Haydn - Il Mondo della Luna (Monte Carlo 2014 - Webcast)

Franz Joseph Haydn - Il Mondo della Luna

L'Opéra de Monte-Carlo, 2014

Jérémie Rhorer, Emilio Sagi, Philippe Do, Giuseppina Bridelli, Roberto De Candia, Hélène Le Corre, Alessandra Marianelli, Annalisa Stroppa, Mathias Vidal

Culturebox - 25 March 2014

Haydn's Il Mondo della Luna is, like many of the composer's elegant comic opera works, deceptively light and simple. Based on a libretto written by Carlo Goldoni in 1750 for Baldassare Galuppi (one of the earliest innovators of the comic opera), there is however a certain amount of satire in the work on the credulity of men, who are particularly gullible when they are being told something they want to hear.

When you listen to Il Mondo della Luna, you similarly hear what you want to hear and the first thing you are likely to notice is that it is the most elegant music, beautifully arranged and delicately played. Considering the nature of the subject however should there not also be a little more of an edge to the music? When it comes to the subject of the complicated relations between men and women, Il Mondo della Luna is no Marriage of Figaro or Così Fan Tutte, and - as the composer himself was literally the first to admit - Haydn is no Mozart. II Mondo della Luna is no Die Zauberflöte either, but there is surely a deeper message here behind the comedy.

Written by Haydn for the Austro-Hungarian Eszterhàzy royal court in his capacity as court composer, the purpose of Il Mondo della Luna undoubtedly is primarily to entertain and not cause its audience too much confusion over the tone or intent. That doesn't mean that a modern production of the work has to be gentle and reverential. Nikolaus Harnoncourt demonstrated a perfect balance and understanding of the differences between Mozart and Haydn in the Theater an der Wien's delightful 2009 production, but there's a slight sense that the work is played rather too nicely without capturing the distinctive qualities of Haydn in this 2014 Opéra de Monte-Carlo production.

At the very least however, the stage production directed by Emilio Sagi is stylish, colourful and eye-catching and not buried in antiquated period mannerisms. There's a good rationale for this since the work is almost science-fictional in nature, involving a trip to the moon, or at least, what is supposed to look like a trip to the moon, but that depends on how gullible you are and how much opium you've taken. Such a poor fool is Buonafede, who has been duped by Ecclitico, a confidence trickster who has fed him manufactured images and ideas that appeal to his prejudices and, well, his sexual inclinations.

Buonafede would like to believe that life on the moon is the opposite of how it is lived on Earth. On the moon, it's actually women who are dominant, since they have a closer relationship with Earth's satellite and, as such, can they even be described literally as lunatics. This appeals to Buonafede, who is unaware that it confirms his impressions of the reality on Earth. It is indeed women who call the shots in Il Mondo della Luna, and three of them - Buonafede's two daughters Clarice and Flaminia and his maid Lisetta who has ideas above her station - are rather strong personalities indeed. You can see how Buonafede would be somewhat browbeaten and long to escape to a place where he is treated better. Ecclitico's scheme is to turn this to his advantage, since he and his associates have designs on marrying the women that Buonafede keeps safely locked away.

Haydn's handling of the dramma giocoso is fairly conventional, but delightful all the same, the situations providing each of the characters and singers with the opportunity to express their feelings in pleasant little arias. There's nothing too testing here, but it requires a certain lightness of touch, clarity of diction and fluidity of expression with some facility for coloratura. There's nothing as challenging or as ambitious as Mozart in this register, but Haydn is a good testing ground for young singers. Based on the subsequent careers of those in the Harnonourt production (Bernard Richter, Vivica Genaux), and perhaps reflecting where Haydn's musical affinities really lie, those careers more often seem to be in the Baroque field rather than in Mozart operas.

This is perfect ground for Jérémie Rhorer, who directs the music at Monte Carlo here with a precision and lightness of touch that matches the early operas of the young Mozart. It's a little too nice and unadventurous though, and it doesn't quite have the same edge that Harnoncourt brought to the work (although admittedly that recollection might not be a reliable one, since I haven't heard the 2009 version in quite a while). The singing likewise meets all the requirements, but there's little here that really stands out. Roberto De Candia sings well and is a solid Buonafede, Alessandra Marianelli impresses as Flaminia and Hélène Le Corre sings well as Clarice, but there's little that stands out as exceptional. Mathias Vidal does actually bring a little more over-the-top dynamic to the performances, but it's a little out of step with the overall tone.

