patrikpen: A Very Interesting Discovery in Music and Vision 15 November

giovedì 29 dicembre 2016

A Very Interesting Discovery in Music and Vision 15 November

A Very Interesting Discovery

The first performance in modern times
of Bellini's 'Adelson e Salvini',
reviewed by GIUSEPPE PENNISI

In the Teatro Pergolesi in the small town of Jesi (40,000 residents), from 9-14 November 2016, a real event attracted music critics from several European countries: the world premiere and preview of the first opera ever composed by Vincenzo Bellini: Adelson e Salvini. The production will be the core of the next Bellini Festival in September 2017 in Catania. I saw and heard it on 11 November.

Adelson e Salvini was composed in 1824-25 and staged in the Naples San Sebastian Conservatory Theatre in February 1825, when Bellini was twenty three year old. It was a composition course final essay, and all the conservatory rules had to be followed: eg as the conservatory was not a co-ed institution, the women's roles were performed by adolescent boys (not by castrati) — now they are entrusted to 'altos'. The singers and orchestra were Bellini's fellow students. It was apparent that Adelson e Salvini was much more than a final requirement for a course. For a few years, it circulated in Venice, Florence, Milan and some other Italian cities, in productions, however, severely modified by individual impresarios. Bellini himself provided a second version to satisfy some theatres. This version was proposed in Catania in 1985 and 1990, without much success. Not many years ago, in the Fondo Mascarello of the Milan Conservatory Library, many missing parts of the original 1825 production were retrieved. According to the musicologist Fabrizio della Seta, the Jesi-Catania Adelson e Salvini production is 98% of the original 1825 score.

A scene from Bellini's 'Adelson e Salvini' in Jesi. Photo © 2016 Stefano Binci

The interesting aspects are musical. The plot deals with two close friends, the aristocrat Adelson and the Italian painter Salvini, both in love with the same girl, the orphan Nelly, in misty Ireland. The development, based on a French romantic gothic novel, is quite complex and has some grand guignol action but also moments of comic relief. The main difference with the second version (as well as with other editions never approved by Bellini) is that the 1825 opera is in 'French style'; thus there are not recitatives but dialogues in between musical numbers. All the characters except the basso buffo sing and speak in elegant Italian, whilst the buffo sings and speaks in strict Neapolitan dialect (even though he ought to be Irish/British).

On the musical side, there are no indications of what, later, became belcanto. Instead, the score is highly influenced by serious and semi-serious Rossini operas. This is quite normal due to the importance of Rossini on the Neapolitan musical scene in that period. More intriguing are the references to Schubert and even Mendelssohn, then an enfant prodige. This means that music travelled by horse carriages over very long distances.

Rodion Pogossov as Adelson in Bellini's 'Adelson e Salvini' in Jesi. Photo © 2016 Stefano Binci

No imagination was spared in providing, on a small budget, a top notch production. The stage direction (Roberto Recchia), the sets (Benito Leonori), the costumes (Catherine Buyse Diane) and the lighting (Alessandro Carletti) focus on early Romantic painting such as those by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. After all, one of the protagonists, Salvini, is a painter of that period.

Merto Sungu as Salvini in Bellini's 'Adelson e Salvini' in Jesi. Photo © 2016 Stefano Binci

In the pit was José Miguel Pérez Sierra with the symphonic orchestra 'G Rossini'. The orchestration is quite rough. Only in his last operas did Bellini give importance to this aspect, that for a long time he considered a mere support to belcanto. The cast was young and international but with flawless Italian. The tenor (Mertu Sungu, as Salvini) and baritone Radion Pogossov (as Adelson) were especially good in their two major tenor-baritone duets: Sungu tackled the difficult part even with heavy flu. Cecilia Molinari as Nelly has great potential. The others were all quite good.

Cecilia Molinari as Nelly in Bellini's 'Adelson e Salvini' in Jesi. Photo © 2016 Stefano Binci

Adelson e Salvini is a very interesting discovery, deserving the accolades and applause it received in Jesi. It is difficult to say if it will ever enter the main repertory.