capable work in that style, exhibiting his usual familiar mannerisms and qualities, but the work itself feels perfunctory and too tied to convention.

As far as the plot goes, it keeps things simple and to the point with little nuance and minimal distraction from the driving purpose of the work. The evil Duke Ordow has struck down his love rival Torvaldo, who is married to the beautiful Polish girl Dorliska. Dorliska, looking for her husband inadvertently wanders into Ordow Castle (as you do) and into the clutches of Ordow. Torvaldo, needless to say, despite the searches of Duke and his men, proves to be still very much alive. He arrives at the castle in disguise and is helped by the Duke's manservant Giorgio, who has no great love for his master, to gain entry so that he can save his wife or meet with death. Ah, cruel destiny! The libretto is littered with such arch proclamations, exaggerated stage directions, heaving bosoms, sneering villains, heroic stands and dramatic swooning. It's classic classical opera.

It fairly romps along on that basis, despite a two-and-a-half hour running time that labours every scene so that the full drama can be wrung out of it. It has a fair amount of routine scoring, but it would be a mistake to think that the conventional plotting and by-the-numbers structure, not to mention the unfashionable and rarely successful semiseria blend of melodrama and comic interludes point to a slight and unsophisticated opera. As Rossini's 18th opera, composed immediately before Il barbiere di Siviglia, there are still many enjoyable features to be found in Torvaldo e Dorliska; the composer’s ability to set the drama to music with style and some flair is fully apparent. There are the usual fast tongue-twisting passages, here combined with duets and trios all sung simultaneously interweaving at different speeds. A lot is to show off and thrill, but it isn't entirely divorced from the cross purposes intent of the drama.

The scenes for the drama place no great demands on this staging of Torvaldo e Dorliska for the 2006 Rossini Opera Festival (who else would perform this opera?) and it's effectively directed by Mario Martone with some flair. The stage presents interior and exterior as one, a rise of wooded area leading down to an iron gate that marks the entrance to the Duke's castle front stage. The Teatro Rossini in Pesaro is a small theatre, so the drama is opened out further onto the theatre on a narrow platform surrounding the orchestra pit, with some entrances taken through the parterre side doors. Most importantly, the direction plays it straight, not seeking to impose any misguided interpretation or modernisation of the medieval setting, retaining swords and armour, not guns and military combat uniforms. It's a simple choice but effective as any such change might suggest not taking it seriously - or taking it too seriously - as that would totally undermine the intent of the work. It's a semi-serious semiseria opera production then, which sounds about right, recognising that is purely operatic drama.

That goes for the performers who are all excellent; Darina Takova the dramatic soprano, Francesco Meli the steadfast high tenor and Michele Pertusi the evil baritone (a speciality of Pertusi). Bruno Praticò has a substantial secondary role as Giorgio and makes the most of it. Jeanette Fischer and Simone Alberghini have minor secondary roles as Carlotta and Ormondo to lighten the tone of the opera and provide some breathing space for the plot and the principals, which they do well. The Teatro Rossini seems an ideal theatre to present a work like this, and the essential Italian character is brought out beautifully by no less than the Flanders orchestra and chorus of the Opera Vlaanderen conducted by Victor Pablo Pérez with vigour and warmth.

The Dynamic DVD release of Torvaldo e Dorliska - reviewed here from a 14-DVD box set Rossini Serio (e Semiserio) - has the inherent limitations of standard definition, but the presentation is more than adequate. Spread across 2 discs, there are a few less than smooth continuity transitions between filming on different nights, but nothing too distracting other than one crude effort to block out a cameraman in one of the boxes with heavy post production masking. Having commandeered a number of the boxes for cameras and props, it seems that those displaced audience members have been moved to the wings side stage. They have a nice view, close to the action on stage, but it looks like they can't see much that goes on beyond the pit. The uncompressed LPCM 2.0 and the Dolby Digital 5.1 audio tracks are excellent, capturing all the colour of the singing, with detail and good separation in the mixing of the orchestra.