The stage direction, while bold and colourful, doesn't really provide the opportunity to develop or explore the work with a little more adventurousness. Life on the moon, for some unknown reason, seems to be a cabaret, with multi-coloured poles flanking a long staircase, with exotic dancers in glittery costumes and bowler hats, and a glitterball finale. I'm not sure about life being a cabaret, but in a work that does propose variety being the spice of life, there needs to be a little more dynamic in showing the contrasts between what men want and what women want, and this production at Monte Carlo is just a little too smooth and pleasant to really give us that.

Donizetti - Pietro il Grande (Bergamo, 2019)

Gaetano Donizetti - Pietro il Grande

Fondazione Teatro Donizetti, Bergamo, 2019

Rinaldo Alessandrini, Marco Paciotti, Lorenzo Pasquali, Roberto de Candia, Loriana Castellano, Paola Gardina, Nina Solodovnikova, Francisco Brito, Marco Filippo Romano, Tommaso Barea, Marcello Nardis, Stefano Gentili

Dynamic - Blu-ray

There are definitely surprises and even some great underrated and largely unknown works by Donizetti being rediscovered and revived - the best being mainly perhaps his later French operas - but it's hard to imagine that anyone would consider the young composer's second opera Pietro il Grande (Peter the Great) to be a great opera. And yet even lesser Donizetti has much to recommend and enjoy, whether you are interested in exploring the influences on the composer's early work, whether you are interested in seeing how the work can be adapted and brought to modern audience, or whether you just want to be entertained by a pleasant light musical drama. There's definitely a bit of something for everyone in Pietro il Grande.

Although it might sound like a historical epic, Donizetti's opera is no Boris Godunov, more of a light comedy, an opera buffa. In Pietro il Grande, Peter the Great, the Czar of Russia comes to Livonia, thinly disguised as a government official called Menzikoff, arriving at the inn of Madam Fritz. He's looking for someone called Carlo who he believes might be Scavronsky, the lost brother of the Czarina. It's not all good news for Carlo, a humble carpenter, as he is in love with Annetta, who also has a mysterious secret background. Her father is Mazepa, the Ekman of the Cossacks, a traitor to his country and enemy of the Czar. How can this intolerable situation be resolved?

Well, that's the stuff and magic of opera, and somehow Donizetti and his librettist the Marquis Gherardo Bevilacqua Aldobrindini, manage to stretch out this thin plot more with colourful characters and musical situations than with any real dramatic action. They are the kind of character types you expect to find in a Donizetti or Rossini comedy, and often it's the secondary characters who deliver the most entertainment by stirring things up. In this case that's Madam Fritz and the pompous local magistrate Cuccupis, and this production is fortunate to have two excellent singers and performers in those roles; Paola Gardina and Marco Filippo Romano.

As far as musical setting goes, it's fairly conventional early Donizetti, but delivered of course with a variety of situations and melodic flair. There are the inevitable romantic situations and complications involving a great ruler and a lot of recitative which harks back to not so distant opera seria times, but also drinking songs, hunting songs and plenty of choral interludes pointing to what lies ahead. With secret identities and comic revelations Pietro il Grande is all very opéra-comique, and could easily pass for one of Offenbach's playful historical satires. Pompous characters are put in their place and ordinary people are shown to have far more respectable characteristics and more noble ideas of justice.

Like those works, it's not to be taken seriously but it is essential to enter into the spirit of the work, particularly on the part of the singers. Paola Gardina's Madam Fritz and Marco Filippo Romano's Cuccupis are, as I've mentioned, very much the comic driving force behind the work, particularly when playing off one another, with the magistrate even getting some of those Rossini rapid-fire tongue-twisters. The other roles are rather less interesting - even Roberto de Candia's Pietro - but Donizetti nonetheless provides plenty of opportunities to play up the comedy if a director is willing to work with it.

You at least get plenty of colour and spectacle to match the tone in the 2019 Festival Donizetti Opera production at the Teatro Sociale in Bergamo. No stuffy historical period costumes here, the set looks like it was designed by Paul Klee with Wassily Kandinsky helping out with the costume designs. That's a lot of colour! As if that's not enough there are occasional projections of geometric patterns to add to the backgrounds. It's just a little bit over the top, but it does suit the colourful situations of the cartoonish comedy-drama and add a little bit of spectacle to those scenes that tend to drag out what is after all a fairly thin plot.

