A Mini 'Magic Flute'
GIUSEPPE PENNISI attends
one of
Stefano Belisari's last performances
as Elio e le Storie Tese, in one of
Mozart's most mysterious and ambiguous operas
A mini Magic Flute is
travelling to several Italian
towns. It may be more appropriate to call it a bikini Magic Flute
because the total duration is forty minutes, the singers only two and the
orchestra is a German quartet
(Ensemble Berlin). I
saw and heard it on 24 October 2017 as
part of the annual program of Istituzione Universitaria dei Concerti
(IUC) of the Università 'La Sapienza'. This is the oldest university in Rome — it
was created over seven hundred years ago — as well as the largest —
eleven thousand students — and the most prestigious. IUC was established
after World War II and
this is the seventy third concert season. The seasons are mostly devoted
to chamber music
performed in a magnificent auditorium seating over nine hundred and built
in the nineteen thirties. Ticket prices are very affordable, especially
for students.
Ensemble Berlin playing for the Istituzione Universitaria dei Concerti
of the Università 'La Sapienza'. Photo © 2017 Damiano Rosa. Click on the image
for higher resolution
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I was amazed: for the
mini or bikini Magic Flute, the auditorium was sold out and a long
queue of people was at the box office in search of returned seats. As a
matter of fact this is the last tour of Elio (the nickname of Stefano
Belisari, an engineer from the Milan Polytechnic, one of finest schools
in Italy) who
set up a band together with a few friends in 1980, when still a student.
The band is called Elio e le Storie Tese (sometimes shortened as EelST or
Elii). They have been very successful in modernizing Italian popular
music, and have collected many prizes, mostly for pop music. In 2000,
with the addition a few professional singers and actors, they staged
Bertold Brecht and Kurt Weill's Threepenny
Opera. I
remember seeing a performance in the highbrow National Santa Cecilia Academy in an unabridged and fully staged production.
After thirty-seven years of work together, the EelST group has decided to
disband; their last concert will be on 19 December 2017 in Milan.
Stefano Belisari (Elio) and Scilla Cristiano in Mozart's 'Mini' Magic
Flute. Photo © 2017 Damiano
Rosa. Click on the image for higher resolution
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In the abridged Magic
Flute, Elio was alone without the rest of the band. He was
accompanied by Ensemble Berlin — Luiz Felipe Coelho, violin,
Christoph Hartmann, oboe,
Walter Kussner, viola and
Clemens Weigel, cello —
which was simply superb. Before the forty minute Magic Flute they
performed Mozart's
Quartet in F major, K 370 and Mozart's motet Exsultate Jubilate K
165 — two jewels. Finally, I discovered a magnificent young soprano,
Scilla Cristiano, with a clear voice, a
wonderful coloratura, and tender and sweet phrasing; on the Rome stop of
the tour she was a last-minute replacement for Julia Bauer. She has
already performed in many foreign theatres and Italian provincial opera
houses. She has also been applauded as Gilda in Rigoletto at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna. I trust she will soon be a star in major
theaters.
Scilla Cristiano (centre) with members of Ensemble Berlin in Mozart's
'Mini' Magic Flute. Photo © 2017 Damiano Rosa. Click on the image for
higher resolution
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The disappointment was
Elio, who was both the narrator and Papageno (as well as other baritone
roles). The forty minute arrangement of the opera followed Schikaneder's
libretto, by and large, and the quartet rendered Mozart's music rather
well. Elio acted quite well, but he was a rather modest baritone. Only a
few great singers, such as Barbara Hannigan, can switch easily from 'pop'
to one of the most mysterious and ambiguous of Mozart's operas.
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