You wait decades for a new
Semiramide then
two come along at once! Hot on the heels of
Dynamic’s
release from De Vlaamse Oper comes this one, also recorded live,
from the Rossini in Wildbad festival in 2012. There are a lot of good
things about it, though it hasn’t altered my preferences and I
think the Dynamic one is stronger.
Alex Penda is a very impressive Semiramide. Unusually for this role,
her rich, lustrous vocal tone is more suited to the middle and bottom
of the part, though that is not to undermine her security at the top.
Her coloratura is very impressive and the distinctive colour of her
voice stands out well in the ensembles. The opulence of her tone suits
the role of the queen very well indeed, and lends an extra touch of
class to her big set piece,
Bel ragghio lusinghier. However,
she seems a little afraid of really letting go in that aria, so that
the coloratura feels rushed and it lacks the final edge of accuracy.
She, therefore, has to give way to other Semiramides on disc, most recently
Myrtò Papatanasiu in the Dynamic set, who is excellent in every
way.
Marianna Pizzolato’s Arsace is a disappointment in comparison
with Zedda’s Ann Hallenberg. Her tone is less distinctive and
rather too throaty so that many of the words are obscured in her first
aria. Nor is her coloratura as razor-sharp as that of her colleagues,
though her ornamentations are appropriate and impressive, despite a
needlessly high, out-of-the-blue conclusion to her first aria. However,
she is no match for Penda’s Semiramide, meaning that in both their
great duets Arsace sounds overwhelmed by the altogether more powerful
presence of the queen, though the blend of voices is admittedly more
convincing in their second duet than in their first.
Lorenzo Ragazzo is excellent as Assur. He is always lyrical and inherently
musical, but he keeps just the right amount of darkness to his voice
to remind us of the character’s villainy. He tears strips off
Pizzolato in their duet and is every inch the equal of Penda in their
great second act confrontation. This is, in fact, the highlight of the
set, as the two finest performers in the cast square up to one another
and, with a real chill of horror, remember the night of Ninio’s
murder. He also sounds fantastic in his Act 2 mad scene, sailing close
to the wind but succeeding thrillingly.
John Osborn, whose tenor I have often praised in these pages, is real
luxury casting in the small role of Idreno. Including both of his oft-cut
arias here makes eminent sense, and both are very impressive. He tosses
off the leaps, runs and roulades as if it were all in a day’s
work and the clean-ness of his tone is a joy to the ear. Andrea Mastroni
is an authoritative and interesting presence as Oroe, and Marija Jokovic’s
brief appearances as Azema are very attractive.
The orchestral playing is broadly very good, though the recording balance
favours the singers against them so that often the inner textures aren’t
particularly well brought out: a notable casualty of this is the all-important
trombone line in the overture. Fogliani’s direction is broadly
secure, though he pulls the tempo around a little disconcertingly in
the overture.
On the whole, though, and despite some excellent individual contributions,
this set hasn’t really changed my order of preferences for this
opera - and which I mentioned
here.
In many ways it’s a shame that this one has to suffer from the
comparison with Zedda’s recently arrived set - if Naxos had waited
a little then the comparisons would have been less pronounced. However,
the one advantage this one definitely has is price: it’s the cheapest
Semiramide on the market and, therefore, the quality to price
ratio is definitely high. No libretto in the booklet, though Naxos provide
the Italian text
online.
Simon Thompson
