A Real Surprise in Music and Vision 3 November

A Real Surprise
Celso Albelo hits Venice as Nemorino
in Donizetti's 'L'Elisir d'Amore',
by GIUSEPPE PENNISI

Several opera guidebooks -- such as Gustave Kobbé's The Complete Opera Book, centennial, world famous and still updated and reprinted every few years, and Gerhart von Westreman's more recent Opera Guide -- treat Gaetano Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore as a comic opera or even an opera buffa. They purport that, during the decades when Donizetti and his operas were nearly forgotten, L'Elisir never left the repertory, at least in secondary or provincial Italian theatres. This was because it is pure comedy with two hilarious characters (Dulcamara and Belcore) and a gentle young couple in love (even though, almost until the end, she pretends not to be interested in the fellow) as well as a comparatively easy orchestration.
Even now L'Elisir is often staged as a pure entertainment with emphasis on Dulcamara's chattering parlando, on Belcore's swaggering, on the sweetness of Nemorino and on the tricks of Adina -- the fifth character, Giannetta, has a very minor role both musically and dramatically. Nonetheless, Romani and Donizetti referred to L'Elisir as a 'melodramma giocoso', which means a semi serious opera like Rossini's La Gazza Ladra, Paisiello's Nina Pazza per Amore, Mayr's Lodoiska or Bellini's La Sonnambula. This was a category of musical theatre very popular at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Donizetti composed several opera semiseria like Linda di Chamonix and Il Furioso nell'Isola di San Domingo. This type of opera pleased the audience during difficult times (wars, revolutions, social and political turmoil) because it combines drama with comic relief. It is a very hard balance to reach for all the stakeholders involved in staging L'Elisir because the dramatic and comic elements are carefully mixed, indeed intertwined. In L'Elisir there is even professional-artistic irony -- eg Belcore's cavatina, or entrance aria, Come Paride Vezzoso is clearly a parody of the Metastasian opera seria still being performed, at that time, in several Italian theatres. In my opinion, among the characters the only clear-cut buffo is the pompous Dulcamara. On the other hand, Adina and Nemorino belong to the 'comédie larmoyante' with their charming, and relatively easy, opening arias Quanto è bella and Chiedi all'Aura Lusinghiera and their progressive escalation to the two final heights -- Nemorino's terrific Una furtiva lagrima and Adina's short but very dense rondo Il mio rigor dimentica.

Desirée Rancatore as Adina, Celso Albelo as Nemorino and members of the chorus in Act I of the Venice production of Donizetti's 'L'Elisir d'Amore'. Photo © 2010 Michele Crosera
The main asset of the Venice production (and seen and heard on the 29 October 2010 opening night) is that both the musical and the stage directions keep the proper balance between drama and comedy required in a melodramma giocoso. The stage set (by Gianmaurizio Fercioni) is simple: a village square with a series of painted curtains and a few props to show the different places of the action. The stage director places a lot of emphasis on acting: Celso Albelo looks a bit like a simpleton (rescued by true love as well as by the money inherited from a distant uncle), Desirée Rancatore is a cunning little bourgeois who torments him by pretending not to love him. The larmoyant is all there while the comic relief is left to two veterans of the respective roles (Bruno De Simone as Dulcamara and Roberto De Candia as Belcore). The young conductor, Matteo Beltrami, does his job in a competent manner and intends the score mostly as a support to the singer. Desirée Rancatore is an accomplished Adina, a little devilish cat who shows her fingers in the final rondo. She too has interpreted the role many a time.

A scene from Act I of the Venice production of Donizetti's 'L'Elisir d'Amore'. Photo © 2010 Michele Crosera
The real surprise of the evening was Celso Albelo. I heard him last summer in Verdi's Rigoletto in Rome, but it was at an open air performance where it is difficult to appreciate vocal nuances. Also, he sang a minor role (but with a difficult First Act aria) in Guillaume Tell, reviewed 18 October 2010 in Music & Vision. Only as Nemorino -- Luciano Pavarotti's favorite role -- could I appreciate him as a major opera star. He was almost always on stage, running from aria to duet to concertato, and proved to be an accomplished and athletic actor as well as an effective lyric tenor with a clear timbre and a well-calibrated and powerful voice.

Bruno De Simone as Dulcamara and members of the chorus in Act II of the Venice production of Donizetti's 'L'Elisir d'Amore'. Photo © 2010 Michele Crosera
His Una furtiva lagrima was up to the young Luciano Pavarotti's standard since the initial B flat in the first stanza, from the D flat in the second stanza to the high C in m'ama, lo vedo m'ama, then back to the B flat of Cielo si può morir. The theater exploded in accolades and requests for encores, which Celso Albelo granted, in spite of the length and the difficulties of the aria. Thereafter, a request was made to Desirée Rancatore, who agreed to sing Il mio rigor dimentica again.
Copyright © 3 November 2010 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy

GAETANO DONIZETTI
VENICE
ITALY
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