Niccolò PICCINNI (1728-1800)
L’Americano - Intermezzo for four voices in two acts (1772)
Donna Aurora, Lisandra’s fiancé - Giovanna Dondadini (mezzo-soprano)
Cavaliere Lisandro, an Italian aristocrat - Domenico Colaianni (baritone)
Villotto, an American - Simon Edwards (tenor)
Silvia, Aurora’s friend - Patrizia Ciofi (soprano)
Orchestra Internazionale d’Italia/Eric Hull
rec. live, Festival Valle d’Itria di Martina Franca, July 1996
DYNAMIC CDS 743/1-2 [75:04 + 74:28]
Niccolò Piccinni was one of the most prolific
opera composers in his own day. He worked for a long time in Rome before
moving to Paris where he was caught up in a high profile dispute with
Gluck. He lapsed into obscurity in the aftermath of the French Revolution.
Of his operas 119 survive - the whole total may have been as high as
300 - but he is hardly ever performed nowadays. Somewhat like Cherubini
and Meyerbeer, his historical importance is far in advance of his popularity.
On paper he is a prime candidate for revival, but I very much doubt
that L’Americano will spark any sort of renaissance.
The Festival Valle d’Itria specialises in promoting obscure operas
and they have a lot of experience in it. The musical performances given
here are noble and trusty. However, I regret to say that the work itself
struck me as utterly conventional and entirely unremarkable. It’s
as if you’re listening to all the conventions that Mozart and
Rossini superseded in their works; it’s like listening in on a
forgotten past. Nothing wrong with that, you might think, but music
moved on in the late 18th century and left Piccinni in the
dust. Consequently, my predominant view of this recording is that it
is of historical interest only.
Take, for example, the character of Cavaliere Lisandro. He is a standard
comic buffo role, the rich elder man whose betrothal does not work out
but who rescues matters for the younger couple in the end. He is sung
attractively enough here by Domenico Colaianni, but his arias consist
mostly of conventional harrumphing with no psychological insight that
I could detect. He manages to inject a little sparkle into Questo
e il Regno delle Femmine, his main rant in Act 2, but there isn’t
much else to write home about. Simon Edwards has a very pleasant tenor
voice, and his Act 1 aria, in particular, is pleasing on the ear; but
musically it is more diverting than interesting and all of his musical
material is easily forgettable. Furthermore, his tenor is quite similar
to Colaianni’s baritone, making them fairly difficult to distinguish
in the ensemble scenes.
Not even Patrizia Ciofi can inject much comic sparkle into the role
of Silvia. The arias of pathos suit her voice better, especially Mi
cercano l’agnelle in Act 1. Only Giovanna Dondadini manages
to inject some consistent verve into her part. The orchestral playing
feels regrettably heavy. I wonder would it have had more zing with a
period band? Also the live acoustic is plagued with echo, which doesn’t
help matters. Nor does the texture vary much with only four singers
and no chorus.
The biggest sin of all, however, is committed by Dynamic themselves,
whose packaging for this release is unforgivably slight. We get an interesting
enough essay giving some of the work’s background but there is
no libretto in either English or Italian. There is a very slight synopsis
- which isn’t cued - which only reinforces the feeling of the
opera’s conventionality. Most of the time I had to deduce what
was going on but was entirely divorced from the details. This really
isn’t good enough: how can they hope for an obscure work to catch
on if they’re not going to give you any help with it? This one
is only for historians, I fear, and even then only if they’re
prepared to work pretty hard at it.
Simon Thompson
