ROF’s Adelaide Di Borgogna Once In a Lifetime Experience

Rossini Opera Festival 2006

One of the most rewarding experiences in the opera world is to attend an opera where the high expectations for a great performance and the actual event join in making the entire event an evening to remember. Such was the case on August 17th, 2006, when the Rossini Opera Festival presented Adelaide Di Borgogna for the first time in its history. And to project an even more intense spotlight on the performance, it turned out to be the only time the opera was presented in its entirety. Unfortunately, due to soprano Patricia Ciofi’s sudden illness, the performance scheduled for the 20th was given in an abridged version which, by necessity, excluded her music.

Many opera lovers don’t feel concert opera is a viable substitute for a complete operatic production. But considering the audience’s enthusiastic reception at this Adelaide, it became obvious that the vocal performances suceeded in overcoming any yearning for sets and costumes. In fact, the slide show projected on a back screen with help from video projectionist Pierluigi Alessandrini, received only polite applause during the curtain calls. The reason, of course, was the audience’s total occupation with the singers’ vocal brilliance.

Italian music critic Rudolfo Celletti, in ROF’s 2006 program, tells us the opera’s vocal demands could be one reason why it has not been performed more. In the article, “Adelaide, ‘sister’ to Tancredi,” he states, “Performances call for a florid lyric soprano for the part of Adelaide, a mezzo-soprano or contralto, also capable of virtuoso singing, for the part of Ottone, a tenor of wide range (“contraltino” as the old-fashioned terminology has it) for Adelberto and a true basso-cantante for Berengario.” Not only were these vocal needs met by the cast, but Riccardo Frizza’s nuanced conducting and total focus on Rossini’s musical intentions made for a thrilling evening.

1817 was one of the busiest and most productive years in Rossini’s composing career: starting with the dramma giocoso, La Cenerentola, a beautiful and big-hearted opera, followed by La Gazza Ladra, a melodrama (semiserio,) and then the dramma, Armida. In fact, it was during Armida‘s final rehearsals that the composer accepted an opera commission from Roman impresario and close friend Pietro Cartoni. Giovanni Schmidt, Armida‘s librettist stayed on to work with Rossini. Although Adelaide premiered at the Teatro Argentina in Rome, on December 27th, 1817, Rossini did not arrive there until the middle of December. Gabriele Gravagna, states in his program notes, “It is therefore reasonable to suppose that Adelaide di Borgogna was largely composed in Naples and in a short period of time and that the biographer Antonio Zanolini’s assertion that Rossini got his friend Michele Carafa to help him out is trustworthy.”
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In 2002, the opera department at the University of Arizona hit the jackpot with an endowment of $1,000,000. The funding came by way of Amelia T. Rieman, a trained concert pianist and soprano and a longtime supporter of the University and particularly of the opera program. She and Prof. Charles R. Roe, the Director of the The University of Arizona Opera Theater, had developed a friendship during the 1980s that lasted until Rieman’s passing in 2008 at the age of 102. Because of Rieman’s significant contribution, Roe now holds the Amelia T. Rieman Chair in Opera, adding national recognition to its growing reputation.

Two results of the school’s newfound glory are more full-time vocal scholarships – leading to better vocal training – and high quality productions, as evidenced by the operas Roe has produced beginning in 2006 with Mark Adamo’s Little Women and continuing with Kirke Mechem’s Tartuffe in 2007. Both were well received and important steps in Roe’s long-range plan to present contemporary opera in English. Even bigger artistic successes were Benjamin Britten’s Rape of Lucretia and Robert Ward’s The Crucible in 2008 and 2009.

Another reason for the program’s artistic advancement has been Roe’s collaboration with Thomas Cockrell, the Orchestral Director of the University of Arizona’s Symphony. Their dedication has shown that the Opera Theater can produce works of the highest musical and dramatic caliber and is ready to compete with the best university opera programs around the United States.

