Mozart’s opera
Le Nozze di Figaro is
widely considered to be among the greatest ever penned. Designated an
opera buffa, it is based on the second of Beaumarchais’s
trilogy of plays set around Count Almaviva. It represents a superb marriage
of Mozart and the librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte, the character and life of
the latter surely being unique in the annals of music. His skills secured
him the position of Poet to the Imperial Theatres
in Vienna. In this
position he had ready access to the Emperor. This connection was important
in securing agreement to the subject of the opera, which, although staged in
more liberal Paris, was banned in Vienna.
The present performance is of a staging by Giorgio Strehler dating
back to 1980 and is recreated here by Marina Bianchi. Strehler was one of
Europe's most celebrated theatre directors. As an opera director he worked
at all the major international opera houses. At the Teatro alla
Scala
, Milan, he was responsible for outstanding and memorable
productions of Verdi's
Simon Boccanegra (1971) and
Macbeth
(1975), both of which, conducted by Claudio Abbado, led to memorable and
outstanding award-winning sound recordings issued by DG.
The costumes by Franca Squarsciapino are in period and generally
elegant, except that for Marcellina, and the tendency for the men’s
hats to keep falling off, albeit rescued by the professionalism of the cast.
Ezio Frigerio’s set for act one is a rather claustrophobic room with
parts poorly lit. However it is easily adapted as the Countess’s
bedroom for the act two shenanigans with Cherubino having to escape from the
window to avoid the Count, who is suspicious of what is going on behind the
locked door. The act three set is a long, picturesque and elegant gallery
that is perfect for the wide variety of comings and goings. The act four
garden scene, always problematic, is less successful than I have seen in
allowing for a realistic representation of the plot activity and the
confusion of who is who, all central to the finale.
This series of performances represented the La Scala debut of Diana
Damrau as Susanna. What a delightful and superb interpretation, both sung
and acted, she presents. Certainly she portrays a feisty young lass who
would make a perfect wife for this revolutionary Figaro in the person of the
tall and handsome Ildebrando D'Arcangelo. She would be a handful to any man,
Count or otherwise, who thinks he will have first call on a virginal wife on
their wedding night. All of D'Arcangelo’s vocal contributions, both in
recit and aria (notably DVD 1 CH.8 and DVD 2 CH.27), are outstandingly sung
and portrayed in his acting. Damrau’s qualities as singer and actress
match his throughout with a beautifully placed and phrased
Deh vieni
(DVD 2 CH.35) in act four. Her sheer quality does tend to put into the shade
the rather tentative and stiff Countess of Orsatti Talamanca whose
Porgi
amor (DVD 1 CH.24) and
Dove Sono (DVD 2 CH.12) lack the emotion
and legato of the truly great interpreters. Marcella Monica Bacelli as
Cherubino looks somewhat too feminine whilst singing her two arias
adequately (DVD 1 CHs.14 and 27). Oriana Kurteshi is a pert, pleasing and
worldly-wise Barbarina. The vastly experienced Jeanette Fischer, somewhat
like her costume, overplays her part. She sings her act four aria with
conviction, however (DVD 2 CH.27).
Of the men, Pietro Spagnoli as Count Almaviva sings well but seems
somewhat overwhelmed by the role. He is an excellent bravura Figaro in
Rossini’s
Il Barbiere di Siviglia (see
review) but should be more arrogantly forceful than he
comes across here. His true baritone is easy on the ear but, as portrayed, I
don’t think his Count really has much chance up against this Figaro.
As it should be, Maurizio Muraro is vocally biting as Don Bartolo in
La
vendetta (DVD 1 CH.10) whilst Gregory Bonfatti is rather young-looking
and less than effective as the scheming Basilio. He makes little of his act
four aria (DVD 2 CH.31).
The film detail is good with the Video Director, Fausto
Dall’Olio, contributing a nice balance of shots. On the rostrum
Gérard Korsten is a little penny plain. There is, I suggest, more
joie de vivre in Mozart’s music than he finds.
This Susanna and Figaro are among the very best, but overall the
performance lacks the zip of the more evenly cast 2005 Covent Garden
production by David McVicar and conducted by Pappano.