With Ondadurto Teatro's Marco Paciotti and Lorenzo Pasquali directing, dull moments however are few and far between. At 2 hours and 45 minutes there's plenty of entertainment and some pleasant music to enjoy, with Rinaldo Alessandrini's conducting thoroughly in the spirit of Donizetti. Just as you think the orchestra sound like they might be flagging or losing interest in the routine parts of the score, there's a chorus or an increase in tempo or a Rossini-run to rev things up again.

The 2019 Donizetti Festival production is released on DVD and Blu-ray by Dynamic, who have really upped their game in terms of releasing interesting opera rarities and in the quality of their HD releases. The Blu-ray image here is fantastic, the screen exploding with colour. The soundtracks are in the usual Hi-Res PCM stereo and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 surround, both excellent quality with good clarity. There might not be a lot of nuance and detail in the actual score, but this gets the performance across well. The extras are all in the booklet and are useful and informative, looking at the history of the work and providing a tracklist and synopsis. The BD is all-region, with subtitles in Italian, English, French, German, Korean and Japanese.

Links: Donizetti Opera Festival

Auber - Fra Diavolo (Rome, 2017)

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber - Fra Diavolo

Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, 2017

Rory Macdonald, Giorgio Barberio Corsetti, John Osborn, Roberto de Candia, Sonia Ganassi, Giorgio Misseri, Alessio Verna, Anna Maria Sarra, Jean Luc Ballestra, Nicola Pamio

Culturebox - 17 October 2017

Aside from its historical interest, it's debatable that Auber's once celebrated Fra Diavolo has much to offer the world of opera today. It still has something to offer an audience however and those are the same values that it held right back when it was first performed; entertainment. The Rome Opera production certainly presents Auber's opéra-comique with that intention as its primary focus, finding a suitable presentation that captures the work's immodest sense of modesty, while also managing to have something contemporary and even forward-looking in theatrical staging.

If it doesn't have anything to offer the future of opera, Auber's Fra Diavolo has nonetheless already made its impact. First performed in 1830, Auber's simple melodies and uncomplicated drama would determine the direction of popular French opéra-comique and embody many of the characteristics that are associated with it. With the Rome production's colourful sets and costumes, everything is there for an entertaining evening of romantic comedy, singing and dancing.

Fra Diavolo sets out its intentions right from the outset, with a drinking song and a military march combined. The soldiers are drinking because that's part of the way of military life, but they are also drowning their sorrows as the inn-keeper's daughter Zerline is getting married the next day. The captain Lorenzo in particular isn't happy as he and Zerline had romantic aspirations, but they were doomed to come to nothing since Zerline's father has made plans to marry her to a rich man.

That's the romantic background taken care of in a not terribly original manner and it's inevitably going to have predictable twists and turn of fortune. The drama that will drive this relates of course to the actions of Fra Diavolo, a notorious bandit who operates in the region. Milord and Milady Rocburg, an English couple on holiday touring Italy have already encountered this notorious bandit on their travels and have had all their belongings stolen. They have however managed to keep their best jewels hidden, but they are unaware that Fra Diavolo has followed them to the inn.

There's room for a minor romantic entanglement there too. Just to spice things up a little further, the Marquis they encountered at their last stop has just arrived at the inn. Milord isn't happy that the Marquis has been unwelcome paying attention to his wife and he continues serenading her now at the inn. Of course, we all know that the Marquis is none other than Fra Diavolo in disguise, and that he is using his charms to seduce the noble lady into parting with the secret of where their expensive jewellery is hidden.

Meanwhile Captain Lorenzo and his troops have stumbled on the bandits den and recovered the stolen goods (but not the bandits), and the reward puts him into contention again for the hand of Zerline. Fra Diavolo however is so confident of his charms and his disguise that he is sure that he can steal back the loot and increase his haul that night. The drama - what little there is of it between romantic charms and villainous swagger - tends to lose its way in the second half of the opera. The Marquis's night-time wanderings are discovered and questioned, only for him to sow discord by pretending that his inclinations are more romantic than criminal, but it rallies at the end for the unmasking and capture of the notorious Fra Diavolo.