Rossini - Semiramide (Munich, 2017)

Gioachino Rossini - Semiramide

Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich - 2017

Michele Mariotti, David Alden, Joyce DiDonato, Alex Esposito, Daniela Barcellona, Lawrence Brownlee, Elsa Benoit, Galeano Salas, Igor Tsarkov, Simone Alberghini

Staatsoper TV Live - 26 February 2017

It seems to me that the Bavarian State Opera have been much more successful in striking a balance between fidelity to the original intentions of an opera and a more modernised approach to presentation, where in the past they might have been a bit more radical and hit-and-miss. The production of Rossini's lengthy opera seria Semiramide with its setting in antiquity was however always going to be a good testing ground to see if the high standard set so far this season could be maintained. Happily, David Alden's production is perfectly pitched, and with an outstanding cast of Rossinian singers, this was an impressive account of a challenging work.

Challenging certainly as far as singing is concerned (with Joyce DiDonato playing the Assyrian Queen, you would feel that this critical element at least is well catered for), but challenging also in as far as striking a balance between the political machinations of Ancient Assyria and the traditional overheated romantic complications that are tied up in it. The director can't just indiscriminately impose a nice balanced viewpoint either - as directors might have done at this Munich opera house in the past - but needs to take into consideration the nature of Rossini's musical treatment, which does tend to exert a strong force and intent of its own.

So what does Rossini set out to achieve in Semiramide? Well, it's an opera seria written in 1823, the composer's last work in Italy before he moved to Paris, taking his work to a new level that would effectively influence the structure and tone of Italian opera for rest of the century. Semiramide can then be seen as the last of an older style of opera not that far removed from those of the 18th century, a style of opera fast growing out of fashion even then. It's as if Gluck's opera reforms had never happened, and as far as Italian opera is concerned the new rules never really applied, as the Rossini style would provide a direction for the opera seria form to morph into the even more extravagant style of bel canto.

What can already be seen in Semiramide however is Rossini's own method of expanding the set subjects of the older form into something involving far more dramatic expression. Instead of arias we have more confrontational duets, and the chorus is not there to comment on the situation but becomes the voice of the people involved and implicated in the dramatic events. Rossini's musical underscoring only intensifies the emotional charge and conductor Michele Mariotti brings all those familiar techniques out wonderfully with the Bayerisches Staatsorchester. The racing rhythms are already in place, the melodies, the pizzicato plucked strings building into marching rhythms that speeding up into winding wild spins and crashing crescendos. It's not as sophisticated as Rossini's later work for Paris, but it's still highly effective.

The drama in Semiramide however remains a challenge, even with such music to probe the underlying dramatic tensions and conflict. Like most opera seria, the subject is not so much a political power struggle as a romantic melodrama with family complications. To sum the long opera up in a few lines, the Queen Semiramide is expected to hand power over to her consort Assur, the general who helped her murder her husband, the ruler King Nino. Semiramide however stuns everyone by announcing that she will marry the war hero Arsace, not realising that Arsace is actually her missing son, Ninia, nor - in true opera seria tradition - caring about the romantic complications this might cause for others. The turn of events force King Nino's ghost to rise from the grave to demand vengeance from Arsace who, when he discovers his true identity, knows who is the villain he must kill.

With a ghost scene, a mad scene (Assur furious to the point of derangement at Semiramide's rejection), religious intoning and dramatic revelations accompanied by peals of thunder, Rossini certainly ups the stakes of the opera seria, pointing the way towards not only bel canto but grand opera. David Alden's production captures perfectly this sense of something old given a new twist. Paul Steinberg's sets of elegant rooms with adjustable walls and large family portraits, convey a sense of shifting arrangements within a rich, corrupt family. That's the dominant tone, but there is room for the grand gestures that come out in Rossini's music, with a large statue of King Nino towering over several scenes in a display of power, and pictures moving and coming to life during the more melodramatic revelation scenes.

With the emphasis on home and family, what comes across more effectively in Semiramide is the underlying sense of love being a more important factor than power. Those who aspire to power without knowing true love end up the worse for their ambitions, eaten up with frustrations, their families torn apart by their desire for revenge. It's family as society as well then, and the chorus likewise have a large part to play in the drama as the citizens witnessing the upheaval that is taking place within the royal family. As far as Semiramide is concerned, it does soften how she is portrayed since there is love there for Arsace, which even though it is misplaced is transformed in an almost redemptive fashion when she becomes aware of his true identity.

