Comparison Recordings:
Gelmetti, Corbelli, Feller, Kuebler,
Stuttgart RSO, Schwetzingen Festival
1989, [ADD] Teldec Laserdisk 9031-71482-6.
[No current DVD release.]
Marin, Battle, Ramey, Desderi, Lopardo,
Larmore, ECO, (1) DG 435 865-2
Viotti, Pratico, De Carolis, Orciani,
Filarmonici di Torino. (2) Claves CD
50-8904/5
This work is one of
a group of comedy operas which made
Rossini famous all but overnight and
spawned imitators for a hundred years
— Offenbach, Sullivan, J. Strauss, etc.
The plot is a cute twist on the usual
mish-mash of young love thwarted by
parental arrangements of marriage, stolen
letters and mistaken identity, with
everything sorted out in the last scene.
This was Rossini’s ninth opera and the
decks were now clear for L’Italiana
in Algeri — and superstardom — two
years hence. What were you doing when
you were nineteen years old?
With this opera we
are fortunate in having in the Schwetzingen
Festival recording as nearly perfect
a video recording as has ever been made
of any opera. Every singer is a superb
actor as well as vocalist; costumes
and staging are excellent, conducting,
playing and recording are all exceptional.
Although the audience gets things explained
to them pretty early in the story, nothing
quite prepares you for the actual entrance
of the real Signor Bruschino figlio
in the last scene, one last joke to
cap a marvellous entertainment. No wonder
the curtain calls went on forever. And
why is that recording not currently
in print on DVD? Write letters to everyone
you know demanding its release and if
you have any interest in opera at all,
you will want to buy it at your earliest
opportunity. Even people who have no
current interest in opera may change
their minds when they see and hear that
one.
In comparison, this
Virtuosi Italiani performance is a rather
smooth, uninvolving run-through. The
playing is highly skilled, the singers
concentrate on beautiful tone not on
dramatic urgency, not inappropriate
since we have nothing to look at, although
this is a little surprising since Desderi
during his singing career was not only
a dazzling technician but also something
of a ham. The recorded perspective is
very close but entirely suitable for
concert listening. The opera generally
runs 83 minutes, so there may be just
a little trimming here to get it on
one disk. As usual with the new Naxos
releases, the sound is stunningly clear
and wide range and will likely be available
on a DVD-Audio soon. None of these singers
is as good as their counterparts in
the Schwetzingen version. This is of
course the original version of the overture
for 18th century orchestra, not the
full modern orchestra version with augmented
percussion often played by pops concert
orchestras.
The Viotti recording
is also digital, a somewhat more realistic
distant theatrical perspective, performed
with more involvement. This is also
a studio recording but has a lot more
dramatic presence than the Desderi version,
favourably comparable with the Schwetzingen
version. Sound has been brightened and
does not have the range of the Desderi
version. Gaudenzio’s Nel teatro del
gran mondo (sung by Bruno Pratico)
is a real coloratura show-stopper whereas
the version by Maurizio Leoni on the
Desderi recording is bland by comparison.
Lastly we come to the
real star of the CD versions, Ion Marin
with the ECO. Right off we know we’re
in for something special; Marin boldly
punctuates the drama of the overture
having drilled his violinists in a whole
range of bow-tapping sounds, loud, soft,
crescendo, etc. The singers all
sound gorgeous, and make up for the
missing visual element with lots of
exaggerated sighs, smooches, squeaks
and gasps, and by sharply modelling
their delivery, perhaps too much at
times. Every one of Desderi’s* che
caldo’s is in a different voice
whereas, in the Schwetzingen version,
Alberto Rinaldi makes at least as good
a joke out of saying each one exactly
the same way. In the end, the Schwetzingen
version achieves a unity of ensemble
that prevails over all others.
A serious musicological
problem occurs during the overture where
Rossini instructed the string players
to strike their music stands several
times in a six beat cadence which is
some other places divided into three
sets of two beats each. The obvious
historical musical reference is to the
three solemn brass notes in Mozart’s
Magic Flute — but with the resemblance
to fate knocking at the door, the obvious
forward reference is to Mahler’s Sixth
Symphony, and in fact this clearly
solves the problem of whether there
should be two or three hammerblows in
that work. Three are required, unmistakably
three! The problem here is that Rossini
obviously intended that the players
would knock their wooden bows on their
wooden music stands, or perhaps the
glass chimneys of the candle-holders
attached to their music stands. But
in defiance of scholarship and all common
decency, modern recordings uniformly
use metal music stands! The Schwetzingen
performers go even further astray, actually
striking their bows on the metal shades
of their electric music-stand lights!
We languish yet in vain for a true,
correct original instruments recording
of the Bruschino Overture.
*The same as the conductor
of the Naxos version.
Paul Shoemaker
see also reviews
by Christopher
Howell and Robert
Farr
I Virtuosi Italiani/Claudio Desderi 