Donizetti had found fame with his
Anna Bolena in Milan
1830, the first of his ‘Tudor Trilogy’. At the time of the
composition of
Maria Stuarda in 1834 he had embarked on
the richest compositional period of his career. With the death of Bellini
the previous year he was in a pre-eminent position among Italian opera
composers. Of his previous forty-five or so operas at that date, nearly half
had been composed for Naples. He had returned there early in 1834 with a
contract to write one serious opera each year for the Royal Theatre, the San
Carlo, as well as having an invitation from Rossini to write for the
Théâtre Italien in Paris. Things looked up for him even more
when, in June, by command of the King of Naples, he was appointed professor
at the Royal College of Music in Naples.
When the renowned librettist Romani failed to come up with a
libretto for his contracted opera Donizetti turned to a young student,
Giuseppe Bardari, who converted Schiller’s play. During rehearsals
there was a physical spat between the singers of Queens Mary and Elisabeth
around a notorious line in the libretto when Mary refers to Elisabeth as the
bastard daughter of Anne Boleyn. News must have reached the Royal Palace
where Queen Christina, wife of King Ferdinand of Naples, and a descendant of
Mary Stuart objected. The King acted as censor and banned the new opera.
Donizetti composed some new music and titled the work
Buondelmonte.
Not unexpectedly it was not a resounding success. Donizetti withdrew it
after its Naples performances, determined to have
Maria Stuarda
performed somewhere in the form he had originally planned. It finally
reached the stage at La Scala in December 1835 where after a mere six
performances it was also withdrawn on the instructions of the Milanese
censors.
Maria Stuarda did not reach Naples in its original form until
1865 when both composer and Bourbon rulers were gone and after which it
disappeared until revived in 1958 in Bergamo, Donizetti’s home-town.
During the 1970s the likes of Joan Sutherland, Montserrat Caballé,
Leyla Gencer and Beverley Sills took up the title role ensuring its future
in opera houses in Italy and elsewhere. In the present day it is regularly
revived and in January 2013 was featured in cinemas worldwide in a
transmission from the Metropolitan Opera New York where Joyce DiDonato had a
great success in the title role. The meeting between the two queens never
took place historically and is an invention of Schiller’s for dramatic
effect.
Whilst the manuscript of
Maria Stuarda is lost, several
non-autograph manuscripts exist as do ten pieces from
Buondelmonte
and ten from Milan of
Maria Stuarda. This performance of Anders
Wiklund’s Critical Edition, is given in two acts. The original act
two, the Fotheringay Scene and the meeting between the Queens are given as
scenes 6 (Chs 14-16), 7 (CHs. 17-19) and scene 8 (CHs. 20-23) of act one.
The essential set of Pizzi’s design highlights the prison
theme, comprising vertical bars among which are horizontal walkways. There
is also a central stepped dais. This prison motif is only broken for the
start of the Fotheringay scene when the bars are replaced by an effective
transformation into trees and parkland. The bars reappear as Elisabeth
enters. Costumes are in period with Elisabeth in the first scene of act one
regally dressed with long train and ornamental headgear. In the Fotheringay
scene she wears a long cream coat and incongruous pearls over leathers and
wields a whip for the meeting with her rival. She looks like an upmarket
dominatrix as she strides the stage. Her lifting of Maria’s chin with
the whip as the latter kneels in supplication is one stage to far for the
Catholic Queen who vents her fury at Elisabeth (CH.22) with the fateful
phrases spat out with the ultimate insult
Profanato e il soglio inglese,
vil bastards, dal tuo pie! (The English throne is profaned, despicable
bastard, by your presence!). Mariella Devia may never have had the
recognition of Sutherland and Sills in this repertoire, but here she shows
what a fine actress and considerable
bel-cantist she is, even at this
autumn of her career. The poignancy of her singing and acting in the final
scenes, dressed in red as historical record demands, is as good as it gets.
