The Lady without the Lake in Music and Vision 3 novembre

The Lady without the Lake
Rossini at La Scala,
reviewed by GIUSEPPE PENNISI

La Donna del Lago is one of the most interesting and least performed of Rossini's operas. It is interesting not only for its expanded melodies, tormented abandons, enthralling outbursts and singing which springs from direct reactions to emotions and events. One of the main reasons for its importance in music theatre history is that in 1819 the work anticipates Romanticism, in the description of nature and landscapes, in the special musical tint as well as in musical 'numbers' as long as an entire scene. Only two other Rossini operas contain such anticipations: Maometto Secondo (in its ill-fated Neapolitan version) and Guillaume Tell. Not all musicologists agree that should Rossini have resisted the temptation of 'early retirement' (and royal pension) at the age of thirty seven, he would have left Classicism for Romanticism; many, especially in Italy, consider La Donna del Lago and Guillaume Tell as indications that his path would have been grand opéra in the French style. I tend to feel like Philip Gossett (University of Chicago) and Giovanni Carli Ballola (University of Lecce) that Rossini was already well on his way to Romanticism in 1819. This was, of course, a different brand to the romantic melodrama of Verdi, who was on a trail much closer to Weber's -- he had heard Der Freischütz in a French adaptation -- and Marschner's with strong emphasis on the description of nature, on the rule of the senses and even on erotic expressions.
La Donna del Lago is rarely performed because of the voices it requires. Young Gioacchino Rossini had very little time to compose the opera on a Leone Andrea Tottola libretto after a Sir Walter Scott novel in verses (just titled The Lady of the Lake and quite well known to Italian upper class in its French translation). He had to step in because Gaspare Spontini had failed to meet his contractual obligations to the Teatro San Carlo. Rossini left the 'recitativi' to his students because he also had other 'commissions' to attend to and, furthermore, he was in the middle of a complex relationship with his future wife, the soprano Isabella Colbran, seven years older than himself and at the center of a ménage à trois with the composer and with the employer of both of them -- the impresario Domenico Babaja. Thus, on the one hand, Rossini reversed his erotic relationship with Isabella in the score. On the other, he had to make do with the best singer the Teatro San Carlo could offer. This meant that the protagonist had to be Isabella Colbran, a very special, indeed, unique voice -- an 'amphibious' soprano who could reach the heights of lyric coloratura but also quickly descend to very low tonalities -- only a few singers (Montserrat Caballé, Anna Caterina Antonacci, Frederica von Stade, June Anderson and now Joyce DiDonato) -- have those features. Next to her, in line with the classical Neapolitan tradition, her 'true love' had to be a contralto; the Teatro San Carlo could supply Rosmunda Pisaroni. The company had also a full army of tenors. Rossini picked two: Giovanni David, a lyric tenor with an acute register and flair for flowery vocal ornamentation, and Andrea Nozzari, with a darker register, nearly a bari-tenor who could, however, reach and sustain acute in D major. The company had plenty of basses, sopranos and mezzos for all the other roles. In performances nowadays, the main challenge has always been to find the 'amphibious' soprano and the two tenors. Even the Rossini Opera Festival had to make do with a 'full soprano' rather than with an 'amphibious soprano' in its three productions of La Donna del Lago.
The production I saw and heard on 29 October 2011 at the Teatro La Scala is a joint venture between the Paris Opéra, the Milan Opera House and the London Royal Opera House. It was seen in Paris in 2010 and will reach London in 2012. The vocal difficulties have been solved by entrusting the role of the protagonist to Joyce DiDonato, and because her sweetheart is Daniela Barcellona; the flowery lyric tenor is Juan Diego Flórez; the 'other' tenor John Osborn alternates with Michael Spyres, the bass is Balint Szabo. José Maria Lo Monaco, Jaeheui Kwon and Jihan Shin take the other, less important roles. In addition, in La Donna del Lago, the chorus is a real protagonist from the very beginning.
