POL - Epta di Piovani inaugura la stagione musicale di Villa Medici
Roma, 7 set (Il Velino) - L’Accademia di Francia a Villa Medici ha un interessante programma musicale che si estende nel corso di tutto l’anno. In primavera, si ricorderà, è stata uno dei punti centrale del Festival “Suona Francese” che, organizzato dall’ambasciata di Francia, ha coinvolto diciotto città italiane, 56 concerti, 89 compositori e 400 artisti ed ormai arrivato alla terza edizione. In precedenza, ha organizzato un festival di musica contemporanea ed elettro-acustica in cui i maggiori specialisti del ramo, italiani e francesi, si sono confrontati. Un nuovo festival di musica contemporanea è atteso per gennaio ed uno rock in estate.
La stagione autunnale è stata aperta la sera del 6 settembre nel magnifico giardino della Villa con una composizione di Nicola Piovani, compositore noto per le sue colonne di scena e le sue musiche di scena per spettacoli teatrali e commedie musicali ma meno conosciuto come uno dei maggiori compositori italiani di “musica colta”. “EPTA”, la composizione scelta per la serata, è già stata presentata all’Istituzione Universitaria dei Concerti la primavera scorsa ed al Teatro Eliseo in maggio. Ha avuto un buon successo in ambedue le occasioni. Quindi si è andati relativamente sul sicuro: autore noto, composizione già apprezzata.
EPTA è una suite orchestrale per sette musicisti che eseguono un ciclo di sette movimenti, scanditi da sette interventi di voci registrate che recitano frammenti di varia derivazione ispirati al numero sette, al suo fascino nella tradizione poetica, mitologica, biblica e nella matematica antica e contemporanea. Dai Sette contro Tebe di cui ci narra Eschilo in delle sue più affascinanti tragedie, alla danza dei sette veli trattata, fra gli altri, Oscar Wilde; dal Settimo sigillo di Bergmann a Shakespeare, a Carducci.Ognuno dei sette brani ha uno strumento principale che, da prim’attore, dialoga con gli altri sei.
“La seduzione del numero sette – afferma Piovani- ha per me qualcosa di indefinibile, comunque poco legato alle implicazioni cabalistiche, o esoteriche, o paramistiche con le quali ho poca frequentazione e confidenza. Il sentimento dominante di questa piccola suite nasce dalle peculiarità strettamente matematiche del numero sette, nelle quali mi ha guidato l’eccellente maestro Odifreddi, coniugate con la avvincente maestà delle sette porte di Tebe, i sette eroi che le difendono e i sette che le attaccano – anch’essi eroi -, con lo Shakespeare del Come vi garba; e con l’incanto che subivo nella mia adolescenza per i versi di Giosuè Carducci nel sottofinale di Davanti a San Guido. Passando per il Settimo Sigillo di Bergmann, il papiro di Rhind e i Sette veli di Salomè. Non c’è molto ordine logico, e men che mai filologico, nel sottotesto questa composizione. C’è semmai la ricerca-dediderio di mettere in ordine sul pentagramma una passione caotica e irrisolvibile, quella passione che si agita ogni volta che cerchiamo”.
La scrittura è chiara, trasparente, piena di ritmo, accattivante anche se non specialmente innovativa. Ci sarebbero aspettate tinte musicali differenti in ciascun brano. Di livello i sette solisti Alessio Mancini al flauto, Marisa Ceresi al sassofono, Fabio Ceccarelli alla tastiera, Francesca Taviani al violoncello, Andrea Avena al contrabasso, Ivan Gambini alle percussioni e Piovani al pianoforte. Le voci registrate sono di Piergiorgio Odifreddi, Omero Antonutti, Ascanio Celestini, Mariano Rigillo, Vincenzo Cerami, Gigi Proietti.