The comic villainy and romantic twists of Auber's Fra Diavolo set the tone and the standard for much of the opéra-comique that follows, his influence particularly evident in Jacques Offenbach and not just in Les Brigandes. The influence on Auber however is just as evidently the lighter comic work of Giacomo Rossini, and Auber's music carries the same light, simple rhythms that are melodic, buoyant and uplifting. Hardly sophisticated, they are nevertheless conducted here in the Rome production by Rory Macdonald with a confident swagger and an emphatic stridency where required. Entertainment is the entire raison d'être of Fra Diavolo, and the musical performance captures that well.

As does the set design in Giorgio Barberio Corsetti's production. Extensive use is made of cartoon imagery projected onto the versatile backdrops (created by Corsetti with designer Marco Troncanetti using 3-D printers) that permit the set to be transformed instantly from a moving car journey to a balloon ride, from a hotel with a cutaway showing individual rooms to a gondola ride in a Venice with shark-infested canals. It's a riot of colour with larger than life illustrations that perfectly match the tone and spirit of the work. That is also captured well in John Osborn's reliably impressive performance as Fra Diavolo. Not quite as agile with the French recitative and singing, Sonia Ganassi and Roberto de Candia are great fun nonetheless as Lord and Lady Rocburg. Anna Maria Sarra is a bright Zerline (replacing the billed Pretty Yende who dropped out) and Giorgio Misseri also notable as Alfredo.

Links: Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Culturebox, YouTube

Rossini - Il Signor Bruschino (Rossini Opera Festival, 2013 - Blu-ray)

Gioachino Rossini - Il Signor Bruschino

Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro - 2013

Daniele Rustoni, Teatro Sotterraneo, Carlo Lepore, Maria Aleida, Roberto de Candia, Francisco Brito, David Alegret, Andrea Vincenzo Bonsignore, Chiara Amarù

Opus Arte - Blu-ray

Irony can be used to good effect in opera in certain circumstances. It's always a good fallback when an opera is a little too immersed in period attitudes and behaviours, or when the musical style is no longer in fashion. You'll see irony used a lot with modern productions of Meyerbeer, for example, as in Laurent Pelly's Royal Opera House production of Robert le Diable. Not everyone will agree that it's the best way of viewing all such works, but it helps if the opera in question is a comedy and an entertainment and not expected to be taken seriously.

The good people at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro aren't afraid of applying a little ironical distance to their productions when the occasion demands it. It's not just a case of being clever and modern, as much as the only way of reaching back and finding a way to revitalise works that in the present day would seem a little stagy and conventional. Certainly many of Rossini's early works are far from masterpieces, but there are wonderful innovations, humour and techniques in them that a little judicious irony can bring out and highlight without getting too carried away.

Such an example would be the composer's very first opera, Demetrio e Polibio which the Rossini Opera Festival, with the clever hand of Davide Livermore directing, characterised as a backstage ghost version of a long "dead" opera. With such techniques, creating their own little world where Rossini's works can be appreciated for what they are worth (and sharing them with the world in the form of wonderful Blu-ray releases), the Rossini Opera Festival can be said to have created their own kind of Rossiniland. In Rossiniland, the spirit of Rossini is celebrated and might even have something relevant to offer the modern world, even if that's just mildly diverting entertainment.

The one-act 'farsa giocosa' Il Signor Bruschino is such a minor work that would probably otherwise forever be consigned to obscurity if it were considered in terms of its modest surface merits. It's pleasant, inoffensive, contrived, conventional in the extreme, and running to just over an hour in length, there's no real reason to put on above other great works by the composer other than for the sake of completeness. The Rossini Opera Festival's remit goes far beyond dusting down creaky obscure works for an airing now and again, but really researching new Critical Editions and giving the works the best possible presentation to a modern day audience. There's not a lot of point in trying to recreate their appeal to an early 19th century audience after all, is there?

With this kind of adventurous spirit, the festival are willing to look more widely at how opera can be presented and engage a young collective theatre group with no previous experience of opera directing called Teatro Sotterraneo (Underground Theatre Group) to try to bring something fresh to Il Signor Bruschino. It's a work that could really do with not only a bit of a dusting down, but a bit of restoration work and a good polish as well. It's Teatro Sotterraneo who come up with the ironical Rossiniland concept here, seeing the work in the context of it being performed by guys in suits in a theme park dedicated to the works of Gioachino Rossini.

