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SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL
OPERA REVIEW
New production in coproduction with Madrid Teatro Real
Direction: Damiano Michieletto
Sets: Paolo Fantin
Costumes: Silvia Aymonino
Lighting: Alessandro Carletti
Cast:
Nemorino: Ramón Vargas
Adina: Aleksandra Kurzak
Dulcamara: Erwin Schrott
Belcore: Fabio Cpitanucci
Gianetta: Ilona mataradze
Adina's Bar - Ramon Vargas (Nemorino)
and Aleksandra Kurzak (Adina)
Picture © Tato Baeza
Valencia closes its regular season with Donizetti's
L'Elisir d'Amore, which is always a hit with the
public, but the music isn't over in Valencia. Next month
there will be Boito's Mefistofele in concert and
in May/June the Mediterranean Festival will take place
with Zubin Mehta conducting Tosca and Fidelio
and two starry casts.
The new production of L'Elisir is that of Italian
Damiano Michieletto. It seems that stage directors agree
on their views of this opera, placing the action at
hotels, bars, hotel bars, or restaurants. In December we
saw in Oviedo Daniel Slater's production, set in a hotel
in the 60s. New York City Opera is offering the Jonathan
Miller production, which takes place in a gas station in
the U.S., also in the 60's. Here in Valencia, Mr.
Michieletto puts the action in a beach bar, Adina's Bar,
and in modern times. The start of the show is promising.
Too promising as it turns out. In front of us we have a
beach full of sunbathers, with the bar in the foreground
and a stage full of color. Adina is the owner of the bar,
Nemorino is one of the life guards, Belcore is a sergeant
in the Army and, finally, Dulcamara is a drug dealer who
sells a canned 'Elexir' - Red Bull laced with cocaine, for
all I know. In the second act stage left is occupied by a
large plastic sled filled with foam. Everything is in
continuous motion, which can get rather annoying to the
singers. Nemorino sings his aria from the roof of Adina's
bar. Dulcamara is a kind of pimp, besides a drug dealer,
for which his interpretation is rather too childish. The
best moment of the production takes place at the end of
the opera, when the police arrive with dogs searching for
drugs and Dulcamara delivers his drug bags inadvertently
to Belcore. In Damiano Michieletto's direction there is an
excess of action which his protagonists meet with a lack
of spontaneity.
The musical director, Meir Omer Wellber, was very
disappointing to me. There are plenty of experts who think
this opera is easy to conduct. I don't share that opinion
and after this performance, I think Mr. Wellber shares
that opinion. In the hands of an inappropriate conductor,
it can very easily become astonishingly boring. And
something like that happened in this case. I have the
impression that the most promising maestro Wellber has not
taken the score seriously enough on this occasion, perhaps
considering it a minor opera. In any case, the result
lacked grace and lightness, grated with and excess of
routine and its evident lack of coordination between stage
and pit. I did not expect this result from such a
promising conductor. And while there is no question the
Orchestra de la Comunitat Valenciana is the best in Spain,
it didn't show on this occasion.
Mexican tenor Ramón Vargas was Nemorino and I was not
moved by his singing. He is still a light-lyric tenor,
although he is more and more involved in a heavier
repertoire. His timbre is quite remarkable in the middle,
but his top has become much thinner than before. At least
he is still an elegant singer with outstanding phrasing.
Young Polish soprano Aleksandra Kurzak sufficed as Adina
with her impersonal voice but fine acting. Uruguayan
bass-baritone Erwin Schrott has become a very popular
artist. Still, I did not like his Dulcamara. Apart from
the pure conception of the character - whether
Michieletto's vision or his own - he overacted constantly
on stage and he insisted to show that he has a big voice,
ever singing at full volume. That's too far from the
insidious Dulcamara. I couldn't help thinking of Malatesta
in Don Pasquale, when Norina is rehearsing for him and he
says to her sister: "No,no, la parte non è questa". It was
more effectual than effective singing, and it worked,
since the audience lapped it up and cheered him more than
any other artist. Fabio Capitanucci was a good Belcore,
well suited in vocal terms and a good actor as well.
Gianetta was Ilona Mataradze, young and promising.
José Mª Irurzun