(Hans Sachs) 7 set 2010 15:37
martedì 7 settembre 2010
When God and Man Collide Music & Vision 19 agosto
When God and Man Collide
GIUSEPPE PENNISI visits
the Salzburg Festival to investigate
'the downfall of the myth and the spirit of the music'
This year the Salzburg Festival celebrates its ninetieth birthday: it started on 22 August 1920, on the Dom Platz, with Hugo von Hofmannsthal's religious morality play Jedermann ('The Life and Death of Every One of Us'). Since then, Jedermann has become a standard staple of the Festival: this season, there are twelve performances of the original text in the Dom Platz and an additional ten performances of a 'modernized' version in a different venue (the stadium). With its religious undertones, Jedermann is a good fit for this Festival -- the last to be managed by Jürgen Flimm who has been appointed artistic director of the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden and will be replaced by Markus Hinterhaüser and Alexander Pereira. Flimm has selected the theme for the 2010 Festival a sentence from a Michael Köhlmeier's essay: When God and Man Collide: The Downfall of the Myth from the Spirit of the Music. This theme creates a thread connecting over two hundred performances in six weeks -- opera, concerts and plays. In the opera section, specifically, the Festival features the world première of Wolfgang Rihm's Dionysus, Richard Strauss' Elektra, Bellini's Norma, Gluck's Orpheus, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette and Berg's Lulu. Among the plays are Racine's Pheadra and Sophocles' Oedipus at Colon.
A scene from 'Jedermann' at the Salzburg Festival. Photo © 2010 Hermann und Clärchen Baus
Your reviewer spent the mid-August week-end in Salzburg and saw Lulu (14 August 2010), Prokofiev's oratorio Ivan the Terrible (15 August) and Strauss' Elektra (16 August). I have discussed Elektra and Lulu extensively in Music and Vision over the last few months when Strauss' tragedy was presented in Modena, Piacenza and Ferrara in a production of the Tiroler Festival at Erl, and when Berg's masterpiece had a successful return at La Scala after several years of absence. Thus, in this report, I will focus on Ivan the Terrible and review only the Salzburg productions of Elektra and Lulu. Readers interested in the general background to both operas are referred to the articles published by Music and Vision in February and April, respectively. [Sheer Tension: The first performance of the unabridged 'Elekra', and Seldom Performed: 'Lulu' lands at La Scala.] Salzburg's new Elektra production is a joint venture with the Vienna Staatsoper, Lulu's a co-production with Geneva and Barcelona; thus there are plenty of opportunities to see and to listen to, them in other countries and in other theatres in the not too distant future.
Ivan The Terrible (a more correct translation would be 'Ivan the Awesome') was initially conceived as music for a three part film by Sergei Eisenstein; the first two parts were indeed produced in the Alma Ata studios during World War II, but only the first part was released because the Board of Censorship did not appreciate how, in the second part, Ivan was shown powerful with the Bojards (the feudal aristocrats) but humble before God. The second part of the film was released only in 1958; roughly at the same time, two of Prokofiev's students assembled the material into a dramatic oratorio, for large orchestra, two choruses, an alto, a tenor and two actors -- Ivan and a narrator.
From left to right, Gérard Depardieu, Riccardo Muti and Olga Borodina, with members of the Vienna State Opera Chorus and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, performing Prokofiev's 'Ivan the Terrible' at the Salzburg Festival. Photo © 2010 Silvia Lelli
The final product has a strong unity: in nearly eighty minutes, it depicts Ivan's rise to power, the aristocrats' plot to unseat him, the wars with the Tartars, the Czar's final victory against his foreign and domestic adversares, and especially his doubts about whether his actions are in line with the Will of the Almighty. (Stalin and his entourage certainly did not like that.) The Festival's production (three performances) was sumptuous, with Riccardo Muti at the baton of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Thomas Lang directing the Vienna State Opera Chorus, Wolfgang Götz directing the Salzburg Festival Childrens' Choir, Olga Borodina and Ildar Abdrazakov as the vocal soloists, Jan Joseph Liefers as the narrator and the well known French stage and film actor Gérard Depardieu (in perfect Russian) as Ivan. The orchestral and choral sound was rounded, the soloists filled the huge Grand Festival Hall with their powerful and perfectly emitted voices, and Deperdieu was effective as the tormented Czar. At the end of the performance, the audience erupted in accolades and with a ten minute standing ovation.