In the Rossiniland theme park, visitors, tourists and school groups can wander around and see little scenes from in the maestro's works performed by actors in outrageous wigs and colourful 'period' costumes. They munch some popcorn, take a few selfies and then move on to the gift shop or to the next attraction. Inevitably, when there are signs advertising Il Barbiere di Sevilla, La Gazza Ladra and Guglielmo Tell, there's not a lot of reason to hang around the Il Signor Bruschino too long, but a few adventurous souls or couples who have wandered off the beaten path and ended up there seem to enjoy the modest charms of this unusual work.

Within this kind of setting and with such a work, Il Signor Bruschino can seem like a bit of a pastiche or a parody. In terms of music and plot development it's by the numbers romantic farce with confusion over assumed identities and marriage intentions that runs as smoothly and entertainingly as a Haydn comic opera, with some notable Mozart influences in there. Gaudenzio, the father of the bride to be, has some very Sarastro-like moment of intoning gravely, while his daughter Sofia bemoans the cruelty of her situation with a Donna Elvira-like character and occasional Queen of the Night flourishes.

It's never going to be thought a great opera, and even a little ironical distance isn't going to bring out any surprise revelations here. The comedy still falls flat more often than not, raising little more than a chuckle now and again. There is some genuine engagement that comes through however between the 'actor's performance' of the opera and the visitors who stop by. A young couple, for instance, soon lose interest in the plot and are more interested in each other, but it ties in well to Gaudenzio's infuriation with young people being oblivious to those who are trying to act in their interests, or at least think they are. It's nothing profound, it's not particularly clever, but it connects the world of Rossini with the modern world in a nice way.

Musically too there are of course some wonderful Rossini-isms. The overture is a delight (as they always are with Rossini), and has little hammering interludes with the back of the bow on the violins - Rossini far ahead of avant-garde modern composers in that respect. And even though it is only one act long, follows a familiar sequence of numbers and is occasionally weighed down with recitative, Rossini still fills the work with vivacious music, catchy melodies, the occasional bravura aria and a particularly wonderful trio involving Gaudenzio, Bruschino and Florville.

There's a danger that ironical distance can introduce a measure of singing by numbers, not really giving the performers anything substantial to engage with in characterisation that is already insubstantial to begin with. You feel this is the case initially with the bland romantic leads of David Alegret's Florville and Maria Aleida's Sofia, but the singing is wonderful and beautifully suited to the roles, Aleida in particular making rather more of the role with some virtuoso singing. Carlo Lepore and Roberto de Candia however bring great comic vitality to the father roles and Chiara Amarù is a bright Marianna.

On Blu-ray, the opera is given the usual high standard of presentation. The image is perfect and the sound in particular gives a fine indication of the quality of the score and how well Daniele Rustoni conducts the performance. It could be a little less 'classical' and a little more free and energetic though you feel. The extra features on the BD include a Cast Gallery and a short Making Of that explores Teatro Sotterraneo's thoughtful and irreverent approach to directing the production. The BD is region-free, with subtitles in English, French, German, Japanese and Korean.

Casella - La Donna Serpente (Torino, 2016)

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

Rossini - Le Comte Ory

Giacomo Rossini - Le Comte Ory

Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro 2009

Paolo Carignani, Lluís Pasqual, Yijie Shi, Laura Polverelli, Lorenzo Regazzo, Roberto De Candia, María José Moreno, Natalia Gavrilan, Rinnat Moriah 

Opus Arte - Blu-ray

There are two ways you can treat some of Rossini's more outrageous comedies. You can either play up the absurdity of the situations or you can attempt to make up for the silliness of the libretto by creating a distancing construct around it. I know which I would prefer, but in the case of this 2009 Rossini Opera Festival production, the director Lluís Pasqual unfortunately feels the need to impose a structure on the work that is neither meaningful nor sympathetic to the comedy. Fortunately, there is another way to get the most out of Le Comte Ory and that is to let some good singers loose on it. Despite the casting here not being as stellar as you might expect for such demanding roles, the Pesaro production at least works very well on that front.

It is very hard to take Le Comte Ory seriously, even though there is no reason why you should. Written in the composer's French period, much of the reasoning for the creation of the work was to find an alternative use for the music of Il Viaggio a Reims. Written for a specific event, the coronation of Charles X, it must have seemed a pity to let such good compositions (Rossini at his finest) go to waste, so the composer spun them together with some new music into the racy comedy of Le Comte Ory. The entertainment of the work relies primarily on that old staple of a licentious noble, in this case a Count who takes advantage of the susceptible and probably desperate women of the village while their husbands are away fighting in the crusades.

