MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

alternatively
MDT AmazonUK AmazonUS

Lauro ROSSI (1812–1885)
Cleopatra - Melodrama in Four Acts (1876)
Cleopatra - Dimitra Theodossiou (soprano); Marco Antonio - Alessandro Liberatore (tenor); Ottavio Cesare - Paolo Pecchioli (bass); Diomede - Sebastian Catana (bass-baritone); Proculejo - William Corrò (bass); Ottavia - Tiziana Carraro (alto)
Coro Lirico Marchigiano ‘V. Bellini’
Orchestra Filarmonica Marchigiana/David Crescenzi
rec. Teatro Lauro Rossi, Sferisterio Festival, Macerata, Italy, 24-29 July 2008
Director, set and costume designer: Pier Luigi Pizzi
Dual Layer Disc. Sound format Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo. Dolby Surround 5.0.
Video format, NTSC: No Region Coding. Aspect Ratio: 16:9
NAXOS 2.110279 [114:56]

Experience Classicsonline

Dates tell you an awful lot when it comes to opera. Take Lauro Rossi for example. Born two years after Verdi, he died two years before the premiere of the great Italian master’s Otello. His Cleopatra, based on an Egyptian theme, was premiered four and a half years after Verdi’s Aida, also based on an Egyptian theme. Although Rossi seems not to merit even a mention in Michael and Joyce Kennedy’s Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music (Fifth Edition, 2007), he was no operatic or composer ingénue. On the contrary, he was among those chosen by Verdi to compose a section of the proposed Messe per Rossini - in his case the Agnus Dei. It is also true that his name does not feature, along with seven others of the twelve chosen by Verdi for that composition, in the esoteric list of operatic composers found in the Opera Rara catalogue. This is perhaps forgivable as even the vastly experienced Pier Luigi Pizzi, director of this production, claimed not to have heard of him until this production! He should have done more home-work. I have a performance of Rossi’s comic opera Il Domino Nero recorded live with the Orchestra Filarmonica Marchigiana, the same as here, on 28 September 2001. Nor should Pizzi have been surprised given the name of the theatre where this performance of Cleopatra took place, rather than in the open-air arena normally the venue of the large-scale opera performances of the Sferisterio Festival (See reviews of Maria Stuarda, Macbeth and Norma from the 2007 Festival). Meanwhile, we should be grateful that Pizzi’s efforts at fund-raising saved the Festival, albeit with some changes of programme after the withdrawal of state funding; perhaps shadows of things to come nearer home in the UK.

Fortunately the essay in the accompanying leaflet is highly informative. Rossi premiered a shared composition at the San Carlo, Naples, in 1830 after which his compositions came thick and fast. On Donizetti’s recommendation he was offered an appointment at the Teatro Valle in Rome. His tenth opera was premiered at La Scala in 1834 indicating that Rossi composed at a similar pace to Donizetti and Rossini, as was necessary to earn a living in an era when the diva was paid more than the composer. After the failure of a commission for the great diva Maria Malibran in Naples in 1834, Rossi took his talents to North and South America where he was music director and organizer of several opera companies. After a return to Europe Rossi was not short of work, composing both comic and tragic operas. His comic opera Il Domino Nero, presented in Milan in 1849, was a great success. But when the security of an academic post was offered in Milan in 1850 he took it and his pace of composition lessened. Even so six of his works were a success during this period. He moved to Naples Music Conservatory in 1870, working there until 1878 during which time he wrote his penultimate work Cleopatra, and after which he retired to the musical town of Cremona.

Premiered at the Teatro Regio, Turin, on 5 March 1876, Rossi’s Cleopatra caught the public’s imagination. Whether or not Verdi’s Aïda premiered five years earlier influenced his composition, or its reception, is conjectural. Whilst the musical style lacks the bravura of Verdi’s creation it is composed with the dramatic situations well supported by the music, be that in aria, duet or ensemble. Despite the well-known nature of the love of Anthony, Antonio here, and the eponymous heroine, Rossi’s Cleopatra requires a clear and easily comprehensible production. In this respect none does that better than the vastly experienced Pier Luigi Pizzi, especially as - his norm these days - he also designs the sets and costumes. The costumes of the Roman contingent are very much in period with bare knees and togas for the men and long decorous red dresses for the women; the colour differentiating them from the white of the Egyptians. Cleopatra herself is dressed wholly in a black, somewhat voluminous dress. Her admirer, Diomede is also dressed in all black but with an ornament. The single set is very much standard Pizzi mainly comprising wide-stepped stairs with the odd black flat surface downstage where the eponymous heroine has some of her dramatic moments in clear focus.

I do not know which came first, the signing of Dimitra Theodossiou or the choice of opera. They certainly go well together. The work requires a big dramatic-voiced Cleopatra who can throw her voice and whole being into the portrayal. The downside of Dimitra Theodossiou in any repertoire of this type is an intrusive vibrato at dramatic climaxes. I would not wish to overstate this, as the impact is less than it might be. Her vocal contribution is significantly superior to that of her colleagues, most notably in Cleopatra’s act two-aria sequence starting with Lieto in raggio (Chs.9-11) as bereft in her palace Cleopatra yearns for Antonio. As her advisor and would-be suitor Diomede, Sebastian Catana, more bass than baritone, is among the best of a variable supporting cast (Chs.4, 5,12,13). The tenor Antonio, Alessandro Liberatore, is musical but lacks the required heft and clear ping to his voice (Chs.24-26). As Ottavio Cesare, who wishes Antonio to marry his sister in order that he can wage a successful war in the east, Paolo Pecchioli’s bass has more cover than clarity and the role loses some dramatic impact as a consequence (Chs.9, 28); one senses a good voice trying to escape. With her strong contraltoish tones Tiziana Carraro, as Cesare’s sister Ottavia, has too much dramatic impact than the role really calls for (Chs.16-18). David Crescenzi, the chorus master, conducts the performance. He stepped in at the very last minute and as a consequence the extant overture was not performed. Like the chorus he prepared, his achievement in Rossi’s little known opera is considerable.

The music itself falls somewhere between that of the Italian bel canto and the verismo composers. You will look in vain for the fibre and character of Verdi’s Aida, let alone of Otello. Nonetheless it is melodic and contains several dramatic confrontations and some notable scenes, including the thrilling ensemble that closes Act 3.

The DVD direction shows a little of the intimate theatre. During the opera itself not much is seen of the whole of the stage, the director focusing on close-ups or mid-shots. The sound and picture quality are good.

Robert J Farr

see also review by Brian Wilson

 

 

 

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.