Adelaide Di Borgogna - Music drama in two acts (1817)
Adelaide, widow of Lotario, King of Italy - Jessica Pratt (soprano); Ottone, Emperor of Germany - Daniela Barcellona (mezzo); Adalberto, Berengario’s son - Bogdan Mihai (tenor); Berengario - Nicola Ulivieri (bass); Eurice, Berengario’s wife - Jeanette Fischer (soprano); Ernesto, an officer - Clemente Antomnio Daliotti (tenor); Iroldo, former governor of Canosso - Francesca Pierpaoli Wilde (tenor)
Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro
Comunale di Bologna/Dimitri Jurowski
rec. live, Teatro Rossini, 2011 Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro, August 2011
Stage director, Set Lighting and Costume designer: Pier' Alli
Video Director: Tiziano Mancini
Sound Format: PCM Stereo, DD 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio 5.1
Picture Format: 16:9, 1080i full HD
Subtitle Languages: Italian (original language), English, German, French, Spanish, Japanese, Korean
Bonus: the making of Adelaide di Borgogna
ARTHAUS MUSIK BLU-RAY 108 060 [137:00 +17:00 bonus]
As I noted in respect of Arthaus Music’s Blu-Ray issue of Rossini’s first
composition, Demetrio e Polibio from Pesaro the words World
Premiere Recording should only be used when accurate. In that case
the most common known recording dated back to 1992. Wrongly used again
here the excuse is less forgivable. Adelaide Di Borgogna was
performed and recorded, under the aegis of Opera Rara at the Edinburgh
Festival in 2005, the CDs appearing a year later (review).
Accuracy demands that where appropriate the word Video be added to the
advertising hype at Arthaus Musik.
Accuracy also demands some background in respect of the composition of
Adelaide Di Borgogna. Richard Osborne gives the work short space
and little explanation as to its composition in his otherwise valuable
book (The Belcanto Operas, Methuen, 1994 p.80), nor does he explain
why it did not open the Carnival Season at the Teatro Argentina as contracted.
The booklet note with this issue, whilst giving some historical background
in respect of Rossini in Rome, and his relationship with the impresario,
seems to mix up La Cenerentola with the delay in the premiere
of the new opera and which meant a loss of money to the impresario (p.7).
The success of Rossini’s Tancredi, premiered in Venice’s on 6
February 1813, firmly established the young man’s reputation as being
amongst the leading young Italian opera composers of his day. He quickly
consolidated that position with the sparkling L’Italiana in Algeri
also premiered in Venice on 22 May the same year. Whilst Milan was less
impressed with Il Turco in Italia (14 August 1814) other Italian
cities took it up with enthusiasm. These three works put Rossini in a
pre-eminent position among his competitors causing the formidable impresario
of the Royal Theatres of Naples, Domenico Barbaja, to offer him the musical
directorship of the theatres. Under the terms of his contract, Rossini
was to provide two operas each year for Naples whilst being permitted
to compose occasional operas for other cities. Rossini spent eight years
in Naples composing nine of his opera serie which contain some
of his greatest music. In the first two years of his contract he also
composed no fewer than five operas for other cities, including four for
Rome. These include Il Barbiere di Siviglia premiered on 20 February
1816 – which has become the composer’s most popular. His second most popular
opera, La Cenerentola, was also premiered in Rome in January
1817 after which he squeezed in La Gazza Ladra for Milan in May.
Rossini’s popularity in Rome contributed to his accepting a further commission
for that city even as he was rehearsing Armida for the San Carlo
in Naples in November. Barbaja had demanded a spectacular from the composer
to launch the refurbished San Carlo after a disastrous fire the year before.
With Rinaldo and Armida scheduled to descend on a cloud,
and other magical effects, rehearsals were demanding of his time. Despite
that, Rossini signed another Rome contract to open the carnival season
at the Teatro Argentina on 26 December 1817.
Some have suggested that the pressure of time for the new Rome opera left
the composer over-stretched and the result was too many corners being
cut. The chosen subject of Adelaide Di Borgogna was to be Rossini’s
first opera seria for Rome. It was to be his twenty-fifth opera. He pillaged
the overture from his first staged work, La Cambiale di Matrimonio,
premiered in 1810. There are other recognisable self-plagiarisms as well
as instances where he used the music in later works. More importantly,
for this opera seria Rossini did not utilise the more complex skills he
had acquired at the San Carlo, aided by its professional orchestra. Instead
he reverted to the earlier form of secco recitative and aria. It was not
unlike Mozart going back to that formal and somewhat static genre for
his La Clemenza di Tito after his three great da Ponte works
had seemed to take opera composition in an altogether different and more
entertaining direction. In Mozart’s case it was force of circumstances.
