domenica 7 gennaio 2018

A Mini 'Magic Flute' in M&V 2 November 2017



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Ensemble
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
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
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
Stefano Belisari (Elio) and Scilla Cristiano in Mozart's 'Mini' Magic Flute.
Photo © 2017 Damiano Rosa. Click on the image for higher resolution
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
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
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.
Copyright © 2 November 2017 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy
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