An Icy Reception in Music & Vision 16 ottobre

An Icy Reception
GIUSEPPE PENNISI describes
the 2010 Parma Verdi Festival's
stormy beginning

Gianandrea Gavazzeni used to say that there is no need for a 'Verdi Festival' because a 'Verdi Festival' is held almost every day in more than one of world's five continents. As a matter of fact, Parma, the capital of the province where Giuseppe Verdi was born in 1813, has been organizing a top-notch festival for several decades. It used to take place in early June -- that is, strategically after the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and before the many summer opera festivals (forty in 2010) flooding Italy from late-June until mid-September.
Since 2005, Mauro Meli has been Superintendent of Parma's Teatro Regio and also of the Verdi Festival, and he invited Yuri Temirkanov to be both organizations' musical director. In 2006 a program was undertaken to make Parma 'the European music capital' by commissioning a new auditorium (for symphony and chamber music) and using the many precious small theatres in the surrounding towns and even villages. (The first of these is the Teatro Verdi in Busseto, near Le Roncole, the hamlet of only a few homes where Verdi was actually born.) International collaborations were developed through co-productions and tours. Finally, the festival was moved from early June to October, Verdi's birth month. The Parma Verdi Festival has an event on every day in October: from a fully staged opera to highlights in concert and screenings of films based on Verdi's work. The whole town has become a part of the Festival, with exhibitions, shows and performances everywhere.

Marcelo Álvarez as Manrico and Mzia Nioradze as Azucena in Act I of 'Il Trovatore' at the Parma Verdi Festival. Photo © 2010 Roberto Ricci
All this activity requires a great deal of financing, and the money had been forthcoming for a few years from central and local government, a major state-owned company, and from local enterprises. But recently, the economic crisis has put a major halt on funding. This year, Meli has had to make do with a much smaller budget, resulting in a lean program (see Festival Verdi 2010) consisting of three fully-staged new productions -- Il Trovatore, I Vespri Siciliani and Attila. I attended the 9 October afternoon performance of Il Trovatore and the opening night of I Vespri Siciliani on 10 October, both at Parma's splendid Teatro Regio. Unfortunately, I was unable to reach Busseto, where in the small, cozy Teatro Verdi, a new but hyper-traditional Attila is being staged by a company of young singers.

Marcelo Álvarez as Manrico and Mzia Nioradze as Azucena in Act IV of 'Il Trovatore' at the Parma Verdi Festival. Photo © 2010 Roberto Ricci
From the outset, this 2010 Verdi Festival has been quite stormy. On 1 October, the inaugural Trovatore was booed not only by the upper tier but also by the boxes. The boos were directed mostly at the mezzo singing Azucena (Marianna Tarasova), but also at the stage sets and directions, in the middle of the chaos, and also the conductor, Yuri Temirkanov, received some boos at the end of the performance. On 10 October 2010 the premiere of the new production of I Vespri Siciliani had a cold, icy reception. After the first part, long unexpected intermissions made me think that the performance might not be concluded because of the audience's reactions to the tenor (Fabio Armiliato). Before the last scene, a loudspeaker informed all in the theatre that the tenor had been ill from the beginning of the performance but would sing until the end, nonetheless.

Mzia Nioradze as Azucena and Romano as Leonora in Act IV of 'Il Trovatore' at the Parma Verdi Festival. Photo © 2010 Roberto Ricci
I was fortunate in that the 9 October performance of Trovatore had been preceded by a good running-in, and two singers had been replaced (Azucena, then, was Mzia Nioradze, and Leonora, Teresa Romano). Also, problems of coordination between the pit and the stage -- an oft-repeated criticism of the 1 October performance -- had been solved. I can say that the 9 October Parma Trovatore was among the performances I've most enjoyed in over fifty years of opera going, beginning at the age of twelve.

Marcelo Álvarez as Manrico and Teresa Romano as Leonora in Act IV of 'Il Trovatore' at the Parma Verdi Festival. Photo © 2010 Roberto Ricci
As we all know, Trovatore is based on a plot of passion and violence; Verdi wrote a score of such inspired dramatic power, wealth of melody and brilliant use of radiant top Cs that it has outlived generations of operas with more carefully developed plots. Salvatore Cammarano's libretto has all the conventions of the mid-nineteenth century melodrama: literally, it is nearly impossible to either understand or consider credible. Lorenzo Mariani's stage direction and William Orlandi's stage set, with the lighting of Christian Pinaud, take an unconventional but very intelligent path: they disregard all the (rather silly) complications of the plot and focus on the real crux: two men are in love with the same woman, without knowing that they are two brothers and -- like in the 1946 King Vidor blockbuster Duel in the Sun -- take their passion to the extreme. The stage set is almost bare, with the exception of the Moon (the size and color of which change according to the atmosphere). A few essential props indicate the different places at which the plot evolves. Briefly, it was very effective to focus on the real 'core' of the opera -- that about which Verdi felt most strongly. Also, stage sets and lighting are in line with the music and the singing. It may appear, of course, as an unusual production to the most traditional part of the audience, but it produces the blood and gutter tragedy of Trovatore well, and is easily transferred to stages of different dimensions. Finally, its costs are contained: not a secondary consideration under the current financial stringency. Although this Trovatore is not a co-production, willing 'buyers' appear to have been found for future performances: it will travel to Venice (La Fenice) and then as far as Tokyo and Hong Kong. Other theaters also appear to be interested.