What made Rossini revert is not known. As the autograph does not survive
we do not know to what extent Rossini farmed out the recitatives, or any
of the other music, under the pressure of time. Adelaide Di Borgogna
was not a success in Rome and although it was seen in other parts of Italy
it had disappeared after around 1825. In the essay accompanying the Opera
Rara issue, Dr Jeremy Commons examines these issues, and whilst accepting
some of the arguments about weak passages, argues strongly in favour of
the work.
Schmidt’s libretto is set in 10th century Italy. It tells the
story of Adelaide whose husband has been killed by Berengario. She can
be returned to the throne if she marries Adalberto his son. The German
Emperor, Ottone, a trousers role, comes to her aid and, after his defeat
of Berengario, Adelaide and her saviour end in love and triumph. This
production updates the time to nearer the unification of Italy in 1861,
one hundred and fifty years before this performance. Perhaps the production
was intended as a celebration of the event, albeit being rescued by a
German, and having lived under Austrian occupation for so long it is hardly
likely. The army costumes in particular are indeterminate eighteenth or
nineteenth century. There are few stage props with the whole illustrated
by projections, as is the director’s speciality. Some might be deemed
appropriate and relevant; others less so. The positive view is that they
are, in my view, preferable to the treatment of Sigismondo and
Mosè in Egitto at Pesaro in 2010 (review)
and 2011 (review)
respectively, albeit he mars his creativity with stupid fighting with
umbrellas (CH.25) and a surfeit of shimmering water. The work does refer
to Como, and it does rain in that area more often than in Pesaro, but
the umbrella scene in particular is an aberration of taste and an insult
to the audience. Elsewhere, the backdrops and projections sometimes create
an elegant atmosphere as in the Church Scene (CH.16).
Apart from the tedium of constant secco recitatives, some items of the
music, particularly the duets, have plenty of Rossinian brio and thrust,
or at least as far as the variable tempi of the conductor allows. They
show the master’s hand whilst having provision for vocal display and dramatic
cohesion. These occasions are amply utilised by an outstanding quartet
of main soloists. In the eponymous role, the young Australian coloratura
soprano, Jessica Pratt, who I admired in the British premiere of Armida
at Garsington in 2010, (review)
is very good; a considerable career is well under way in this repertoire.
Her coloratura is exact and the top of the voice gleams. I was a little
uncertain at one point if her tone needed more body (CH.14) and was immediately
bowled over by her singing in the following duet with Ottone (CH.15).
It is a tour de force and is justifiably applauded with enthusiasm.
Any soprano duet with the formidable mezzo Daniela Barcellona in any Rossini
trouser role is going to get applause. Barcellona is the Rossini mezzo
de nos jours. There has been nobody of her singing and acting skill
in these roles and this repertoire since the formidable Marilyn Horne
hung up her vocal chords. It was no mistake on Rossini’s part that in
the act two finale the mezzo Ottone gets the best bits (CH.28). In this
performance Daniela Barcellona is formidable at this point whilst Jessica
Pratt gives her considerable all in the preceding near ten minute duet
with her mezzo colleague (CH.27).
If Jessica Prat is admirable in coloratura so too is the tenor Bogdan
Mihai as Aldalberto. A little stiff in his acting, his flexible pleasant
tone and formidable technique are heard to good effect, particularly in
duets with his father (CH.16), Ottone (CH.9) and Adelaide (CHs. 19-21).
His father, Berengario, is well sung and acted by the bass Nicola Ulivieri
whose sonorous, steady and characterful singing is a strength (CH.12),
and like that of Bogdan Mihai, is not equalled on the Opera Rara recording.
Add these two to the principal ladies and there is the making of a near
ideal quartet for Semiramide when Pesaro get around to it. Also
worthy of mention is the ever-reliable Jeanette Fischer in the comprimario
role of Eurice, Berengario’s wife.
Whilst the chorus of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna is outstanding I fear
that conductor, Dimitri Jurowski, does not exhibit much feel for the Rossini
idiom. It is a pity that Alberto Zedda, co-author – with Gabriele Gravagna
- of the Critical Edition used, is not on the rostrum rather than wasting
his time in the bonus about the making of the film and the production.
The picture quality is excellent as are the video choices of Tiziano Mancini.
Robert J Farr
Great Rossini singing in a tolerable production from the lovely Pesaro
theatre.
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