Verdi, Puccini, Cilea and Giordano – A Recital by Daniela Dessì and Fabio Armiliato

From Seen and Heard International
by: José M. Irurzun

Pianist: Damiano Carissoni. Teatro Victoria Eugenia de San Sebastián. 23.8.2009 (JMI)

A curious recital this one by the couple from Genoa, both of them always interesting singers whose performance was anticipated with great excitement by opera lovers in San Sebastian.

The recital was strange from the outset however because on entering the theatre we were immediately told of a change to the program for the first part, although not a very important one, and then this was followed by an announcement that the program for the second part would depend on how the tenor’s voice would hold up! Fabio Armiliato was unwell it seemed, something we were told about again after the interval.

The original programme, only slightly modified for Part One, struck me as rather short, with just two arias for each singer and one duet. In the end, Part Two consisted of four arias from Daniela Dessì and only two from Fabio Armiliato. He was almost voiceless by that point.

Armiliato is one of the most interesting tenors in the verismo repertoire, although his changes between registers are not to everyone’s liking. He began with a good interpretation of the Tosca aria, where he took refuge in some kind of piani. He was more sonorous than nuanced in Otello, was at his best in ‘Nessun Dorma’, whilst haveing serious voice problems in the very demanding and long Improvviso from Andrea Chenier, which finished him off completely.
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Rossini Opera Festival (ROF) Pesaro (3) – Demetrio e Polibio

From Seen and Heard International
By: Jack Buckley

Conductor, Corrado Rovaris; Director, Davide Livermore; Sets and Costumes, Accademia di Belle Arti di Urbino; Lighting, Nicolas Bovey. Orchestra Sinfonica G Rossini; Prague Chamber Choir. Teatro Rossini 16.8.2010 (JB) With an afterword on Il Viaggio a Reims (Accademia Rossiniana) Conductor, Andrea Battistoni Teatro Rossini 17. 8.2010 (JB)
Cast : Lisinga –Maria José Moreno; Demetrio-Siveno –Victoria Zaytseva; Demetrio-Eumene –Yijie Shi; Polibio –Mirco Palazzi.

Production Picture – Courtesy of the Rossini Opera Festival

A Syrian friend, over the last ten years, has built up a knowledge and understanding of European music, superior to most Europeans. Absorbing someone else’s culture has always impressed me and I have been more than a willing part-time tutor in this present adventure. Last year I asked him if he would like my second ticket for a concert performance of Parsifal. I thought it only fair to warn him that this would be an unfamiliar musical language which lasted six hours.

But I haven’t got six hours to listen to an opera! he exclaimed, Was this composer by any chance a fanatic? We have a few of those in the Middle East. I said that I thought fanatic would be a good description of the composer. He reflected over dinner and afterwards agreed he would like to risk the Wagner experience, adding, After all, Guillaume Tell didn’t feel anything like the five hours that both you and my watch told me it would take.

Then I had to forewarn him that I could guarantee that Parsifal indeed would feel like six hours: it required a different kind of listeners’ musical commitment, not least because Wagner studiedly required this commitment. Fanatics: we have a few of those in Europe too.

So what is the difference between Rossini and Wagner? Obviously, with one you don’t need to sign a contract, but with the other, it would probably be advisable to consider doing so.

And with Rossini there is a quality which I shall call geniality. But wait, you may protest, isn’t geniality something with which a listener responds rather than something which an author hands out? Well not exactly. Rossini’s very lack of demands on his listeners makes geniality his trademark. There is a spirit of generosity in his music, a geniality which can only be responded to with geniality. And that is as far away from Wagner as you can get. Put another way, Rossini is well-mannered while Wagner can be something of a boor.
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Rossini Opera Festival (ROF) Pesaro (2) – Sigismondo

From Seen and Heard International
By: Jack Buckley; Picture © Rossini Opera Festival Pesaro

Soloists, Orchestra of the Teatro Comunale of Bologna Conductor, Michele Mariotti; Director, Damiano Micheletto; Sets, Paolo Fantin; Costumes, Carla Teti; Lighting, Alessandro Carletti. Teatro Rossini, Pesaro. 15. 8. 2010 (JB)
Cast: Sigismondo king of Poland –Daniela Barcellona; King Ulderico of Bohemia and Hungary and Zenovito a Polish nobleman –Andrea Concetti; Ladislao, prime minister to Sigismondo –Antonino Siragusa; Anagilda, his sister – Manuela Bisceglie; Radoski – Enea Scala.

Daniela Barcellona (Sigismondo) and Olga Peretyatko (Aldimira)

Rossini’s Sigismondo is constructed round a tale of insanity, both real and imagined (the two are often related.) Sigismondo, king of Poland, has been deceived by an Iago-type character –Ladislao (unusual for Rossini to require a virtuoso tenor in the villain’s role) into believing that the king’s wife, Aldimira, daughter of Ulderico, the king of Bohemia and Hungary, has been unfaithful and is so banished from Sigismondo’s Court, awaiting execution. All that before the curtain rises. The action turns on Sigismondo’s uncovering of Ladislao’s machinations and his eventual reconciliation with Aldimira. I won’t need to spell out the operatic opportunities in all this.

Giuseppe Foppa provided Rossini with one of his weakest librettos for this sorry tale. The librettist seems to want to lead the audience up the garden path in the manner of a whodunit. In any case, there are too many garden paths leading nowhere and consequently creating frustration and boredom in the audience. This in itself may account for the flop of the opening at La Fenice, Venice on 26 December 1814.

Having got the main obstacle out of the way, I hasten to add that the composer was Gioachino Rossini so there was plenty to admire in the ROF’s revival of the opera in Pesaro.

Self-plagiarism was a common Rossini practice. The tune in the Allegro section of the overture had already appeared in Il Turco in Italia (1814) and would be used again in Otello (1816). But this is the first time the maestro uses material from the overture in the melodrama which follows.

The orchestra of the Teatro Comunale of Bologna played well for the most part, with their chief conductor, Michele Mariotti (who recently followed Riccardo Chailly and Daniele Gatti in this post). Michele Mariotti could be said to have been born into the Rossini business. His father, Gianfranco Mariotti, is the founder and Sovrintendente of the Rossini Opera Festival. At the time of Michele’s birth, Mariotti senior probably played an important part into bringing this hugely talented son into the world, as he was still working as a gynaecologist. Both Michele and the ROF share a birthday, aged thirty one but this is Michele’s first appearance at the festival and on his present showing, we should hope there will be a lot more.
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