There are three main differences between the Salzburg Lulu production and that seen and listened to in April and reviewed in Music & Vision. Firstly, from a musical standpoint, Marc Albrecht had a swifter baton than Daniele Gatti: under both of them, the orchestra had the right balance between the symphonic approach, the twelve note serial system and support for the singers (whilst never covering their voices), but Albrecht emphasized the 'jazzy' part (the Upper Austrian Jazz Orchestra was added to the Vienna Philharmonic) more than Gatti. Secondly, the stage direction, the costumes and the lighting clearly set the drama in the 1930s with elegant interiors (although the final scene is in a London attic where Lulu, now a street prostitute, brings her clients and is killed). In the Salzburg production (Vera Nemirova was the stage director, Daniel Richter the creator of the stage sets and Klauss Noak of the costumes), staging was nearly a-temporal, the sex scenes more explicit and the audience directly involved in the action, especially in the first scene of Act III, played in the orchestra seats, not on stage. The plot became more engrossing. With Nemoriva as stage director, the modern tragedy was seen from a woman's viewpoint. Thirdly, the protagonist was not a dramatic soprano (as in Milan) but a younger coloratura soprano (Patricia Petibon); she was superb, both singing and acting. Thomas Piffka was an effective Alwa, as in Milan. Pavol Breslik wasa good Paintor. Michael Volle and Tanja Ariane Baumgartner were both very good as Schon and Geschwitz, respectively.
Patricia Petibon in the title role of Berg's 'Lulu' at the Salzburg Festival. Photo © 2010 Monika Rittershaus
From the musicological standpoint, the Salzburg production of the Strauss-Hofmannsthal Elektra was presented unabridged -- a comparatively new development started at the 2008 Tyroler Festival. In 1909, at its première in Dresden, a few verses of the text (and the relevant music) were cut because their explicit sexual references were considered unbecoming. Indeed as late as 1968, in the Golden Encyclopedia of Music, Norman Lloyd calls even the 'abridged' text 'too lurid'. Although the sense of what is or is not prude has changed over the decades, it was only two years ago, at a small Austrian festival at Erl, that Elektra was performed unabridged for the first time. Although the unabridged version is far from lurid, its sexually explicit text is essential to fully understand the Freudian overtones of the tragedy, and the dazzling excitement of musical forces that goes beyond Wagnerian lines. However, the main dramaturgic aspect of the production is that the Freudian tone is not the dominant feature: both Hofmannstahl and Strauss were Roman Catholic -- Hoftmannsthal was very rigorous in his religious practice; thus the stage director, Nicolaus Lehnhoff, places emphasis on an often forgotten theme of Elektra: the value of forgiveness. Elektra wants revenge and has no time for forgiveness, but Chrysothemis wants to forgive, and Clytemnestra asks for forgiveness. Indeed, forgiveness is the key argument of the two central dialogues of the opera: those between Elektra and Chrysothemis and between Elektra and Clytemnestra. The stage set (by Raimund Bauer) is a dilapidated social tenement. The costumes (by Andrea Schmidt-Futterer) are modern.
René Pape as Orest with Waltraud Meier as Clytemnestra in Richard Strauss' 'Elektra' at the Salzburg Festival. Photo © 2010 Hermann und Clärchen Baus
Daniele Gatti struck an excellent balance between the rounded but still tremendous sound of the one-hundred-and-twenty players in the orchestra pit and the voices on stage. He gave a lyrical emphasis to the score and, thanks to the skills of the Vienna Philharmonic, underlined its solo and chamber music aspects. I was in box five, and could hear and understand every single word. On 16 August 2010, Iréne Theorin, scheduled to sing the role of Elektra in all six performances, was sick; thus, she was replaced by Janice Baird, a veteran of the role, who jumped onto the stage without any previous rehearsal; due to her mastering of the technique, she deserved, and received, accolades (even though her voice is no longer what it was twenty years ago). Waltraud Meier was an imposing Clytemnestra, Eva-Marie Westbroek a sweet Chrysothemis, Renée Pape an effective Orestes, and Robert Gambill a strong Aegisthus. Elektra is in Salzburg until 28 August 2010; it will also be a feature of Vienna State Opera's program over the next few years.
Copyright © 19 August 2010 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy
<< M&V home Concert reviews Salvatore Sciarrino >>
When God and Man Collide
GIUSEPPE PENNISI visits
the Salzburg Festival to investigate
'the downfall of the myth and the spirit of the music'
This year the Salzburg Festival celebrates its ninetieth birthday: it started on 22 August 1920, on the Dom Platz, with Hugo von Hofmannsthal's religious morality play Jedermann ('The Life and Death of Every One of Us'). Since then, Jedermann has become a standard staple of the Festival: this season, there are twelve performances of the original text in the Dom Platz and an additional ten performances of a 'modernized' version in a different venue (the stadium). With its religious undertones, Jedermann is a good fit for this Festival -- the last to be managed by Jürgen Flimm who has been appointed artistic director of the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden and will be replaced by Markus Hinterhaüser and Alexander Pereira. Flimm has selected the theme for the 2010 Festival a sentence from a Michael Köhlmeier's essay: When God and Man Collide: The Downfall of the Myth from the Spirit of the Music. This theme creates a thread connecting over two hundred performances in six weeks -- opera, concerts and plays. In the opera section, specifically, the Festival features the world première of Wolfgang Rihm's Dionysus, Richard Strauss' Elektra, Bellini's Norma, Gluck's Orpheus, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette and Berg's Lulu. Among the plays are Racine's Pheadra and Sophocles' Oedipus at Colon.
