Ottorino Respighi - La bella dormente nel bosco
Teatro Lirico di Cagliari 2017
Donato Renzetti, Leo Muscato, Veta Pilpenko, Angela Nisi, Antonio Gandía, Vincenzo Taormina, Shoushik Barsoumian, Lara Rotili, Claudia Urru, Enrico Zara, Nicola Ebau
Naxos Blu-ray
Ottorino Respighi's La bella dormente nel bosco (The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods) is unusual and largely unheard of because it wasn't strictly composed as a traditional opera, but as a puppet theatre opera. Whether that has any bearing on the quality of the opera doesn't show, and certainly not in this Cagliari production directed by Leo Muscato. First performed in 1922 and revised in 1934, it comes across rather as colourful and as engaging as any other fairy-tale based opera.
Considering the potential it offers in it's surprising that Sleeping Beauty hasn't been a more popular choice of fairy-tale to set to an opera. It has a strong layout and variety of scenes that are sure to provide drama and entertainment, and that's certainly been borne out at least in ballet. Respighi clearly recognises that potential and introduces ballet as one of the elements that he incorporates quite successfully into this rich blend of music, drama, magical fairy-tale, panto, singing and dancing. Perrault's fairy tale is such that there should be no limits to expression and the composer uses everything at his disposal. As indeed does the director Leo Muscato here.
The opening is a good example of how the story can be enriched, the opera opening indeed in the woods, where the animals of the forest are the first to learn about the birth of the princess from the king's page. The animal noises and gossiping of the creatures puts one in mind of Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen and if you're looking for a model to engage children and tap into deeper sentiments, that's not a bad example to follow. Muscato's production design captures the tone well here, allowing the colour to flow from this into colourful arrival of the fairies in a semi-ballet sequence, using full-stage projections of magical dust sparkle as the fairies bestow their gifts on the princess. It's utterly enchanting.
The arrival of the Green Fairy casting her curse brings an edge of pantomime to the proceedings, which isn't out of place either in a piece devised originally as puppet theatre. The wonderful opportunities for colour and invention are not neglected in the subsequent scenes which put the emphasis on spindles and weaving, using young children as human spindles that are paraded through the court on their banishment by decree of the king. This is elaborated on further in the next scene, where huge balls of yarn and a weave decorate the set that will entrap the princess, and in the giant mice that bear the sleeping beauty funeral-like into the court when all medical efforts to revive her have been exhausted.
The story of La bella dormente nel bosco is as magical on its own account and it can certainly be enhanced by a creative production like this, but that shouldn't preclude some musical enchantment. For his part, Leo Muscato judges the balance perfectly in the scene setting, in the colours, in the traditional costumes, but there's a suspicion that it may all be dazzle and sparkle to enliven what can seem like a lovely but unadventurous composition that rather mechanically runs through all the expected situations in a compact 90 minute opera.
Perhaps one shouldn't expect much of a score written originally for a puppet theatre, but puppet theatre is a valid artform in some places in Europe and Respighi takes the commission seriously and duly delivers. The orchestration is evidently reduced with some piano led arrangements, but this allows occasional solo instruments to leap out beautifully and, when required, to still provide surprisingly big sweeping arrangements. Respighi even takes into account the 300 years that pass while Beauty is Sleeping and introduces some modern Gershwin jazz-like touches into Act III.
Far from academic, it's easy to get lost in the beautiful music and it's lovingly conducted by Donato Renzetti. If it never really dazzles thrills or excites, it certainly has the capacity to enchant and that's exactly what you want from a fairy-tale opera. The singing too has its challenges even none of the roles are large enough to attract starry performances, with much doubling-up and playing of multiple roles. Shoushik Barsoumian stands out however as the good Blue Fairy and Angela Nisi as the Principessa. La bella dormente nel bosco may not be the most obvious choice of revival for the under-represented Respighi, but it's a good popular choice by Cagliari, and one must hope that it leads to others being revived.
The Naxos Blu-ray release is region-free, with subtitles in Italian, English, German, Japanese and Korean. It's not a long opera, running to under 90 minutes, so it fits comfortably onto a BD25 disc. The HD image quality is fine, just lacking that fine clarity when there is movement. The usual PCM stereo and DTS MA 5.1 surround options are there and sound great here for the lighter touches, the solo instruments and broader sweeps. There are no extra features, but the booklet provides information on the history of the work and there is a synopsis.
Links: Teatro Lirico di Cagliari
Antônio Carlos Gomes - Lo Schiavo
Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, 2019
John Neschling, Davide Garattini Raimondi, Svetla Vassileva, Massimiliano Pisapia, Andrea Borghini, Elisa Balbo, Daniele Terenzi, Dongho Kim, Marco Puggioni, Francesco Musinu, Michelangelo Romero
Dynamic - Blu-ray
Some opera subjects don't need adaptation, revisionist reinterpretation and modernisation: some subjects remain equally powerful in any context and traditionally in opera they relate to war, power, love, injustice and freedom. Few treatments of those subjects however deal with those all of those issues in such a way that is immediately abhorrent and emotive to any right thinking individual as when it's tied up in the issue of slavery.