She sings a superbly expressive confession (CH.31) and lament (CH.34) with
carefully weighted tone and legato line. Her facial and body acting
supplements the words as she asks that her blood redeem all and makes
supplication for the life of Elisabeth who has condemned her. As the cannon
shot is heard she then ascends to the block, where the executioner wielding
his axe has appeared, for the final well-staged dramatic moments (CHs.
33-36).
The confrontation scene with Maria also brings out the best in Anna
Caterina Antonacci’s Elisabeth. Not always as pure vocally as her
rival queen, she can certainly act and spit fire. She further ups the
emotional temperature as she plays on Leicester’s emotions
(CHs.11-13). She matches Mariella Devia for vocal expression in the
confrontation scene. As Leicester, loved by the Queen and in love with
Maria, Francesco Meli is somewhat of a disappointment vocally. At this stage
of his career he had not successfully managed the move from the high
tessitura of the Rossini and Bellini opera seria roles. Simone Alberghini is
a sonorous Talbot in need of more facial expression whilst Pietro Terranova
is both vocally, and as an actor, wholly appropriate as Cecil. Paola Gardina
sings appealingly as Anna.
The whole performance is well held together by Antonino Fogliani in
the pit. The chorus make a vibrant contribution and Pizzi’s direction
is well caught by the video director. The sound cannot be faulted. At its
original issue I gave this performance the imprimatur of
Recording of the
Month. I have no reason to doubt that judgement now.
Having mentioned Giorgio Strehler’s virtues as an opera producer
at La Scala and knowing something of the virtues of his production of
Simon Boccanegra I had hopes that Domingo’s
performance of the Doge would be a recreation of that production. However,
when I learned that this was shared with the Berlin Staatsoper where it was
seen in 2009 I knew it would be another production team; so it proved and
not for the better.
Having sung his first Verdi baritone role, as Boccanegra, in this
production in Berlin in 2009, Domingo appeared as the Doge at New
York’s Metropolitan Opera and then at London’s Covent Garden
before his return to the production at La Scala. Both of those other
productions were filmed and preceded this release (
see review of the Covent Garden production).
In my review I give the background to the failure of Verdi’s
first, 1857, version of the opera and the revisions that made this second
version a success at La Scala in 1881. The revision also set in motion the
composer’s association with the composer and librettist Arrigo Boito.
This later led to the composition of his last two great masterpieces,
Otello and
Falstaff. As far as Domingo’s three filmed
interpretations of the Doge go, the bad news is that the limitations of this
film and production puts it a poor third. This, whatever the histrionic and
vocal strengths he brings to the role having really got under its skin at
those other venues.
The set opens with a silhouette of a ship and its rigging with
sailors scampering on the ropes. That can be clearly seen which is more than
can be said about what follows as Boccanegra goes to Fiesco’s palace
in the hope of seeing his beloved Maria, only to find her dead. Somewhere in
the gloom - I hope it was better in the theatre - is a staircase down which
Maria’s coffin is carried. The Council Chamber Scene, added by Boito
for the 1881 revision is justifiably dominated by the Doge’s throne.
For the rest visual mediocrity abounds with a change of period dress for the
last act for no sensible reason I could discern.
Domingo himself is fully involved as an actor. He fails however, as
he did in the other films to convince in the part of the Council Chamber
Scene when he calls on the assembly
Plebe! Patrizi! (CH.22). He
simply lacks the ideal weight of baritonal colour. The flip side is his
final
Oh figlia as he leaves his newly discovered daughter. That
phrase has defeated many baritones including Tito Gobbi.
As Boccanegra’s daughter, the tall and elegant Anja Harteros
looks a little mature and sings with stronger tone than perhaps befits the
role. That said, Amelia is no wimp as she escapes her abductors and enters
the Council Chamber in session to describe her abduction (CH.21). I would
have preferred her to be singing either of Verdi’s two Leonoras, that
is those in
Il Trovatore or
La forza del destino,
both
of
which lean towards the spinto end of the soprano fach. As her lover
Gabriele Adorno, Fabio Sartori is no match vocally or physically for the
more elegant Joseph Calleja at Covent Garden. Ferruccio Furlanetto is
likewise no match with his own greater sonority at the London venue,
sounding distinctly raspier of tone (CH.5, 34-38). The Paolo of Massimo
Cavaltetti would have passed muster if I had not seen the vastly experienced
Jonathan Summers in the London performances.
