Asian Aid in Music and Vision 15 agosto

Asian Aid
GIUSEPPE PENNISI was at
the 2011 Puccini Festival

Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) was the first globalist opera composer. He felt at home at the Metropolitan Opera House (which commissioned two of his masterpieces) more than at La Scala where only Turandot was premiered ... and posthumously.
In 2008, the one-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the composer's birth was celebrated all over the world. Every night in every major town of an important country, a Puccini Festival of some sort is taking place, because one of his six most frequently performed operas is on stage. Yet, in Torre del Lago, near Lucca (where he was born) and Viareggio (where he lived most of his life), the Puccini Festival has been going on for fifty-seven annual editions in an open air theatre built specially for the festival. This year, the fifty-seventh edition was about to be cancelled. Due to a bureaucratic mix-up too hard to explain to an international readership, Government financing for the 2010 festival, although promised, had not been forthcoming; thus the Festival Foundation had to clear up its own reserves and contract debts. The Italian public finance situation is highly uncertain; consequently, nobody is sure that 2011 Government financing will arrive ... sooner or later ... or never.
Like in an American movie of some ten years ago, at the cry 'Save Private Giacomo Puccini', the whole world responded. Especially Asia. A network of co-productions with major opera companies from China and Japan was quickly established to drastically reduce costs by sharing them as well as by organizing a long tour to the Far East. France joined in; the Opéra National de Nice will host a successful Festival production of La bohème which, after ten years of performances, was about to be scrapped. A number of Italian opera houses (Ferrara, Mantua, Lucca, Pisa) leased the spectacular 2008 Turandot Festival production. Hence, the 2011 Festival is on, running from 22 July to 3 September. It includes three Puccini operas: new productions of La Bohème and Madama Bufferfly (made, respectively, in Hong Kong and Tokyo), a revival of the 2008 production of Turandot, the Italian premiere of David Belasco's play Madame Butterfly (on which the opera is based), a few concerts and ballets and even a modern opera (Riccardo Cocciante's Notre Dame de Paris). 'All's well that ends well', according to the old saying which William Shakespeare took to title one of his plays. The international effort to 'save private Giacomo Puccini' is a noble indication of the importance good music has for the well-being of humanity. The Asian aid is especially commendable: a clear and loud expression of how Puccini is important for the development of modern music all over the world. Nonetheless, it is to be hoped that the Festival will be put on a solid financial footing and that the Italian government will take responsibility to provide support to an initiative which covers 60% of its costs from tickets, sponsors and sales and leases of its own productions.
I could not follow the entire festival; I especially regret that scheduling problems did not allow me to see and listen to the 'made in Tokyo' Madama Buterfly. I was in Torre del Lago on 29 and 30 July for the new production of La Bohème and the revival of Turandot.
La Bohème 'made in Hong Kong' had inaugurated the Festival on 22 July. In the 19 June 2011 edition of Music & Vision [A Conductor's Opera] I commented extensively on the subtleties and intricacies of the score on the basis of a Rome Opera House production when the American conductor James Conlon was in charge of the musical aspects and an old but elegant staging was proposed. The Hong Kong-Torre del Lago staging is vastly different from that seen and heard in Rome. But it is not less enthralling. Firstly, the action is moved from circa 1830 to circa 1910: the huge base of the Eiffel Tower frames the four acts; there are references to French black-and-white movies by Carné and Chabrol; the audience can nearly smell the scent of Edith Piaf.

A scene from the auditorium during Act II of 'La bohème' at the Puccini Festival. Photo © 2011 Caterina Zalweska. Click on the image for higher resolution
The staging is the work of three Italians who often work in China: the stage director Maurizio Di Mattia, the set designer Maurizio Varano and the costume designer Anna Biagiotti. They felt that circa 1910 is closer than circa 1830 to the period (1895-96) when Puccini composed the opera. In addition, for a modern audience (and especially for an Asian audience), Paris is la ville lumière after Haussmann's new planning of the city and the opening up of the grands boulevards. It is an intelligent intuition also because Di Mattia, Varano and Biagiotti had at their disposal a set of young singers with quite effective acting abilities.

Donata D'Annunzio Lombardi as Mimi and Luca Salsi as Marcello in Act III of 'La bohème' at the Puccini Festival. Photo © 2011 Caterina Zalweska. Click on the image for higher resolution
In a way, La Bohème in Torre del Lago was more staging, acting and singing than orchestral sophistication. Alberto Veronesi is a fine conductor as shown, inter alia, by his appointment at the Carnegie Hall Opera Orchestra, but in a huge three-thousand seat open-air auditorium on the shore of a lake and near the sea, it is impossible to make the audience feel the complex system of musical themes summarized in Music & Vision on 19 June.

Donata D'Annunzio Lombardi as Mimi and Aquiles Machado as Rodolfo in Act III of 'La bohème' at the Puccini Festival. Photo © 2011 Caterina Zalweska. Click on the image for higher resolution
The vocal casts were excellent: the four protagonists (Donata D'Annunzio Lombardi, Anna Maria Dell'Oste, Aquiles Machado and Luca Salsi) received open stage applause and accolades at curtain calls. Even open air, the voice of Donata D'Annunzio Lombardi was so powerful that nobody noticed that her Rodolfo (Aquiles Machado) avoided the acute High C at the end of the first act duet.
Turandot (stage direction by Maurizio Scaparro, sets by Ezio Frigerio, costumes by Franca Scuarciapino) is a colossal production that I had already seen when it premiered in 2008. As Julian Budden wrote, despite its unfinished state, Turandot 'is rightly regarded as the summit of Puccini's achievements'. The opera incorporates very modern elements, including bi-tonality and an adventurous use of whole-tone, pentatonic and modal harmony.

A scene from Act II of 'Turandot' at the Puccini Festival. Photo © 2011 Aldo Uminici. Click on the image for higher resolution
In 2008 the musical direction was in the hands of Alberto Veronesi, who slowed the tempos to show the links with the twentieth century musical developments (Debussy and Strauss). The young and energetic Keri-Lynn Wilson opted for a brisk and dynamic baton. On 29 July, Antonia Cifrone was a top notch Turandot and Carlo Colombara a very good Timur. Satomi Ogawa (who alternates with Serena Fannocchia as Liu) has perfect emission but too small a volume for such a vast open air auditorium. Roberto Accursio, Aldo Orsolini and Nicola Pamio as Ping, Pong and Pang were all excellent. And the main fellow (Calaf)? The tenor Piero Giuliacci was not having one of his best nights, even though he improved as the performance went on.

A scene from Act II of 'Turandot' with Antonia Cifrone in the title role, at the Puccini Festival. Photo © 2011 Aldo Uminici. Click on the image for higher resolution
A few words on Madama Butterfly. The production comes from the Japanese National Popular Opera. Stage direction, sets and costumes are signed by Takao Okamura, Naoji Kawaguchi and Yashiro Chiji. Cio Cio San and Suzuki (Sakiko Ninomiya and Kimiko Suehiro) as well as all the many minor characters are Japanese too. Marcello Bedoni is Pinkerton and Sharpless Sergio Bologna. The baton is in the hand of an Italian whiz kid: Valerio Galli. In Torre del Lago it was unveiled on 6 August 2011; it was likely to have been a very interesting night.
Copyright © 15 August 2011 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy

GIACOMO PUCCINI
LA BOHEME
TURANDOT
ITALY
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