Erich Wolfgang KORNGOLD (1897-1957)
Violanta, opera in one act
Violanta – Annemarie Kremer
Simone Trovai – Michael Kupfer-Radecki
Alfonso – Norman Reinhardt
Giovanni Bracca – Peter Sonn
Bice – Soula Parassidis
Barbara – Anna Maria Chiuri
Matteo – Joan Folqué
First Soldier – Cristiano Olivieri
Second Soldier – Gabriel Alexander Wernick
First Maid – Eugenia Braynova
Second Maid – Claudia De Pian
Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro Regio Torino/Pinchas Steinberg
First Italian performance. Sung in German.
rec. live, 21 and 23 January 2020, Teatro Regio Torino
DYNAMIC CDS7876 [79:28]
I will not echo what Jim Westhead has said about the DVD version of this recording in his erudite review. In the main, I agree with his observations, especially about Annemarie Kremer’s voluptuous singing in the title role. I prefer to concentrate on my overall impressions of the work and this performance.
One has to admire the prodigious talent of the young Korngold. He not only wrote this opera but he was simultaneously premiering another single-act opera, Der Ring des Polykrates. That was in March 1916 when he was not quite 19 years old!
The scope, setting, action and pacing of this darkly melodramatic little shocker is quite cinematic in a period when the film industry was very much in its infancy. The talkies were over a decade in the future. To my mind, the storyline and atmosphere of Violanta anticipate the films Korngold would later be asked to score in his Hollywood days, such as Anthony Adverse and Kings Row.
As to this production, I just wonder if an American company in, say, Washington or San Francisco would have insisted on much more sympathetic stage sets and costume designs (more akin to Korngold’s visualisations), lighting and so on – rather than the tawdry, minimalistic sort on show here. But then I am just echoing my constant gripes about what I consider to be the ugliness and cheapness of so much European stage production designs. On balance, I agree with Jim Westhead about performances. For me the standout is Norman Reinhardt as the hero Alfonso. He is ardent, lusty and most compelling.
Not a performance to treasure (and I would not welcome sitting through the DVD version, judging by the pictures of the set included with this CD).
Ian Lace
Previous review: Jim Westhead (DVD) ~ Paul Corfield Godfrey (Blu-ray)