Barenboim’s interpretation is, as one would expect, carefully
considered and crafted but it lacks the fire and turn of the Verdian wrist
of Pappano in London.
As to the whole, I finished my viewing more convinced as to the
virtues of the Elijah Moshinsky production with Michael Yeargan’s sets
at the London House.
Robert J Farr
See also my reviews of the original releases of
Figaro and
Maria Stuarda
Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART (1756-1791)
Le Nozze Di Figaro - Opera buffa in four acts (1786)
Susanna, maid to the Countess - Diana Damrau (soprano); Figaro,
manservant to the Count - Ildebrando D'Arcangelo (bass-baritone); Count
Almaviva, Pietro Spagnoli (baritone); Countess Almaviva, Orsatti Talamanca
(soprano); Cherubino, a young buck around the palace - Marcella Monica
Bacelli (mezzo);
Marcellina, a mature lady owed a debt by Figaro - Jeannette Fischer
(mezzo); Don Basilio, a music master and schemer - Gregory Bonfatti (tenor).
Don Bartolo - Maurizio Muraro (bass); Barbarina - Oriana Kurteshi (soprano)
Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro Alla Scala, Milan/Gérard
Korsten
rec. live, Teatro Alla Scala, Milan, 2006
Original stage direction: Giorgio Strehler (1980). Revived by Marina
Bianchi
Set Design: Ezio Frigerio
Costume Design: Franca Squarsciapino
Video Director: Fausto Dall’Olio
Sound Format: PCM Stereo, DD 5.1. Picture Format: 16:9. DVD Format
NTSC 2 x DVD 9
Subtitle Languages: Italian (original language), English, German,
French, Spanish, Korean, Japanese
Also available separately as 101589 [2 DVDs: 187:00]
Gaetano DONIZETTI (1797-1848)
Maria Stuarda - Lyric tragedy in three acts
(1834)
Performed in the Critical Edition by Anders Wiklund
Elisabetta, Elisabeth I of England - Anna Caterina Antonacci
(mezzo); Maria Stuarda, Mary, Queen of Scots - Mariella Devia (soprano);
Roberto, Count of Leicester - Francesco Meli (tenor); Giorgio Talbot -
Simone Alberghini (bass-baritone); Lord Guglielmo Cecil - Pietro Terranova
(baritone); Anna, Maria’s companion - Paola Gardina (soprano)
La Scala Chorus and Orchestra/Antonino Fogliani
Stage direction, set design and costumes: Pier Luigi Pizzi
rec. live, Teatro Alla Scala, Milan, January 2008
Bonus:
Maria Stuarda backstage
Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo/Dolby Digital 5.1
Region code: 0
Menu language: English
Subtitles: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian
Also available separately as 101 361 [138:00 + 13:00 bonus]
Giuseppe VERDI (1813-1901)
Simon Boccanegra - Melodrama in a Prologue and Three
Acts
(Revised 1881 version)
Simon Boccanegra, a sometime corsair and Doge of Genoa - Placido
Domingo (baritone); Maria Boccanegra, Simon’s daughter known as Amelia
Grimaldi - Anja Harteros (soprano); Jacopo Fiesco, a Genoese nobleman -
Ferruccio Furlanetto (bass); Gabrielle Adorno, a Genoese gentleman in love
with Maria - Fabio Sartori (tenor); Paolo Albiani, a courtier - Massimo
Cavalletti (baritone); Pietro, another courtier - Ernesto Panariello (bass)
Orchestra and Chorus of La Scala Milan/Daniel Barenboim
Stage Director: Federico Tiezzi
Set Designer: Pier Paolo Bisleri Costume Designer: Giovanna Buzzi
rec. live, Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 2010
Picture format: 16:9
Sound formats: LPCM Stereo. DD 5.1
Booklet essay and synopsis in English, French, German
Subtitles in Italian (sung language), English, German, French,
Spanish, Korean
Also available separately as 101 595 [149:00]
[4 DVDs]