But a successful opera program has to be able to offer its students a well-rounded musical education, and Roe’s answer to that was this April’s production of Domenico Cimarosa’s exuberant and melodically-inventive opera buffa, Il matrimonio segreto from 1792. The opera is in Italian and the six roles are double cast. “Our students are going out into an opera world that expects them to sing in other languages besides English,” Roe said, “and double casting gives more students an opportunity to perform, which is basic to their training.” And what about the 2010-11 season? The only commitment Roe made is that both he and Cockrell will continue with their opera-in-English program. Sounds like the future of their opera program is in good hands.

It is rare these days to attend an opera performance where the vocal and dramatic interpretation of an opera takes center stage over the physical production. But that is exactly what happened at the 2009 opening night telecast of Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo from La Scala at the Loft Cinema on March 14th, 2010. With early opera expert and conductor Rinaldo Alessandrini in the pit, it was a pleasure to sit in the audience and take in all the musical beauties Monteverdi and his librettist Alessandro Striggio put into this 1607 masterpiece.

Except for the role of Orfeo, all the singers were Italian which added to the wonderful elocution and heartfelt expression so abundant in Striggio’s classically limned text. The performance seemed to roll on effortlessly, buoyed by the clean yet passionate instrumental harmony that is one of the many facets of Monteverdi’s genius.

The opera’s simple story line is culled from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and tells of Orpheus and his descent into the underworld to return his beloved Eurydice to life after she has been bitten by a poisonous snake and died. Orpheus, however, is warned by Plutone, lord of the underworld, not to look at Eurydice on their return journey back to earth. But Orpheus is overcome by the strength of his love for Eurydice and turns to look at her and loses her again. The god Apollo appears to Orpheus and takes him to heaven so that he can be reunited with his beloved.

This classic story easily fit into the intimate picture director Robert Wilson wanted to portray on stage. The set consisted of a row of Cypress trees on stage right and left. The costumes were mostly gray and off-whites for the shepherds and the dancing nymphs. For contrast, costumer Jacques Reynaud dressed Music in gold, Orfeo and Eurydice in black, Hope in dark blue, and Apollo in a deep red. Wilson kept the staging and lighting focused on the singers.

Because of Wilson’s approach, the telecast proved far more effective than the actual performance in the house. When the camera surveyed La Scala’s large auditorium and the orchestra pit and then moved back to the performers on stage, the contrast, between the video director’s close-ups and leisurely panning shots with the full-house shots, clearly favored Wilson’s intent. This also complemented Monteverdi’s solo song accompaniment called monody that Alessandrini conducted with graceful and precise tempi.

All this led to an exquisite vocal refinement in the delivery of the text. Whatever dramatic expression was needed – plaintive, joyful, or purposeful story-telling, the cast encompassed it all.

Sopranos Roberta Invernizzi and Sara Mingardo are well-known in opera circles for their baroque and early baroque roles. Both Invernizzi, as Music, who introduces the opera, and as Eurydice, and Mingardo, as the Messenger who brings the news of Eurydice’s death to Orfeo, and then as Hope who accompanies him to the entrance to the underworld, interpreted their roles combining accurate intonation and excellent textual delivery.

Mezzo-soprano Raffaella Milanesi established an immediate emotional connection with Proserpine as she pleaded with Plutone to save Eurydice. Luigi De Donato’s terse vocals as Charon clearly showed his displeasure with Orfeo’s journey to find Eurydice, and Furio Zanasi’s Apollo related his joyful news that Orfeo will be reunited with Eurydice with vocal poise. Luca Dordolo, Leonardo Cortellazzi, and Martin Oro as the three shepherds brought great vocal style to their on-going comments about Orfeo’s journey.

While Georg Nigi’s vocal production did not match the innate warmth of the rest of the cast, his stage presence and vocal execution brought a touching nobility to Orfeo’s realization of his fatal error and then his salvation.

Audience consensus acknowledged the singing as the outstanding feature of the performance.