A scene from 'Jedermann' at the Salzburg Festival. Photo © 2010 Hermann und Clärchen Baus
Your reviewer spent the mid-August week-end in Salzburg and saw Lulu (14 August 2010), Prokofiev's oratorio Ivan the Terrible (15 August) and Strauss' Elektra (16 August). I have discussed Elektra and Lulu extensively in Music and Vision over the last few months when Strauss' tragedy was presented in Modena, Piacenza and Ferrara in a production of the Tiroler Festival at Erl, and when Berg's masterpiece had a successful return at La Scala after several years of absence. Thus, in this report, I will focus on Ivan the Terrible and review only the Salzburg productions of Elektra and Lulu. Readers interested in the general background to both operas are referred to the articles published by Music and Vision in February and April, respectively. [Sheer Tension: The first performance of the unabridged 'Elekra', and Seldom Performed: 'Lulu' lands at La Scala.] Salzburg's new Elektra production is a joint venture with the Vienna Staatsoper, Lulu's a co-production with Geneva and Barcelona; thus there are plenty of opportunities to see and to listen to, them in other countries and in other theatres in the not too distant future.
Ivan The Terrible (a more correct translation would be 'Ivan the Awesome') was initially conceived as music for a three part film by Sergei Eisenstein; the first two parts were indeed produced in the Alma Ata studios during World War II, but only the first part was released because the Board of Censorship did not appreciate how, in the second part, Ivan was shown powerful with the Bojards (the feudal aristocrats) but humble before God. The second part of the film was released only in 1958; roughly at the same time, two of Prokofiev's students assembled the material into a dramatic oratorio, for large orchestra, two choruses, an alto, a tenor and two actors -- Ivan and a narrator.
From left to right, Gérard Depardieu, Riccardo Muti and Olga Borodina, with members of the Vienna State Opera Chorus and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, performing Prokofiev's 'Ivan the Terrible' at the Salzburg Festival. Photo © 2010 Silvia Lelli
The final product has a strong unity: in nearly eighty minutes, it depicts Ivan's rise to power, the aristocrats' plot to unseat him, the wars with the Tartars, the Czar's final victory against his foreign and domestic adversares, and especially his doubts about whether his actions are in line with the Will of the Almighty. (Stalin and his entourage certainly did not like that.) The Festival's production (three performances) was sumptuous, with Riccardo Muti at the baton of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Thomas Lang directing the Vienna State Opera Chorus, Wolfgang Götz directing the Salzburg Festival Childrens' Choir, Olga Borodina and Ildar Abdrazakov as the vocal soloists, Jan Joseph Liefers as the narrator and the well known French stage and film actor Gérard Depardieu (in perfect Russian) as Ivan. The orchestral and choral sound was rounded, the soloists filled the huge Grand Festival Hall with their powerful and perfectly emitted voices, and Deperdieu was effective as the tormented Czar. At the end of the performance, the audience erupted in accolades and with a ten minute standing ovation.
There are three main differences between the Salzburg Lulu production and that seen and listened to in April and reviewed in Music & Vision. Firstly, from a musical standpoint, Marc Albrecht had a swifter baton than Daniele Gatti: under both of them, the orchestra had the right balance between the symphonic approach, the twelve note serial system and support for the singers (whilst never covering their voices), but Albrecht emphasized the 'jazzy' part (the Upper Austrian Jazz Orchestra was added to the Vienna Philharmonic) more than Gatti. Secondly, the stage direction, the costumes and the lighting clearly set the drama in the 1930s with elegant interiors (although the final scene is in a London attic where Lulu, now a street prostitute, brings her clients and is killed). In the Salzburg production (Vera Nemirova was the stage director, Daniel Richter the creator of the stage sets and Klauss Noak of the costumes), staging was nearly a-temporal, the sex scenes more explicit and the audience directly involved in the action, especially in the first scene of Act III, played in the orchestra seats, not on stage. The plot became more engrossing. With Nemoriva as stage director, the modern tragedy was seen from a woman's viewpoint. Thirdly, the protagonist was not a dramatic soprano (as in Milan) but a younger coloratura soprano (Patricia Petibon); she was superb, both singing and acting. Thomas Piffka was an effective Alwa, as in Milan. Pavol Breslik wasa good Paintor. Michael Volle and Tanja Ariane Baumgartner were both very good as Schon and Geschwitz, respectively.