The orchestral score has some of the most colored pages composed by Rossini, especially in depicting the landscape (the Northern Lake Region and Scotland's mountains), but the main attention is in accompanying and sustaining the voices. We get it from the very beginning: the long and complex E-flat major 'introduction' (not a symphonic overture) which begins and ends with two different sets of Scottish clans -- the rebels led by Douglas and the royalists accompanying King James V disguised as a hunter -- threatening each other. Between the choral movements, we are introduced to the protagonist, Elena, the lady of the lake, in the famous 'barcarole' (Oh mattutini albori), and then her duet with Giacomo who falls in love with her. The sections are linked with one another by horn calls (which enhance the hunting, and warring, atmosphere). Also in the 'finale primo' when Malcolm, Elena's real lover, appears to lend strengths to the rebels' forces against the King, he is accompanied by a stage band with tone directly derived from the horn calls in counterpoint with hymn of the Scottish Bards until a final E-flat major, just as in the beginning of the one hundred minute long first act. This procedure of evocative mnemonic leit-motive (quite different from Wagnerian leitmotive) would become a generally accepted practice in German Romanticism (eg Weber's Euryanthe). In a 1992 La Scala production (recorded by Philips), Riccardo Muti gave prominence to the richness of the orchestral score.
In the current La Scala production, Roberto Abbado takes a different approach: as attention is directed to the voices, he has the orchestra supporting them so that the melodic material has the primacy. In two sections, a comparison between Muti (as recorded and filtered through the listener's memory) and Abbado is startling: Giacomo's second act 'cavatina' Oh Fiamma Soave a one-movement aria when Flórez could prove his virtuoso skill, the second act trio Alla Ragion Deh Ridea (nearly a 'terzettone' for length and complexity) when under Abbado's baton, the orchestra almost stepped back so that DiDonato, Flórez and Spyres could reach a dramatic height and the final rondo with chorus Tanti Affetti in Tal Momento to strengthen DiDonato's most important vocal effort, a true utopia of happiness.
At this point, readers may wonder why in this review I do not follow the usual approach of discussing, before the musical aspects, dramaturgy, stage directions, stage sets, costumes and lighting as I normally do because opera is music theatre, after all. The three major European opera houses involved have done a great job in selecting the singers, Roberto Abbado and the La Scala orchestra (as well as Bruno Casoni and the Teatro alla Scala Chorus) have been excellent in all the other musical aspects. However, Lluís Pasqual, with Ezio Frigerio and Franca Squarciapino as his accomplices, spoiled the party. In the program, Pasqual's essay states that in La Donna del Lago, the music is so beautiful that there is no need for action; the protagonists are 'pieces of characters' who 'enthrall us with their music and their feelings' and, as a result, staging ought to be 'almost like a concert in its purest form with light quotations of a theatre which does exist only in our memory'.
As matter of fact, the staging depicts the ruins of a neo-classical theatre. The lake appears only in a distant painted scene for a few moments, thus Elena and Giacomo do not cross it in a small boat in the first act (when their duet is a 'barcarole') but just walk throughout the stage. More startling, after the introduction, the two Scottish fighting groups are singing war anthems and illustrating the 'wild animals' in the forest and hills but the men are in white ties and their women in long dresses of the 'roaring twenties' style; all are sipping champagne. Pasqual must have a special feeling for the 'Charleston Years'; a few years ago, at the Rossini Opera Festival he moved the action of Le Compte Ory from France at the time of the Crusade to anywhere in Europe and the US in the nineteen twenties when, before the great Wall Street crash, young people have a happy time with sex and drinks. In this La Donna del Lago, the battle scenes appear to be staged as a vaudeville. To make things even worse, while the chorus is in Merry Widow attire, the principals are in very elaborate and flashy Renaissance costumes -- such as those in a Metropolitan House production some forty years ago.
I'd love a CD but beg to be spared from a DVD.
Copyright © 3 November 2011 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy

GIOACCHINO ROSSINI
LA SCALA
MILAN
ITALY
ROMANTICISM
SCOTLAND
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