patrikpen: Vocally Splendid in M&V 20 October 2017

domenica 7 gennaio 2018

Vocally Splendid in M&V 20 October 2017

Vocally Splendid

GIUSEPPE PENNISI visits Florence,
where the audience is enthralled by the first
performance there of Puccini's 'La Rondine'

The 2017-18 opera season was inaugurated in Florence with Puccini's La Rondine on 17 October. I saw and heard the opera at the 15 October 2017 preview. This is the first time that La Rondine has been performed in Florence. Recently, I discussed the many reasons for this opera's lack of popularity in Puccini's catalogue, in A bitter-sweet 'Swallow', 24 July 2017. La Rondine had been originally conceived as an operetta for the Vienna Carltheater. However World War I compelled a change of plans. Furthermore, in those years, Puccini had several private and family problems and, as a consequence, he was very slow at composing. For instance, his librettist (Giuseppe Adami) had to write three different endings for the third act. Meanwhile, La Rondine had evolved as a fully-fledged opera with no spoken dialogue. Also, Puccini contracted with a different musical firm for the publication of the score — Sonzogo rather than his usual publisher Ricordi.

Ekaterina Bakanova as Magda, Francesca Longari as Yvette, Marta Pluda as Bianca and Giada Frasconi as Suzy in Puccini's 'La Rondine' at Opera di Firenze. Photo © 2017 Michele Borzoni. Click on the image for higher resolution

Finally, because of the status of hostilities in Europe, it was decided to launch the opera in what was technically a neutral country: Monte Carlo. There, the opera was a major success, enthusiastically received by the audience and by the press. The Italian premiere was in Bologna a few months later, Expectations were high but receptions by reviewers, audience and box office were lukewarm. It is indicative that at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York (where Puccini had premiered La Fanciulla del West, and Il Trittico had been a major hit), La Rondine was staged for the first time four years after the composer's death in 1924. Yet, some Italian musicologists, such as Fedele D'Amico and Alfredo Mandelli, as well as the late Julian Budden, consider it one of Puccini's best and most forward-looking operas. I agree with them. Nonetheless, the 'swallow' took one hundred years to reach Florence.

Matteo Mezzaro as Prunier in Puccini's 'La Rondine' at Opera di Firenze. Photo © 2017 Michele Borzoni

As I summarized the plot and the musical innovations only a few months ago here, I will focus on the production. Dennis Krief, stage director and also designer of the sets, costumes and lighting, places the action in today's Paris, not in the Belle Époque. In the first act, we are in a loft where elegant Parisians wine and dine; they can see and view the roofs and the 'grey skies' described in La bohème. In the second act, the action is a dancing hall, le Bal Bullier, where the protagonist Magda had gone in disguise to escape, for a few hours, from the wealthy milieu she is in. There she meets the country boy Ruggero and starts an affair with him. In the third and final act, they are in a white beach house at the seaside, which looks more like Brittany than Provence. There Ruggero proposes to marry her without knowing a thing about her past and present life. She declines because she knows that she will never be a good wife in a small provincial town. Thus, like an arrow, she flies back to the Paris she belongs to. The acting by all the interpreters was quite good. The chorus is to be commended because of its dancing in the second act: Florence Opera no longer has a corps de ballet, and the chorus members danced the waltz and fox trot while singing.

Ekaterina Bakanova as Magda in Puccini's 'La Rondine' at Opera di Firenze. Photo © 2017 Michele Borzoni

The large orchestra was conducted well by young Valerio Galli, who is becoming a Puccini specialist. At times, the orchestral sound covered the voices, but this can be attributed to the huge pit and to the place where I was sitting. Yet the theatre is brand new — some more attention should have been given to the acoustics.

Matteo Desole as Ruggero and Ekaterina Bakanova as Magda in Puccini's 'La Rondine' at Opera di Firenze. Photo © 2017 Michele Borzoni

The cast is young and numerous. Let's focus on the five principals. Ekaterina Bakanova and Matteo Desole are the key couple; they were vocally splendid, both in the second act long love duet and in the third act farewell scene. Desole would scenically gain by losing a few kilos but his arioso renders the good provincial fellow very well. Matteo Mezzaro and Hasmik Torosyan are their counterparts as Prunier, a penniless poet, and Lisette — Magda's maid, attempting to make a theatre career in Nice. Stefano Antonucci is Rambaldo, Magda's wealthy lover; he knows how to wait because he is aware that Magda's adventure with Ruggero will only last through the summer.