Patricia Petibon in the title role of Berg's 'Lulu' at the Salzburg Festival. Photo © 2010 Monika Rittershaus
From the musicological standpoint, the Salzburg production of the Strauss-Hofmannsthal Elektra was presented unabridged -- a comparatively new development started at the 2008 Tyroler Festival. In 1909, at its première in Dresden, a few verses of the text (and the relevant music) were cut because their explicit sexual references were considered unbecoming. Indeed as late as 1968, in the Golden Encyclopedia of Music, Norman Lloyd calls even the 'abridged' text 'too lurid'. Although the sense of what is or is not prude has changed over the decades, it was only two years ago, at a small Austrian festival at Erl, that Elektra was performed unabridged for the first time. Although the unabridged version is far from lurid, its sexually explicit text is essential to fully understand the Freudian overtones of the tragedy, and the dazzling excitement of musical forces that goes beyond Wagnerian lines. However, the main dramaturgic aspect of the production is that the Freudian tone is not the dominant feature: both Hofmannstahl and Strauss were Roman Catholic -- Hoftmannsthal was very rigorous in his religious practice; thus the stage director, Nicolaus Lehnhoff, places emphasis on an often forgotten theme of Elektra: the value of forgiveness. Elektra wants revenge and has no time for forgiveness, but Chrysothemis wants to forgive, and Clytemnestra asks for forgiveness. Indeed, forgiveness is the key argument of the two central dialogues of the opera: those between Elektra and Chrysothemis and between Elektra and Clytemnestra. The stage set (by Raimund Bauer) is a dilapidated social tenement. The costumes (by Andrea Schmidt-Futterer) are modern.
René Pape as Orest with Waltraud Meier as Clytemnestra in Richard Strauss' 'Elektra' at the Salzburg Festival. Photo © 2010 Hermann und Clärchen Baus
Daniele Gatti struck an excellent balance between the rounded but still tremendous sound of the one-hundred-and-twenty players in the orchestra pit and the voices on stage. He gave a lyrical emphasis to the score and, thanks to the skills of the Vienna Philharmonic, underlined its solo and chamber music aspects. I was in box five, and could hear and understand every single word. On 16 August 2010, Iréne Theorin, scheduled to sing the role of Elektra in all six performances, was sick; thus, she was replaced by Janice Baird, a veteran of the role, who jumped onto the stage without any previous rehearsal; due to her mastering of the technique, she deserved, and received, accolades (even though her voice is no longer what it was twenty years ago). Waltraud Meier was an imposing Clytemnestra, Eva-Marie Westbroek a sweet Chrysothemis, Renée Pape an effective Orestes, and Robert Gambill a strong Aegisthus. Elektra is in Salzburg until 28 August 2010; it will also be a feature of Vienna State Opera's program over the next few years.
Copyright © 19 August 2010 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy
<< M&V home Concert reviews Salvatore Sciarrino >>
GIUSEPPE PENNISI visits
the Salzburg Festival to investigate
'the downfall of the myth and the spirit of the music'
This year the Salzburg Festival celebrates its ninetieth birthday: it started on 22 August 1920, on the Dom Platz, with Hugo von Hofmannsthal's religious morality play Jedermann ('The Life and Death of Every One of Us'). Since then, Jedermann has become a standard staple of the Festival: this season, there are twelve performances of the original text in the Dom Platz and an additional ten performances of a 'modernized' version in a different venue (the stadium). With its religious undertones, Jedermann is a good fit for this Festival -- the last to be managed by Jürgen Flimm who has been appointed artistic director of the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden and will be replaced by Markus Hinterhaüser and Alexander Pereira. Flimm has selected the theme for the 2010 Festival a sentence from a Michael Köhlmeier's essay: When God and Man Collide: The Downfall of the Myth from the Spirit of the Music. This theme creates a thread connecting over two hundred performances in six weeks -- opera, concerts and plays. In the opera section, specifically, the Festival features the world première of Wolfgang Rihm's Dionysus, Richard Strauss' Elektra, Bellini's Norma, Gluck's Orpheus, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette and Berg's Lulu. Among the plays are Racine's Pheadra and Sophocles' Oedipus at Colon.
