Gioachino ROSSINI (1792-1868)
Il barbiere di Siviglia, melodramma buffa in two acts
(1816)
Count Almaviva, in love with Rosina – Dmitry Korchak (tenor); Figaro, a barber and general factotum, Leo Nucci (baritone); Bartolo, a doctor and ward of Rosina – Carlo Lepore (bass); Rosina, Bartolo’s ward – Nino Machaidze (mezzo); Basilio, a singing teacher – Ferruccio Furlanetto (bass); Berta, Dr. Bartolo’s housekeeper – Manuella Custer (soprano); Fiorello, Count Almaviva’s servant – Nicolò Ceriani (baritone)
Orchestra, Chorus and Ballet of the Arena di Verona/Daniel Ores
rec. live, August 2017, Arena di Verona
Picture Format 1BDSO 1080l Full HD Colour 16:9.
Subtitles in Italian (original language), English, French, German, Spanish Japanese and Korean
BELAIR CLASSIQUES Blu-ray BAC469 [162 mins]
As the sun sets on the Veneto and the shadows increase from the edges of the largest opera theatre in the world, the Verona Arena, seating nearly fifteen thousand people, Daniel Oren climbs onto the conductor’s podium wearing his trademark yarmulke, and a unique performance of Rossini’s buffo masterpiece gets underway. When Rossini visited Beethoven in Vienna in 1822 during the season of his operas in that great city of European musical culture at that time, the great symphonist famously said, “I congratulate you; it will be played as long as Italian opera exists”, beseeching him, “Never try to write anything else but opera buffa such as Il barbiere di Siviglia.”
Of Rossini’s thirty-nine operas, Il barbiere is the only one to have remained in the repertoire since its composition. It was one of the works the composer squeezed in during his contract as Musical Director of the Royal Theatres at Naples, where he was supposed to present two new works every year. In Rome, and in some haste, it was decided that the opera would be based on Beaumarchais’ play. For Rossini this posed a personal difficulty in that Paisiello had set an opera by the same name in 1782, and both it and the composer were greatly respected. Rossini moved to ensure Paisiello took no offence and the opera was presented as Almaviva, ossia L’inutile precauzione (the useless precaution). Despite Rossini’s efforts, Paisiello’s supporters created a disturbance on the first night and turned it into a fiasco. On the second night the composer was tactfully ill and did not attend the theatre, as stipulated in his contract. The performance was an unprecedented success and the cast and supporters walked to Rossini’s lodgings carrying candles and singing tunes from the opera. After its initial seven performances in Rome, the opera began to be called Il barbiere di Siviglia. It quickly spread throughout Italy, reaching London on the 10th March 1818 and New York the following year. In the years since, it has proved itself indestructible by producers and designers. In a venue such as Verona, with its large stage, three times the size of the largest theatre, the challenge to the design team to make the personal interactions and situations acceptably intimate is considerable. In his 2007 production for Verona, revived here, Hugo De Ana succeeded by setting the scenes in a garden with movable hedges, mounted by large colourful roses and more people on the stage in some instances than are strictly needed or normally found. All participants are elegantly and appropriate period-costumed. When Act Two demands an internal venue for Rosina’s music lesson, and the lovers escape from the house after their marriage, the space is filled with the large-scale flowers seen atop the hedges in Act One - simple, but visually effective.
In the case of this filmed performance, the second of five in the series of the production in 2018, the director has the benefit of consummate actors, often of more mature years than is normally the case, who know the work intimately and are able to realise his dream. The first among equals is Leo Nucci as the irrepressible Figaro. In his seventy sixth year, no less, he can still sing the role with vocal strength and even reprise his opening Largo al factotum (Chs.5-6). His tone is strong, if not as mellifluous or graceful as in earlier years, and he is well able to create the character to acted perfection, even if his knees no longer allow him quite to skip and prance about like many Figaros. The other septuagenarian is Basilio, the singing teacher, a role taken by veteran Ferruccio Furlanetto. Always impressive of stature and unforgettable to many as king Philip in Verdi’s epic Don Carlo and as Fiesco in the same composer’s Simon Boccanegra, here has vocal power and resonance and is physically imposing as the somewhat saturnine and manipulative music teacher, general stirrer of the plot and always ready to bend his principles for cash. Somewhat younger, but equally resonant in tone and in physical height is Carlo Lepore in the role of Rosina’s ward, Dr. Bartolo, who is always ready to manipulate situations to make his young ward Rosina marry him; he keeps her under strict supervision, even noticing ink on her finger and accusing her of surreptitious letters. Sadly, Lepore died at the young age of fifty-eight in the summer of 2019. Casting directors will miss his sonorous tone and good acting.
The two would-be lovers of the story, Dmitry Korchak as Almaviva and Nino Machaidze’s Rosina, are particularly well and sung and acted. Korchak is taller and fuller of figure than the usual light tenor cast in the role and that is reflected in his singing. He conveys the role well and his tone and vocal flexibility is heard to good effect, particularly when Almaviva is playing the role of music master as substitute for Basilio in act two, albeit that the comic situations of Almaviva’s courting of Rosina during her singing lesson are sometimes somewhat slapstick. Nino Machaidze’s Rosina is appealing to look at and she sings with a bright even tone, with excellent characterisation and acting as I noted in my review of the 2012 Verona Roméo et Juliette. Manuela Custer acts well and sings with good tonal variety and characterisation as Berta, in her brief involvement (Chs18-19).
Daniel Oren, a regular on the Verona podium, conducts the work with obvious affection and also facilitates the soloists in realising their individual vocal perceptions and strengths. He directs with pace and purpose allowing the score to show its full range of character and colours in a way rarely heard nowadays from some egotistical maestros. He is a full master of the amplified sound of the Verona Arena and never presses the orchestra too much or drowns the inflections of the soloists; the amplification in no way sounds anything other than natural. The fifteen thousand spectators at this performance could only go home happy with their experience, which the listener and watcher of this film shares.
The accompanying booklet has an interview with Designer and Director Hugo De Ana as well as a plot synopsis, all in English, German and French. There is also a track listing with timings, both regrettably omitted on some labels.
Those who know Rossini’s thirty-nine operas well will be aware that as the libretto and music were put together in little over a month it is hardly surprising that the composer indulged in some self-borrowings. The overture had previously been used for Aureliano in Palmira in 1813, and re-used with heavier orchestration for his first Naples opera, Elisabetta Regina d’Inghilterra. Similarly, the storm scene of Act Two (CH.20) was first heard in La Pietra del paragone (1812) and subsequently in L’Occassione fe il ladro.
Robert J Farr
