patrikpen: Cosmic Pessimism in Music & Vision 10 March

lunedì 8 aprile 2013

Cosmic Pessimism in Music & Vision 10 March

Cosmic Pessimism

Verdi's rarely performed 'I Due Foscari',
experienced by GIUSEPPE PENNISI

Rome's Teatro dell'Opera unveiled a new production of Verdi's rarely performed I Due Foscari on 6 March 2013. It was an important premiere with Riccardo Muti as conductor, Werner Herzog as stage director, sets and costumes by Maurizio Balò, lighting by Vincenzo Raponi and a full-star cast with Luca Salsi, Francesco Meli and Tatiana Serjan in the main roles. The production is designed to travel as far as Japan. The theatre was sold out. I was in the audience.

A scene from 'I Due Foscari' at Rome's Teatro dell'Opera. Photo © 2013 Silvia Lelli

I Due Foscari (composed to fulfill a contractual obligation with the Teatro Argentina in Rome where it was premiered on 3 November 1844) has had a limited success even in Verdi's own times. Verdi himself admitted that it was too gloomy in general tone, in spite of the periodic evocation of the Venice lagoon. It is based on a 'tragedy' by Lord Byron; however, the 'tragedy' was meant to be read, not staged. In fact, most of the action takes place before the curtains open. During the three acts, all the most relevant events happen off stage and are narrated by the protagonists. In addition, neither in Lord Byron's tragedy nor in Francesco Maria Piave's libretto (set to music by Verdi) is there a clear reference to the historical context and the aristocrats' feuds in fifteenth century Venice.

There is almost no action. The drama is the separation of a father (the Doge) from his unjustly condemned son; of course, the wife and the children of the poor man are also desperate. When the proof of his innocence arrives, it is too late as the heart of the young breaks whilst he is going into permanent exile. For Lord Byron, the Foscari 'tragedy' was an additional poetic moment of his cosmic pessimism. Piave and Verdi could do very little to overcome the lack of dramatic action on stage and the lack of psychological development of the three protagonists. The opera disappeared from the repertory from the mid nineteenth century until after World War II.

However, in the hands of a good musical director such as Riccardo Muti, and with three important vocal protagonists, I Due Foscari shows several merits. It is a double faced opera. On the one hand, the arias, the quartet in the second act and the final concertato are still linked to the past (ie Donizetti's melodrama). On the other, there are important innovations: the use of recurring themes to identify the protagonists (nearly proto leitmotifs); the importance of local tint; the very short recitative and the rather extended musical numbers; and the orchestral harmonic accompaniment in flat keys. Some of these innovations (but not the recurring themes) have full development in Verdi's later works.

Luca Salsi as Francesco Foscari in 'I Due Foscari' at Rome's Teatro dell'Opera. Photo © 2013 Silvia Lelli

The stage director has quite a challenge to build a dramatic action when almost nothing happens on scene. Werner Herzog and Maurizio Balò set the plot in an icy Venice where blocks of ice are in the prison but also in the Palazzo Ducale and in the Doge's bedroom, whilst outside snow is flocking on the lagoon. A visionary Venice where the ice of power dominates a drama which is entirely inside the three main characters.