A scene from 'Jedermann' at the Salzburg Festival. Photo © 2010 Hermann und Clärchen Baus
Your reviewer spent the mid-August week-end in Salzburg and saw Lulu (14 August 2010), Prokofiev's oratorio Ivan the Terrible (15 August) and Strauss' Elektra (16 August). I have discussed Elektra and Lulu extensively in Music and Vision over the last few months when Strauss' tragedy was presented in Modena, Piacenza and Ferrara in a production of the Tiroler Festival at Erl, and when Berg's masterpiece had a successful return at La Scala after several years of absence. Thus, in this report, I will focus on Ivan the Terrible and review only the Salzburg productions of Elektra and Lulu. Readers interested in the general background to both operas are referred to the articles published by Music and Vision in February and April, respectively. [Sheer Tension: The first performance of the unabridged 'Elekra', and Seldom Performed: 'Lulu' lands at La Scala.] Salzburg's new Elektra production is a joint venture with the Vienna Staatsoper, Lulu's a co-production with Geneva and Barcelona; thus there are plenty of opportunities to see and to listen to, them in other countries and in other theatres in the not too distant future.
Ivan The Terrible (a more correct translation would be 'Ivan the Awesome') was initially conceived as music for a three part film by Sergei Eisenstein; the first two parts were indeed produced in the Alma Ata studios during World War II, but only the first part was released because the Board of Censorship did not appreciate how, in the second part, Ivan was shown powerful with the Bojards (the feudal aristocrats) but humble before God. The second part of the film was released only in 1958; roughly at the same time, two of Prokofiev's students assembled the material into a dramatic oratorio, for large orchestra, two choruses, an alto, a tenor and two actors -- Ivan and a narrator.
From left to right, Gérard Depardieu, Riccardo Muti and Olga Borodina, with members of the Vienna State Opera Chorus and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, performing Prokofiev's 'Ivan the Terrible' at the Salzburg Festival. Photo © 2010 Silvia Lelli
The final product has a strong unity: in nearly eighty minutes, it depicts Ivan's rise to power, the aristocrats' plot to unseat him, the wars with the Tartars, the Czar's final victory against his foreign and domestic adversares, and especially his doubts about whether his actions are in line with the Will of the Almighty. (Stalin and his entourage certainly did not like that.) The Festival's production (three performances) was sumptuous, with Riccardo Muti at the baton of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Thomas Lang directing the Vienna State Opera Chorus, Wolfgang Götz directing the Salzburg Festival Childrens' Choir, Olga Borodina and Ildar Abdrazakov as the vocal soloists, Jan Joseph Liefers as the narrator and the well known French stage and film actor Gérard Depardieu (in perfect Russian) as Ivan. The orchestral and choral sound was rounded, the soloists filled the huge Grand Festival Hall with their powerful and perfectly emitted voices, and Deperdieu was effective as the tormented Czar. At the end of the performance, the audience erupted in accolades and with a ten minute standing ovation.
There are three main differences between the Salzburg Lulu production and that seen and listened to in April and reviewed in Music & Vision. Firstly, from a musical standpoint, Marc Albrecht had a swifter baton than Daniele Gatti: under both of them, the orchestra had the right balance between the symphonic approach, the twelve note serial system and support for the singers (whilst never covering their voices), but Albrecht emphasized the 'jazzy' part (the Upper Austrian Jazz Orchestra was added to the Vienna Philharmonic) more than Gatti. Secondly, the stage direction, the costumes and the lighting clearly set the drama in the 1930s with elegant interiors (although the final scene is in a London attic where Lulu, now a street prostitute, brings her clients and is killed). In the Salzburg production (Vera Nemirova was the stage director, Daniel Richter the creator of the stage sets and Klauss Noak of the costumes), staging was nearly a-temporal, the sex scenes more explicit and the audience directly involved in the action, especially in the first scene of Act III, played in the orchestra seats, not on stage. The plot became more engrossing. With Nemoriva as stage director, the modern tragedy was seen from a woman's viewpoint. Thirdly, the protagonist was not a dramatic soprano (as in Milan) but a younger coloratura soprano (Patricia Petibon); she was superb, both singing and acting. Thomas Piffka was an effective Alwa, as in Milan. Pavol Breslik wasa good Paintor. Michael Volle and Tanja Ariane Baumgartner were both very good as Schon and Geschwitz, respectively.
