Which is best? To see one opera a hundred times or
a hundred operas once each? Or, to make a less extreme example, if you
are a keen and experienced opera-goer with at least 100 visits to an
opera house to your credit, how many different operas did you see in
your last 100 visits? 10? 20? Would "not more than 30" be
near the mark? And why not? The masterworks are inexhaustible and no
other art form contains so many variables.
But now what about this. You are a keen and experienced
cinema-goer with over a hundred visits to the cinema behind you. How
many different films did you see in your last 100 visits? 100? I’d guess
at least 90.
What’s different about the two things? Why do opera-lovers
mull and chew over different interpretations of their favourite roles
while a cinema-lover, having seen a favourite actor in a new role, is
already hankering after his next interpretation. OK, let’s not generalise
too much, there are some films that people see again and again, but
not so many as there are operas. Still, I think it’s fair to say that
nobody feels cheated if they see a decently paced, decently directed,
decently acted film, and at the end of it don’t remember very much.
They have been entertained, nobody intended anything more high-brow
than that, and the next time they go to the cinema it will be to see
another film like it.
Well, the point of this preamble is that in early 19th
Century Italy people went to the opera the way people of the next century
went to the cinema. When the Roman audience assembled in the Teatro
Pallacorda in 1796 to hear the first opera – or, rather, "Farce
with Seven Characters" – by the young Neapolitan composer Gaspare
Spontini, they went, not to a holy temple but to an evening’s entertainment,
and as long as it was decently paced, decently melodious and decently
sung, that was enough. They didn’t necessarily expect to hear it again,
the next time they would go to hear something else. In fact, the next
year Spontini was invited back to Rome, not to repeat the same piece,
but to bring out a new one. (Spontini, of course, later wrote one of
opera’s near misses, La Vestale, not so long ago brought back
to life by Muti at La Scala).
So where does that leave us today? Is there any point
in cluttering up the house with two CDs that you’ll probably enjoy,
but won’t need to hear again? Well, since the Arte Nova price is about
on a level with an evening out at the cinema, then I’d say yes, why
not, and you can always flog it at a car boot sale when you’ve finished
with it. And, as ephemera goes, the opera is a classy product. Spontini’s
handling of the orchestra was a cut above the average – hear the woodwind
writing in the trio Gli augelli garruli or the flute obbligato
to Giannina’s aria Dolce auretta lusinghiera – and he was already
a dab hand at keeping the characters well-differentiated in the ensembles.
It does everything a comic opera is expected to do – but don’t think
you’re going to get Mozart or even Rossini.
If you’re not going to hear it again perhaps the performance
does not matter too much, but be assured that it is well recorded and
excellently conducted. Keitel really knows how to pace a comic opera,
rattling the recitatives off like anything and keeping the ensembles
on their toes. There are some excellent wind soloists in the orchestra.
The singers? They’re a bit of a mixed bunch. Johanna Hansen as Giannina
is named as a soprano and I’ve dutifully called her that in the details
above, but the range of the part is for mezzo and she certainly sounds
like a mezzo, and a fairly jaded, chesty one at that. She rather struggles
with her Italian, almost falling behind the rhythm in the faster moments,
and unable to bite the words. The gentler aria Dolce auretta
suggests that she may be worth hearing in different music.
There are two other sopranos and they get an aria each.
Charlotte Zeiher is a light soprano, lively in recitatives, but her
aria reveals problems with high notes, which take on a wide vibrato
and sometimes come out sharp. Paola Antonucci is worth watching; a bright,
forward voice with plenty of body. She is sometimes reckless with it
but she has a lot of character and her aria is perhaps the one thing
hear I’d hear again.
Both baritones are good, typical Italian comic singers.
Of the tenors Patrizio Saudelli aspirates his runs very noticeably and
has some fairly excruciating high notes, which go right up to a top
C sharp. José Medina is much pleasanter on the ear and may be
worth looking out for.
The booklet has a useful note on Spontini and a very
sketchy summary of the plot in English, French and German. The libretto
itself is in Italian only and if you can read it then it’ll lead you
quite a dance. Minor alterations of words and sentences are frequent,
and whole chunks of recitative – even whole scenes – are printed but
not performed. On the other hand Rosimene sings an aria that isn’t printed
here. Are performers and printers working from two different versions
of the opera?
I’m not sure what sort of recommendation this all adds
up to, since it depends who you are. I hope it will be clear from what
I’ve said above whether this is for you or not.
Christopher Howell
Johanna Hansen (Giannina,
soprano), Giampiero Ruggeri (Conte Brontolone), Guido Boesi (Dottore Mangiacarte,
baritone), Patrizio Saudelli (Valerio, tenor), Paola Antonucci (Rosimene,
soprano), José Medina (Cavaliere del Ciufolo, tenor), Charlotte
Zeiher (Lisetta, soprano), Putbus Festival Orchestra/Wilhelm Keitel