SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Rossini,  Moïse et Pharaon:  Teatro dell’Opera, Rome, conductor: Ricardo Muti 11.12.2010 (JB)

Production team:

Director, sets, costumes and videos: Pier’ Alli

Choreographer: Shen Wei

Lighting: Guido Levi

Chorus master: Roberto Gabbiani

Cast:

Moïse: Ildar Abdrazakov

Pharaon: Nicola Alaimo

Aménophis (his son): Eric Cutler

Sinaide (his wife, the Queen): Sonia Ganassi

Anaï (the niece of Moïse): Erika Grimaldi

You could argue that today’s Italians have voted themselves into the political bondage in which they now find themselves, and in so doing, should forfeit any hint of self-pity. Self-recrimination is nevertheless much in fashion. Frustration is the usual syndrome here. And rebellion, confusion and divided loyalties are its most recognisable children.

All these themes, which at first sight might appear to belong to politically moral philosophy, find remarkably precise operatic expression in Rossini’s double handling of Moses: Mosè in Egitto (Naples, 1818) and the much longer and more elaborate Moïse et Pharaon (Paris, 1827). By making Moses’ niece, Anaï, the centre of the plot (Isabel Colbran sang this role in Naples before becoming the composer’s wife) and introducing a star-crossed Romeo and Juliet element into the story, the stage is set for eminently suitable operatic treatment. It works, too. Unsurprisingly, Rossini doesn’t disappoint.

The Rome Opera, which has artistically been in the doldrums for the past decade, has just opened its season with the ambitious French version, and it really does look as though the theatre has crossed the Dead Sea into the Promised Land. There will be further nationalistic rallying in February, when Muti returns to conduct Nabucco.

Like many Italian stage directors, Pier’ Alli began as a student of architecture. Like that same school of directors, he takes some pleasure in using singers and chorus as statues or scenery. Geometrical forms greatly please his eye. And ours too, it has to be said. The opera ends with the closing of the Red Sea over the Egyptian army. This was laughed off the stage at the San Carlo opening in Naples, and a time when mechanical invention was not up to convincingly staging such drama. Maestro Alli not only creates the effect poetically, but is much aided by Guido Levi’s original, imaginative lighting. And none of this seems gimmicky, though afterthought tells you there must be a mountain full of skilled tricks brought into play to create this breathtaking spectacle. The theatre’s casting director told me they had been rehearsing since July.

Projectors play on other projectors (more applause for Mr Levi here) to create an arresting impression of ancient Egypt, all with only the gentlest introduction of the odd familiar Egyptian cliché. And for all its amazing intricacy and constant flashes of detail, the entire performance shows dignified restraint: Pier’ Alli has learned only too well that all-important lesson of the theatre: less is more.

Another admirable master of that lesson is his soul-mate, the Chinese-American choreographer Shen Wei, who takes over the show, set in the Temple of Isis, which constitutes most of the third act (originally as a requirement for the Paris version). Mr Wei creates beauty of movement with a single head – or a group of heads - or with any other part of the human body. The economy of movement is its very beauty. The audience were holding their breath. Like Alli, Wei is reassuringly musical. Both of them plumbed Rossini’s sense: whenever the music calls for stillness it is there and the same when it calls for movement. Would that other stage directors listened so attentively to the composer.

All this admirable musical vision has to depend on the imaginative and surgical skills of the conductor. Rome had the greatest. Riccardo Muti’s choice of tempi are consistently perfect to the millimetre; arresting in their rightness whenever they are set, unfailingly polished in their immaculate maintenance and so musically authoritative as to cancel out the possibility of any alternative.

Yet for all his authority, Muti is constantly a humble servant to the music. It has been a long time since I heard the Rome orchestra play so well. And on no occasion in the last half century has the chorus sung so movingly as in the final prayer at the opera’s end (only added by Rossini a year after the fiasco of the Red Sea depiction in Naples). As is customary in Italian theatres, the prayer was repeated as an encore. No one could doubt that this was the Promised Land. A word of thanks also to the excellent new chorus master, Roberto Gabbiani.

Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakov, was the ideal protagonist. Was there ever a bass with such beauty of sound? That is a quality one doesn’t immediately associate with basses. It is nevertheless, Abdrazakov’s most striking asset: Christoff may have been more authoritative or Chaliapin a finer vocal actor, but if it is beauty of tone you are after, Abdrazakov is your chap. And to be a first among that particular trio is no mean achievement. The velvety, magnificently phrased tones of Abdrazakov also perfectly create the character of Moses in his humane phases as well as his wrath.

The only problem with Mr. Abdrazakov is that next to him, everyone else on stage sounds one-dimensional. I had to force myself to try to hear some very good singing from Nicola Alaimo as the Pharaoh. It is difficult to acknowledge good singing alongside superb vocal distinction. comparison is inevitable and when Abdrazakov is participating, it is understandably to the detriment of everyone else.

Erika Grimaldi is a young singer of very great promise and I look forward to hearing much more of her. But to thrust her into the overwhelmingly demanding, Isabel Colbran role of Anaï was sheer folly, like netting a tadpole down to the bottom of the ocean. Anna Kasyan had sung this role at previous performances.

This Rossini opera has duets and trios, rather than arias as set numbers. One such fine duet is between the Pharaoh’s Queen (Sonia Ganassi) and her son (Eric Cutler). Both are acclaimed artists, but unfortunately, the duet was delivered as a competition in forcing. She probably won. He merely sounded strangled. But the Ganassi forcing has a particularly nasty, guttural quality. Surprising that Maestro Muti had not told them that this is not late Verdi - where some striving for dramatic effect may be excused - but rather bel canto Rossini. In fairness, I should add that the Rome public do not share my view: Madame Ganassi was given an ovation at her final curtain-call.

Jack Buckley

 

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