Patricia Petibon in the title role of Berg's 'Lulu' at the Salzburg Festival. Photo © 2010 Monika Rittershaus
From the musicological standpoint, the Salzburg production of the Strauss-Hofmannsthal Elektra was presented unabridged -- a comparatively new development started at the 2008 Tyroler Festival. In 1909, at its première in Dresden, a few verses of the text (and the relevant music) were cut because their explicit sexual references were considered unbecoming. Indeed as late as 1968, in the Golden Encyclopedia of Music, Norman Lloyd calls even the 'abridged' text 'too lurid'. Although the sense of what is or is not prude has changed over the decades, it was only two years ago, at a small Austrian festival at Erl, that Elektra was performed unabridged for the first time. Although the unabridged version is far from lurid, its sexually explicit text is essential to fully understand the Freudian overtones of the tragedy, and the dazzling excitement of musical forces that goes beyond Wagnerian lines. However, the main dramaturgic aspect of the production is that the Freudian tone is not the dominant feature: both Hofmannstahl and Strauss were Roman Catholic -- Hoftmannsthal was very rigorous in his religious practice; thus the stage director, Nicolaus Lehnhoff, places emphasis on an often forgotten theme of Elektra: the value of forgiveness. Elektra wants revenge and has no time for forgiveness, but Chrysothemis wants to forgive, and Clytemnestra asks for forgiveness. Indeed, forgiveness is the key argument of the two central dialogues of the opera: those between Elektra and Chrysothemis and between Elektra and Clytemnestra. The stage set (by Raimund Bauer) is a dilapidated social tenement. The costumes (by Andrea Schmidt-Futterer) are modern.
René Pape as Orest with Waltraud Meier as Clytemnestra in Richard Strauss' 'Elektra' at the Salzburg Festival. Photo © 2010 Hermann und Clärchen Baus
Daniele Gatti struck an excellent balance between the rounded but still tremendous sound of the one-hundred-and-twenty players in the orchestra pit and the voices on stage. He gave a lyrical emphasis to the score and, thanks to the skills of the Vienna Philharmonic, underlined its solo and chamber music aspects. I was in box five, and could hear and understand every single word. On 16 August 2010, Iréne Theorin, scheduled to sing the role of Elektra in all six performances, was sick; thus, she was replaced by Janice Baird, a veteran of the role, who jumped onto the stage without any previous rehearsal; due to her mastering of the technique, she deserved, and received, accolades (even though her voice is no longer what it was twenty years ago). Waltraud Meier was an imposing Clytemnestra, Eva-Marie Westbroek a sweet Chrysothemis, Renée Pape an effective Orestes, and Robert Gambill a strong Aegisthus. Elektra is in Salzburg until 28 August 2010; it will also be a feature of Vienna State Opera's program over the next few years.
Copyright © 19 August 2010 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy
<< M&V home Concert reviews Salvatore Sciarrino >>
When God and Man Collide
GIUSEPPE PENNISI visits
the Salzburg Festival to investigate
'the downfall of the myth and the spirit of the music'
This year the Salzburg Festival celebrates its ninetieth birthday: it started on 22 August 1920, on the Dom Platz, with Hugo von Hofmannsthal's religious morality play Jedermann ('The Life and Death of Every One of Us'). Since then, Jedermann has become a standard staple of the Festival: this season, there are twelve performances of the original text in the Dom Platz and an additional ten performances of a 'modernized' version in a different venue (the stadium). With its religious undertones, Jedermann is a good fit for this Festival -- the last to be managed by Jürgen Flimm who has been appointed artistic director of the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden and will be replaced by Markus Hinterhaüser and Alexander Pereira. Flimm has selected the theme for the 2010 Festival a sentence from a Michael Köhlmeier's essay: When God and Man Collide: The Downfall of the Myth from the Spirit of the Music. This theme creates a thread connecting over two hundred performances in six weeks -- opera, concerts and plays. In the opera section, specifically, the Festival features the world première of Wolfgang Rihm's Dionysus, Richard Strauss' Elektra, Bellini's Norma, Gluck's Orpheus, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette and Berg's Lulu. Among the plays are Racine's Pheadra and Sophocles' Oedipus at Colon.