Like any good director then, Alden's job is to be true to the story and the personalities as Rossini might have intended, respecting the work for the time it was written, but still making it appealing to a modern audience. Alden acknowledges the history and the location with a few nods in the costumes, but sets it more within what he describes as a combination of North Korea and modern Middle East. There's no need for historical reconstruction here; it's an opera. What matters more is that everything is geared towards drawing out the themes by whatever means necessary and giving the appropriate space for the music and the singers to elaborate upon those distinctive elements that Rossini specifically brings to the opera medium.

Which brings us to Joyce DiDonato. Now there's a singer who is more than capable of doing justice to Rossini's terrific writing for the voice for the role of Semiramide, Queen of Assyria. And it's not just her singing ability and the quality of the voice, which should already be very well-known. What is just as important is that there is 'presence' there too, the essential star quality that is necessary to carry a role like this and do justice to the vocal challenges and to the complexity that it reveals within the character. She assumes the role of the Queen brilliantly, looking every inch the diva, carrying the extravagances of the drama with complete authority and conviction. Without this kind of interpretation the opera would be a much lesser work in performance. Fortunately, it really doesn't get much better than this.

It's an excellent cast all round however, many of them experienced Rossinians. Alex Esposito sings comfortably within the bass role of Assur, but he still has a tendency to overplay the eye-rolling villain. It feels more like he is performing than really inhabiting the role. Assur admittedly isn't as nuanced a character as Semiramide and does go full-blown crazy, but Rossini's music makes this plain enough without additional emphasis being required. Daniela Barcellona is superb as Arsace, another challenging role that really needs a contralto voice and it's the kind of trouser role that Barcellona specialises in. Rossini generously gives lovely pieces to all the leads, which gives Lawrence Brownlee the opportunity to shine as Idreno. Elsa Benoit also makes a good impression staggering around as a confused Azema, but even Galeano Salas's Mitrane and Simone Alberghini's Oroe have their moments and take them well. The chorus work too is just tremendous, and the Bayerische Staatsoper just continue to go from strength to strength.

Links: Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatsoper.TV

Rossini - Guillaume Tell (Rossini Opera Festival, 2013 - Blu-ray)

Gioachino Rossini - Guillaume Tell

Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro - 2013

Michele Mariotti, Graham Vick, Nicola Alaimo, Juan Diego Flórez, Marina Rebeka, Simon Orfilia, Amanda Forsythe, Luca Tittoto, Simone Alberghini, Allesandro Luciano, Celso Albelo, Wojtek Gierlach, Veronica Simeoni

Decca - Blu-ray

Rossini's final opera Guillaume Tell is a work of tremendous scale and ambition that even today still requires huge musical, singing and stage resources to do real justice to it. The blending of the Italian opera form that the composer had done so much to define is taken here to a new level with introduction of French opera traditions that practically invent the style of Grand Opera. For its production at Pesaro in 2013 the Rossini Opera Festival invited Graham Vick to take on the challenge of directing the work in a way that would retain its immense power and status, but at the same time present it in a new light. Inevitably with Vick, it becomes almost an entirely new opera.

It take a while to get your bearings here in the specially constructed stage at the Arena Adriatica in Pesaro for the 2013 Guillaume Tell, if you ever even get your bearings at all. You're not exactly in 14th century Switzerland, that's for sure. The opening scene in fact looks like it takes place on a sleek cruise liner, one where the divisions between the rich and the poor voyagers are nonetheless dressed like their counterparts on the Titanic. It at least marks a clear contrast between the Austrian aggressors of the original story and the oppressed people of Guillaume Tell's canton in Switzerland. Soldiers dressed in Austrian uniforms keep an eye on the natives, who look like they are cleaning the decks, while the nobles in their finery brush them aside. It's hard to relate to any of the specifics of the original setting.