It's not a subject that is terribly elevated or even clever, nor are the means of the Count Ory's seductions all that credible - disguising himself as a hermit dispensing wise advice, or dressing up as a nun seeking shelter on a stormy night. It's hard to imagine anyone being fooled by such exploits unless they really want to play along with the game and be seduced, and it usually with such an idea that a diector will attempt to either find some credible underlying motivations or create a knowing distance between the drama and its presentation. Lluís Pasqual attempts to do all these things, but seems to forget that the work is actually supposed to be a comedy.

Evidently then, the 2009 Rossini Opera Festival production isn't set during the time of the Crusades but rather, for no apparent reason, takes place in the Grand Hotel Rossini during the Belle Epoque. Looking more like a set for La Traviata, the action of the opening scenes takes place amidst hanging velvet curtains and chandeliers, with the hermit dispensing his sage advice and sexual favours to the credulous women from atop an antique billiard table. The ultimate object of his licentious desires, the Countess Adèle, meanwhile mounts a nearby table across from him. It's hard to believe that the Count's own page, Isolier, wouldn't recognise his master in such a thin disguise (the trousers role moreover transformed here into a female character), but any semblance of disguises being convincing are dismissed when the Countess and her maid Ragone actually dress Ory up as a nun at the start of the second act.

According to the booklet that comes with the DVD/BD release, the director's concept is that it's an opera-within-an-opera (or a play-within-an-opera), the explanation for this is that the story of Le Comte Ory is being put on as a parlour game by a theatre group in order to explore their own erotic fantasies. You wouldn't know this otherwise, but even when you do know it, it still seems like a pointless conceit and scarcely any less ridiculous than the original comic story that it is attempting to make credible. What the Belle Epoque setting does however, perhaps inadvertently, is actually emphasise the elegance and sophistication of Rossini's brilliant compositional skills.

The score is sympathetically conducted in this respect by Paolo Carignani. Unsurprisingly, since it is mostly derived from Il Viaggio a Reims (a delightful work that was until relatively recently believed entirely lost), Le Comte Ory is a typically well-constructed piece, with entertaining numbers and a variety of characters who have arrangements to match and display their individual singing strengths. It all takes place moreover at a spirited pace with a musical style that is indeed sparkling with elegance, cleverness and wit. That much comes through, even if the stage direction isn't able to take advantage of it, or play to the strengths of work, which is in how it matches the singing performances to the comic situations.

Although they aren't given much support from the director, the singing nonetheless is very good. The Rossini Opera Festival doesn't seem to give the same care and attention in their casting for French Rossini as they do to the composer's Italian works, but the relatively inexperienced cast do perform rather well. Chinese tenor Yijie Shi - who can be seen in several other Pesaro productions - has the right kind of voice for high and lyrical Rossini roles like this and he meets all the challenges and demands that are required for Le Comte Ory. If you close your eyes, at times you could swear you're listening to Juan Diego Flórez, albeit not with the same force. Laura Polverelli is a fine Isolier and María José Moreno brings the necessary elegance and charm to her Comtesse Adèle, even when the stage concept seems contrived to work against her.

True, this cast are no match for the New York Metropolitan Opera's production with the stellar trio of Juan Diego Flórez, Joyce DiDonato and Diana Damrau, but who could possibly measure up to that level of presence, stature and vocal ability in a work like this? Ultimately however, since the actual performances are fine here, it's less a question of singing ability than whether the production as a whole gives the right kind of platform for those voices to shine. Bartlett Sher's production at the Met went for a similar play-within-a-play construction that didn't bring anything great out of the work, but it didn't detract either from the comic situations or the performances. The Pesaro Le Comte Ory also works well in spite of a production design that doesn't really help it, which is all the more to the credit of the singers and, undoubtedly, the strength of Rossini's writing.

The BD includes a 26-minute Making of made up of interviews and behind-the-scenes rehearsals. As usual the irrepressible Alberto Zedda, the artistic director of the Rossini Opera Festival, provides some insightful comments on the work and its place among Rossini's operas. Subtitles on the BD are in French, English, German, Spanish, Italian and Korean.