The full company at the end of 'Il Trovatore' at the Parma Verdi Festival. Photo © 2010 Roberto Ricci
Yuri Temirkanov's conducting is new to traditional ears. The Russian conductor is a symphonic rather than an opera specialist, and delves into the score to discover a new tint, not merely to accompany the singers in their vocalizing. The protagonist was a superb Marcelo Álvarez who excelled in the well-known stretta with its strirring rhythm and long top C, and in the somber, oppressive Miserere. His adversary/brother was Claudio Sgura, a good Verdian baritone, eve though I would have liked a more velvet approach to Il Balen del Suo Sorriso. Teresa Romano, twenty-five years old, was called to sing all the performances, not just to be Leonora in the second cast. She has a good timbre and plenty of volume, but still requires study; she did well, with an imperfection only in D'Amor sull'Alii Rosee. The Georgian Mzia Nioradze was a very professional Azucena and Deyan Vatchov a good Ferrando. The chorus (directed by Martino Faggioni) deserves a special mention, especially in the third Act, where it glows with ardor.
I Vespri Siciliani is the Italian adaptation of the French grand-opéra Les Vêpres Sicilennes, originally conceived by Verdi under a commission from the Paris Imperial Opera House in 1855. The first Italian translation, with the title Giovanna da Guzman, was performed in Parma in 1856. At a festival, it would be normal to expect the original French version. However, Les Vêpres Sicilennes is staged even more rarely than I Vespri Siciliani due to its sheer length, and because it requires a full corps de ballet. I Vespri Siciliani too is not often performed because of the very vast vocal extension demanded of the soprano and, especially, the tenor. The differences between Les Vêpres Sicilennes and I Vespri Siciliani / Giovanna da Guzman are not significant, with the exception of major cuts to the long ballet scenes. Giovanna da Guzman moves the action from Sicily in 1282 to Portugal in the seventeenth century. On the other hand, for Les Vêpres Siciliennes, Eugene Scrive and Charles Duveyrier used a libretto written for Donizetti's opera Il Duca d'Alba, the score of which had been left almost unfinished and which was performed, for the first time, in Rome in 1882. The Il Duca d'Alba plot took place at the time of the Flemish insurrections against the Spaniards.

Fabio Armiliato as Arrigo and Daniela Dessì as Elena in Act I of 'I Vespri Siciliani' at the Parma Verdi Festival. Photo © 2010 Roberto Ricci
This may seem erudite nitpicking. It is, however, quite fundamental to understand that neither Les Vêpres Siciliennes nor I Vespri Siciliani can be considered a patriotic opera. The French Emperor Napoléon II would never have commissioned an operatic manifesto of the Italian National Unification process. Indeed, I Vespri Siciliani is a grand-opéra with a complicated plot good for any season but with a lot of opportunities for extravagant stage sets and ballet.

Massimo Zanetti conducting 'I Vespri Siciliani' at the Parma Verdi Festival. Photo © 2010 Roberto Ricci
Thus, the first error in the production was the stage direction: the plot is moved forward to 1855-1860 and the Sicilians are dressed like in Cavalleria Rusticana, and Giovanni da Procida is made up as Giuseppe Mazzini back home, to stir revolutions, after a long exile in London. The stage set is almost bare, with the exception of a few props. But the whole plot seems to develop at night, whereas Verdi composed some very sunny music (after all, we are in Sicily!), in particular for Acts I and V. The situation was not improved by Massimo Zanetti's lax conducting or by a vocal cast which left a lot to be desired.

Giacomo Prestia as Giovanni da Procida in Act II of 'I Vespri Siciliani' at the Parma Verdi Festival. Photo © 2010 Roberto Ricci
The chorus was superb. (The Act III concertato has some of the best choral music ever composed by Verdi.) The baritone (Leon Nucci) and the bass (Giacomo Prestia) fared quite well, but the soprano (Daniela Dessì, who had been the protagonist of the Rome Les Vêpres Siciliennes in 1997) and the tenor (Fabio Armiliato, debuting the role) had difficulties in their first duet. And the upper tier made its voice heard. There on, the situation did not improve. There was a long intermission (forty minutes) between the first and the second part; the rumor spread that the soprano and the tenor did not want to continue the performance. A new long break between the first and the second scene of the second part. Then a loudspeaker announced that the management was grateful to Mr Armilliato, who would conclude the performance, even though he was ill. There was an icy reception at the end.

Fabio Armiliato as Arrigo, Leon Nucci as Guy de Montfort, Daniela Dessì as Elena and Giacomo Prestia as Giovanni in Act IV of 'I Vespri Siciliani' at the Parma Verdi Festival. Photo © 2010 Roberto Ricci
Many issues will need to be faced by the festival management. Why program I Vespri Siciliani / Les Vêpres Siciliennes unless there is financing for a sumptuous show (as called for by any grand-opéra) and there are the right singers (now very hard to find)? There are several other rarely performed Verdi operas (Stiffelio, Alzira) that deserve to be staged and do not entail analogous difficulties.

Daniela Dessì as Elena with the chorus in the final scene of Act V of 'I Vespri Siciliani' at the Parma Verdi Festival. Photo © 2010 Roberto Ricci
They should especially avoid transforming the festival itself into a melodrama.
Copyright © 16 October 2010 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy

GIUSEPPE VERDI
PARMA
ITALY
IL TROVATORE
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