Surprisingly then it's not a subject that has not really been confronted directly in opera, but as a composer of Brazilian origin working at a time when there were places where slavery still hadn't been completely eradicated, it's clearly a subject that was very real for Antônio Carlos Gomes. Viewed from a distance, the 19th century opera treatment of Lo Schiavo (The Slave) is perhaps not particularly innovative for its dramatic treatment of the subject and - forced to set the work in the 16th century rather than closer to his own time - it doesn't appear to tackle the subject any more head-on than Verdi's Aida, but the opera raises an important issue and has merit alone for that.
In reality it has considerable merit elsewhere and deserves to be remembered for more than its subject. Moving to Milan after composing a number of operas in Portuguese, the São Paulo composer Gomes is one of those forgotten composers who were striving in a post-Verdi world to take Italian opera in a new direction. On the evidence of Lo Schiavo, judging by its dramatic orchestration and wonderful melodic flow, Gomes might not have been any more successful than many other Italian composers from this period between Verdi and the verismo composers who failed to make a distinctive mark, but his work clearly deserves to be better known.
In terms of the terrible nature of slavery, Gomes's opera and the Cagliari production make its abuses clear from the outset. The native Brazilian slaves on the estate of Portuguese landowner Count Rodrigo are whipped by their overseer Gianfèra and some are seen in the production hanged. The Count also wants to arrange a marriage between two of the slaves Iberè and Ilàra without their consent. It's being arranged as a way of breaking up an undesirable affair between Ilàra and his son Américo, who the would rather - for the sake of business as well as propriety - marry the French Countess of Boissy.
The Countess has a more enlightened attitude towards human rights, declaring that she will free all her slaves. It's an attitude that is praised by everyone - well, nearly all - but even the Countess's generosity of spirit is challenged when she discovers - Amneris-like - that it is a slave who is a rival for her intended Américo. Along with stirrings of rebellion against past and present injustices, with Américo a soldier being sent out against his better human nature by his father to put down rebellion, the love triangle situation does put one very much in mind of a similar treatment of these themes in Aida.
While Verdi's intentions for Aida - and even earlier with Nabucco - were perhaps fired by anti-war and anti-religious sentiments, along with his own experience of the people of a nation struggling for freedom against an oppressive regime, Antônio Carlos Gomez does however succeed to some extent in bringing the idea of liberty from enslavement down to more basic human and individual level. Partly that is indeed down to the idea of slavery itself being so abhorrent, but those sentiments are reflected in the music which if not as detailed and sophisticated as late Verdi, is nonetheless capable of packing an emotional punch. The Countess's and chorus's delivery of 'Inno della libertà' on the freeing of the slaves can measure up to the Hebrew slaves chorus of Nabucco.
While the dramatic situations do mix up those humanitarian concerns with romantic passions, it does still carry across the fact that some matters are just intrinsically right and wrong, particularly matters of the human heart which of course has no master. It even hints at other areas that where there is no freedom and where there is inequality there is injustice and enslavement. Lo Schiavo even makes reference to slavery being the condition of a woman's place in marriage. The Countess of Boissy notes that "To be attractive is our main concern" and her only duty is to entrance a man to be her husband. Even the rebellious Iberè acts like a tyrant husband laying down the law to Ilàra, even though their marriage is a sham.
None of these issues are given any kind of contemporary spin in the Cagliari production. Director Davide Garattini Raimondi and set designer Tiziano Santi place the plantation in a jungle setting with vines and creepers, the slaves - authentically or otherwise I don't know - curiously adorned in headwear with fronds of greenery and grass skirts. The plantation is contrasted well with the French gardens of the Countess of Boissy in Act II, and the whole production is beautifully lit and coloured in a way that reflects the drama and the tenor of the score. In terms of music and its presentation, the Cagliari production with John Neschling at the helm really shows the quality of the piece. There's not a dull moment with plenty of variety in the musical numbers and situations to continually impress.
It impresses very much also in the singing performances. Gomes gives each of the principals a good range of emotions to express and challenges of technique and stamina to contribute individual expression to the roles. Elisa Balbo as the Countess gets perhaps the stand-out piece in 'Inno della libertà' and certainly delivers on it. Baritone Andrea Borghini is superb as Iberè, Svetlana Vassileva manages to capture the spiritual side of Ilàra as well as the joy, despair and anger that comes from her human experience as a female slave. Massimiliano Pisapia is a classic Italian tenor perfect for the role of Américo, well capable of handling the challenges Gomes places on this role.
This 2019 Teatro Lirico di Cagliari production of Antônio Carlos Gomes's Lo Schiavo is evidently a world premiere recording for the Dynamic DVD and Blu-ray. The HD image on the Blu-ray is image is clear and warmly toned, capturing the colourful production and the lighting tones well. There are two lossless audio mixes that when given volume exhibit fine dynamic range and detail, and both are resonant and punchy. The Blu-ray is region-free with subtitles in Italian, English, French, German, Japanese and Korean. A short feature on the disc only covers a reception for this landmark production, but there is more detail on Gomes and Lo Schiavo in the booklet, along with a synopsis in English and Italian.
Links: Teatro Lirico di Cagliari
