ROF’s La Gazza Ladra Sparks Controversy

Rossini Opera Festival 2007

If ever there was an opera production that put the words “cultural divide” in neon lights, the Rossini Opera Festival’s 2007 production of La Gazza Ladra is it. The striking differences in opinions between Italian opera critics and their English counterparts were planted front and center.

These diverse viewpoints were directly linked to Damiano Michieletto’s direction and Paolo Fantin’s sets whose eagerness to exceed the textual boundaries of Rossini’s most respected opera semiseria ignited the debate. Hugh Canning’s comments in Opera, November, 2007, boiled over the operatic cauldron in total disapprobation. “They (ROF) could also hardly have done worse than engage a young director with ‘ideas’ about La Gazza Ladra, staged as an immigrant’s nightmare…The genius responsible for transforming Rossini’s domestic semiseria into a searing indictment of a police state and implacable judiciary was Damiano Michieletto.” Even as late as November, 2008, David Blewitt in Opera referred to ROF’s new productions in 2007, as, “two concept productions of unmitigated awfulness,” — the other disappointment being Rossini’s Otello.

Stephen Hastings’s perspective in Opera News November, 2007, touched on some of the ideas Italian critics voiced about the work. “The director, Damiano Michieletto, aided by scenographer Paolo Fantin, proved…adept at matching sound and movement, offering a number of striking visual effects (including a stage flooded by rain in Act 11).” In fact, the Italian critics were completely enamored by Michieletto’s and Fantin’s approach which cast a darker hue over the opera’s story than past productions had done.

Claudio Salvi, in Il Messaggero, on August 12th, 2007, said about the first performance, “In a festival which is now basing all its reason for being on modern directors and on young talented casts, the traditionalists have found it difficult to integrate their melomanical beliefs with Damiano Michieletto’s innovative and original direction, and for Pesaro’s new course of action.” Yet, Salvi believed this dreamlike interpretation of La Gazza Ladra worthy of ROF’s fame and as one of the best productions seen at ROF in the last few years. For having bet on this young director and his talented cast, this production represents a kind of awakening from the dark and shows a good dose of courage.

(more…)

Teatro Comunale di Bologna’s Committed but Incomplete Simon Boccanegra

Giuseppe VERDI (1813-1901) Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave

Simon Boccanegra – Melodrama in a Prologue and Three Acts Simon Boccanegra – Roberto Frontali Amelia Grimaldi – Carmen Giannattasio Jacopo Fiesco – Giacomo Prestia Gabriele Adorno – Giuseppe Gipali Paolo Albiani – Marco Vratogna Pietro – Alberto Rota Capitano dei balestrieri – Enea Scala Ancella di Amelia – Lucia Michelazzo

Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna Conductor – Michele Mariotti Chorus Master: Paolo Vero Director – Giorgio Gallione Costume and Set Design – Guido Fiorato Lighting Design – Daniele Naldi

Directed for TV and Video – Francesca Nesler

Live from the Teatro Comunale di Bologna 2007 Synopsis, essays and Subtitles in Italian, English, French, German, and Spanish. ARTHAUS MUSIK Cat. No. NTSC 101 307 1DVD Running Time; 140 Min.

At first it came as a delightful surprise to see this Simon Boccanegra from the Teatro Comunale di Bologna available on DVD. In November, 2007, thirteen opera lovers from Michael Tisma’s Ovations International opera tour travelled to Teatro Municipale Valli in Emiglia Romana to see Bologna’s production of Boccanegra. Without exception, everyone considered it an emotionally gripping performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s pessimistic tale of spiritual disturbance and foreboding. What is evident while watching the DVD is the difference between the confident execution and polish of the Teatro Valli performance and the unfinished, yet promising rendition caught at the opera’s prima in Bologna. There is much to be said for taping a production later in the run, after it has had a few performances under its belt. Valli’s was the seventh outing for Bologna’s dedicated team where it revealed all its artistic merit.

(more…)

Torvaldo e Dorliska now on DVD

Gioachino ROSSINI (1792-1868)
Torvaldo e Dorliska – Drama semiserio in two acts (1815)

Dorliska – Darina Takova (soprano)
Duca d’Ordow – Michele Pertusi (bass)
Torvaldo – Francesco Meli (tenor)
Giorgio – Bruno Practico (bass)
Carlotta – Jeannette Fisher (soprano)
Ormondo – Simone Alberghini (bass-baritone)

Orchestra Haydn di Bolzano Trento
Conductor: Victor Pablo Perez
Prague Chamber Choir
Chorus Master: Lubomir Matl
Director: Mario Martone
Set designer: Sergio Tramonti
Costume designer: Ursula Patzak
Light designer: Cesare Accetta
Fortepiano: Giulio Zappa
Cello continuo: David Etheve
Video director: Tiziano Mancini

Edizione critica della Fondazione Rossini in collaborazione di Casa Ricordi Rec. live, Teatro Rossini, Pesaro, August, 2006. Synopsis and essays in Italian, English, French and German. DYNAMIC 33528 2DVDS: 157 Min.

It is not often an opera goer gets to revisit a fondly remembered performance hoping the praiseworthy first impressions still ring true. Fortunately, the solid musical and dramatic values from the Rossini Opera Festival’s production of Torvaldo e Dorliska are still very much alive on this recently issued DVD taped in August 2006. And what stands out about the DVD is the care Dynamic took in presenting both the gentle reflections and the forceful declamations in Rossini’s semiserio opera, letting the camera capture these contrasting musical moments the composer recognized were essential to this genre.

(more…)