The lack of specific location or period is somewhat unsettling. It could just as easily be a large temple, or a posh hotel with exquisite views of the surrounding Alps. Vick doesn't believe however that you can put nature up on the stage, so makes no attempt with the crudely painted backdrops to suggest anything naturalistic. As the clear distinctions between the rich and the poor and the clenched fist on the drop curtain indicate, the director clearly wants to use the stage as a "blank canvas" to make a bold statement on power and oppression, freedom and revolution, one that is bigger than a mythological story of uncertain origin. It's also an approach that corresponds with Rossini's impressive, almost Wagnerian musical efforts to tie mythology to larger questions of nationalism and identity.

Vick's modern Bayreuth-like stylisations might seem out of place in Rossini, but conductor Michele Mariotti also seems to recognise the pre-Wagnerian force and dynamic that is there in the score as well. Act I plays out almost like Der fliegende Holländer, and heard this way, you can really get a sense of how far mature Rossini has come from the bel canto and opera seria constructions/constrictions of his earlier works. There's still a danger in this work of overplaying and being drawn into heavy-handed and obscure symbolism that is out of place with the real intent of the piece. Vick's approach here looks similar to his War and Peace for the Mariinsky, but as Act II of Guillaume Tell here becomes a "workers of the world unite" against slavery and oppression, you have doubts that it's enough to just reductively and abstractly treat the issues here are nothing more than a class struggle.

By Act III however, Vick's sinister imagery starts to really sink into your bones and show how it supports those bigger questions. Arnold and Mathilde's love for each other and the sacrifices they have to make must be more than just a romantic interlude added for variety and convention. Vick's production shows that it relates to wider social issues, to family, to national pride, and even to grander questions of what life means. Act III of course also brings up such matters in a way that - as seen by the recent controversial Covent Garden production - are difficult to handle effectively without overstating or diminishing the intent. There's no rape scene, but the rich Gessler's humiliation of the 'poor' in Vick's production still has an edge of sexual abuse and humiliation that seems to strike the balance somewhat better.

It's an important point to make because it's the key moment where the occupying forces overstep the mark. Tell's defiance and his feat of skill as a bowman further undermines Gessler's credibility and the people start to believe in themselves. Vick's production, as strange and abstract as it often is, never descends into absurdity but remains connected to those very real and significant human emotions, and that makes all the difference. Of equal importance to keeping the potentially overblown drama meaningful is Michele Mariotti's fantastic conducting and the outstanding performance of the orchestra that captures all the detail and sophistication of Rossini's score, driving it forward with tremendous energy.

No less challenging in Guillaume Tell is finding the right singers for a range of challenging roles. Arguably the role of Arnold Melchtal is the most difficult role to cast, and it's a challenge even for as consummate a Rossini tenor as Juan Diego Flórez. Flórez is traditionally better suited to light comedy Rossini, but there is a darkening in his voice occurring now that gives him the opportunity to approach the darker, more dramatic tenor roles. It's still a bit of a stretch, but Flórez does remarkably well. Next to that is Mathilde, and Marina Rebeka is nothing short of phenomenal here, her voice equally strong and projected out across the whole range, the high notes in particular ringing clear and firm. Rebeka pretty much carries the otherwise fairly static Act II, making it much more interesting that it might otherwise be.

There is however not a single weak link in the singing, which in this work is really something. Nicola Alaimo has good presence as Tell, not as strong in projection, but capable of navigating the switch between intimate sensitivity and pride spilling over into furious anger with real conviction. Amanda Forsythe shows how much a strong account of Jemmy can contribute to the work as a whole and Luca Tittoto gives us a fearsome Gessler who nonetheless has more personality than just being an evil villain. Personality is what this production really has going for it, Paul Brown's sets, Vick's direction, a uniformly strong cast and particularly Mariotti's conducting, really exploring the true worth of Guillaume Tell.

The 2013 Rossini Opera Festival production of Guillaume Tell is released on DVD and BD by Decca. The four-hour long work transfers well to the screen. It would seem that considerable work has been done to make the problematic acoustics of the basketball stadium of the Arena Adriatica more suitable for opera performance. The audio tracks here, in uncompressed PCM Stereo and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 are astonishingly good, and the bright stage production is filmed well. There is a short extra feature on the disc exploring Graham Vick's production and the challenges of putting it on stage. The Blu-ray is region-free, with subtitles in English, French, German and Korean.

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.