Good Music makes Good Money in Music and Vision 14 agosto

Good Music makes Good Money GIUSEPPE PENNISI was at the 2013 Rossini Opera Festival The Rossini Opera Festival (ROF) started thirty-four years ago as a small initiative by local authorities and enterprises to remember Pesaro's genius loci, Gioacchino Rossini. It has grown to be one of the most important festivals in Europe. Together with the Rossini Foundation, and a group of Universities, it has staged all Rossini's operas except one (Aureliano in Palmira), which is programmed for August 2014. In a country, Italy, where opera and concert companies have severe difficulties making ends meet, this festival has never reported a deficit. The tickets are generally sold out in late Spring, many productions are leased domestically and abroad, and two thirds of the audience are non-Italians. In short, with a permanent staff of only seven (and employment reaching 230 during the festival), and a budget of 5 million euros, it activates an added value of 11 million euros during the two weeks of the event, mostly in incremental sales by restaurants, hotels, shops and the like. Good music makes good money. A scene from 'L'Italiana in Algeri' at the Rossini Opera Festival. Photo © 2013 Silvano Bacciardi. Click on the image for higher resolution This year, ROF lasts from 10 until 23 August and features three fully staged operas (Italiana in Algeri, Guillaume Tell and L'Occasione fa il Ladro), the 'cantata scenica' Il Viaggio a Reims in two different versions (one for the young singers of the Rossini Academy and one adapted for children), a concert version of La Donna del Lago and concerts of Rossini's piano works. I attended the opening nights of the three fully staged operas. Juan Diego Flórez and Marina Rebeka in 'Guillaume Tell' at the Rossini Opera Festival. Photo © 2013 Silvano Bacciardi. Click on the image for higher resolution The most important is, no doubt, the new production of Guillaume Tell, the last of Rossini's masterpieces. Very often performed in drastically cut versions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, only since 1972 has it been staged in its full monumental form because its five hour duration involves twelve soloists, a double chorus, a corps de ballet and a huge orchestra. I discussed the features of the opera when Antonio Pappano conducted it in Rome and London and produced a EMI CD [An Epic Opera, 18 October 2010]. Thus, this review focuses on the Pesaro ROF production. The stage director (Graham Vick) and the conductor (Michele Mariotti) worked very closely to provide a different Guillaume Tell. The action is set not in fourteenth-century Switzerland but at any place in Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century -- the period of struggle for poor farmers and fishermen to acquire dignity and freedom in a world dominated by aristocrats and up-and-coming industrialists. The protagonist is not born as a hero but as a family man obliged to become a leader of the revolt against the sadistic arrogance of the dominant and domineering class. A single set shows, though an astute work of painted panels, the landscape, the lake and the forest -- in brief, the nature so important in Guillaume Tell. Nicola Alaimo and members of the chorus in 'Guillaume Tell' at the Rossini Opera Festival. Photo © 2013 Silvano Bacciardi. Click on the image for higher resolution The principals (Nicola Alaimo, Juan Diego Flórez, Simon Orfila, Celso Albelo, Marina Rebeka, Amanda Forsythe, Veronica Simeoni) were the best the market can supply but the real miracle was the orchestra and chorus of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna under the baton of thirty-four-year-old Michele Mariotti, now a star at the Met, Covent Garden and Paris Opéra. Mariotti renders a really different Guillaume Tell, more melancholic than epic; the protagonist and his followers are required to become heroes even though they long to return to their families and their farming and fishing occupations. It is a very special reading of the score. The audience saluted it with a ten minute ovation after more than five hours in the Adriatic Arena. The DVD and CD of Mariotti's Guillaume Tell will compete with Pappano's and Gardelli's (the best in the catalogue) and may very likely win. Nicola Alaimo in 'Guillaume Tell' at the Rossini Opera Festival. Photo © 2013 Silvano Bacciardi. Click on the image for higher resolution The innovative Guillaume Tell staging contrasted with the traditional (ie painted backdrops) production of L'Occasione fa il Ladro, originally created for the ROF in 1987 by French director Jean Pierre Ponnelle and revived on the twenty fifth anniversary of his death. L'Occasione fa il Ladro has been a major ROF hit; it has travelled to some thirty theatres -- last year, it was at La Scala -- on at least three continents. It is still fresh and enjoyable. Sonja Frisell (Ponnelle's assistant) revived the staging. In the pit, Yi-Chen Lin, a young lady from Taiwan, briskly conducted a local ensemble (Orchestra Sinfonica Rossiniana). An effective group of singing actors (Giorgio Misseri, Elena Tsallagova, Enea Scala, Roberto De Candia, Viktoria Yarovaya, Paolo Bordogna) made the 12 August evening very enjoyable. Elena Tsallagova and Roberto de Candia in 'L'Occasione fa il Ladro' at the Rossini Opera Festival. Photo © 2013 Silvano Bacciardi. Click on the image for higher resolution Regretably, the 10 August 2013 opening night was not a success. L'Italiana in Algeri, set in a Pop-Art petrodollar country, features a rather heavy stage direction (Davide Livermore), unlikely sets (Nicolas Bovey) and costumes (Gianluca Falaschi), excessive gags and vulgar sexual innuendos. The musical part could have been better. Alex Esposito and Yijhe Shi sang and acted quite well but Anna Goryachova had serious difficulties in descending to the low register Rossini asked for. Alex Esposito and Anna Goryachova in 'L'Italiana in Algeri' at the Rossini Opera Festival. Photo © 2013 Silvano Bacciardi. Click on the image for higher resolution The conductor, José Ramón Encinar, is reportedly a specialist of modern Spanish opera. He ought to stick to that repertory and leave Rossini alone. Copyright © 14 August 2013 Giuseppe Pennisi, Rome, Italy PESARO ITALY GIOACCHINO ROSSINI L'ITALIANA IN ALGERI GRAHAM VICK  << M&V home       Concert reviews        Jacobson and Brown >>