SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Other Links

Editorial Board

Google Site Search

Bellini, I puritani:  co-production Opéra-Théâtre de Avignon et al, stage director Charles Roubaud.  Soloists, chorus and orchestra of Opéra Toulon Provence Méditerranée, conductor Giuliano Carella.  Toulon, France.  24.4.2009.  (MM)

It is a Bellini year in the south of France - in February there was Il pirata in Marseille, in March Norma in Monaco, just now I puritani in Toulon, and upcoming in July is Bellini's very first opera, Zaïra in Montpellier.

I puritani is Bellini's last opera, though he may not have thought so when he wrote it, as just three months after its premiere he died at age 34 - early death a hazard of being a great Romantic.  The libretto is not by Felice Romani, Bellini's usual inspired collaborator, and perhaps therein lies its problem.  It arrives too easily and quickly and not very gracefully at Bellini's formula of making "the audience cry, shudder with horror and die singing.”

In his Puritani however the lovers do not die and the reason why is far too simple - way offstage Cromwell has pardoned all political prisoners, thus everyone lives happily ever after.  This is not a resolution that meshes comfortably with Bellini's dark and troubled genius. Of course in I puritani operatic death throes might have been excessive, as we had already had a soprano mad scene that spread over three acts, and an extended exposition of tenorial guilt reaching its peak on a high F.

In Toulon the real show is often in the pit as it was on the opening night of I puritani.  Conductor Giuliano Carella, Toulon's music director, electrified Bellini's score with supercharged passion that only sometimes may have been Bellini's.  The effect was two separate universes most of the evening, the suspended phrasing pouring from the stage battling the dynamism of the pit.  There were sometimes convergences of stage and pit, and at these moments it became almost sublime bel canto, and this happened when it mattered most -- in the bulk of Elvira's second act madness, Arturo's third act self torture, and certainly in Ricardo and Walton's fiery Suoni la tromba when Mo. Carella got to do what he does best -  the thunder of early Verdi.

In recent operatic history there have been two sopranos who have set two quite different standards for I puritani's Elvira -- la Callas and la Sutherland.  Marseille's Il pirata heroine Angeles Blancas Gulìn was in the Callas mold.  In Toulon the young Australian soprano Jessica Pratt proved to be distinctly in the Sutherland mold -- a sumptuous voice, its richness extending well into the stratosphere, a clean technique and lots of it, and very well schooled.  But there is little of the smolder and flash that can bring a Bellini opera truly alive in spite of itself. 

Rossini and Bellini's preferred tenor Giovanni Battista Rubini still seems to be the standard for the role of Arturo against which all other tenors are compared.  This fabled tenor cannot have planted the required high F (or whatever frequency that high note really was) more firmly that did Georgian tenor Shalva Mukeria, or delivered a more comfortably sung Corre a valle, corre a monte or a more beautiful final duet with Elivra, replete with its two thrilling unison high D's.  Like Mme. Pratt, Mr. Mukeria is not particularly comfortable on the stage.

The date and point of origin of metteur en scène Charles Roubaud's well-traveled production was not given. Mr. Roubaud is an accomplished minimalist, with several effective productions to his credit at the huge Roman theater at Orange where minimalism is de rigueur.  While his style brings broad and simple solutions to the daunting problems of staging bel canto, and here to Bellini's dramatically naive Puritani, his bold ideas and linear movements do not resonate with Bellini's limpid melodic lines.  As well this production imprisoned its singers on long intersecting horizontal sloping platforms that created an upstage V shape, depriving them of the use of the apron, and the opportunity to simply sing in communion with the conductor and the audience, an age-old trick that has saved many dramatically cumbersome, vocally splendid operas. 

The basic motif of stage decoration was herringbone brick half-timbered walls, the tight geometry of the bricks and the straight lines of the timbers again conflicted with the flowing lyricism of the intoned text.  At Orange big costumes in repetitive shapes add detail, movement and color to a mostly empty stage, but in Toulon such costumes on the large chorus simply crowded this theater's relatively small mid-nineteenth century stage.

Completing the principal line-up was the Walton of Wojtek Smilek, an accomplished Polish bass who will sing Szymanovski's King Roger at the Bastille in June, and the Riccardo of Rodion Pogossov, a fine Russian baritone who gave the most Italianate performance of the evening.

Michael Milenski

Pictures © Frédéric Stephan

^{Back to Top                                                    Cumulative Index Page}