A scene from 'Jedermann' at the Salzburg Festival. Photo © 2010 Hermann und Clärchen Baus
Your reviewer spent the mid-August week-end in Salzburg and saw Lulu (14 August 2010), Prokofiev's oratorio Ivan the Terrible (15 August) and Strauss' Elektra (16 August). I have discussed Elektra and Lulu extensively in Music and Vision over the last few months when Strauss' tragedy was presented in Modena, Piacenza and Ferrara in a production of the Tiroler Festival at Erl, and when Berg's masterpiece had a successful return at La Scala after several years of absence. Thus, in this report, I will focus on Ivan the Terrible and review only the Salzburg productions of Elektra and Lulu. Readers interested in the general background to both operas are referred to the articles published by Music and Vision in February and April, respectively. [Sheer Tension: The first performance of the unabridged 'Elekra', and Seldom Performed: 'Lulu' lands at La Scala.] Salzburg's new Elektra production is a joint venture with the Vienna Staatsoper, Lulu's a co-production with Geneva and Barcelona; thus there are plenty of opportunities to see and to listen to, them in other countries and in other theatres in the not too distant future.
Ivan The Terrible (a more correct translation would be 'Ivan the Awesome') was initially conceived as music for a three part film by Sergei Eisenstein; the first two parts were indeed produced in the Alma Ata studios during World War II, but only the first part was released because the Board of Censorship did not appreciate how, in the second part, Ivan was shown powerful with the Bojards (the feudal aristocrats) but humble before God. The second part of the film was released only in 1958; roughly at the same time, two of Prokofiev's students assembled the material into a dramatic oratorio, for large orchestra, two choruses, an alto, a tenor and two actors -- Ivan and a narrator.
From left to right, Gérard Depardieu, Riccardo Muti and Olga Borodina, with members of the Vienna State Opera Chorus and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, performing Prokofiev's 'Ivan the Terrible' at the Salzburg Festival. Photo © 2010 Silvia Lelli
The final product has a strong unity: in nearly eighty minutes, it depicts Ivan's rise to power, the aristocrats' plot to unseat him, the wars with the Tartars, the Czar's final victory against his foreign and domestic adversares, and especially his doubts about whether his actions are in line with the Will of the Almighty. (Stalin and his entourage certainly did not like that.) The Festival's production (three performances) was sumptuous, with Riccardo Muti at the baton of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Thomas Lang directing the Vienna State Opera Chorus, Wolfgang Götz directing the Salzburg Festival Childrens' Choir, Olga Borodina and Ildar Abdrazakov as the vocal soloists, Jan Joseph Liefers as the narrator and the well known French stage and film actor Gérard Depardieu (in perfect Russian) as Ivan. The orchestral and choral sound was rounded, the soloists filled the huge Grand Festival Hall with their powerful and perfectly emitted voices, and Deperdieu was effective as the tormented Czar. At the end of the performance, the audience erupted in accolades and with a ten minute standing ovation.
There are three main differences between the Salzburg Lulu production and that seen and listened to in April and reviewed in Music & Vision. Firstly, from a musical standpoint, Marc Albrecht had a swifter baton than Daniele Gatti: under both of them, the orchestra had the right balance between the symphonic approach, the twelve note serial system and support for the singers (whilst never covering their voices), but Albrecht emphasized the 'jazzy' part (the Upper Austrian Jazz Orchestra was added to the Vienna Philharmonic) more than Gatti. Secondly, the stage direction, the costumes and the lighting clearly set the drama in the 1930s with elegant interiors (although the final scene is in a London attic where Lulu, now a street prostitute, brings her clients and is killed). In the Salzburg production (Vera Nemirova was the stage director, Daniel Richter the creator of the stage sets and Klauss Noak of the costumes), staging was nearly a-temporal, the sex scenes more explicit and the audience directly involved in the action, especially in the first scene of Act III, played in the orchestra seats, not on stage. The plot became more engrossing. With Nemoriva as stage director, the modern tragedy was seen from a woman's viewpoint. Thirdly, the protagonist was not a dramatic soprano (as in Milan) but a younger coloratura soprano (Patricia Petibon); she was superb, both singing and acting. Thomas Piffka was an effective Alwa, as in Milan. Pavol Breslik wasa good Paintor. Michael Volle and Tanja Ariane Baumgartner were both very good as Schon and Geschwitz, respectively.
Patricia Petibon in the title role of Berg's 'Lulu' at the Salzburg Festival. Photo © 2010 Monika Rittershaus
From the musicological standpoint, the Salzburg production of the Strauss-Hofmannsthal Elektra was presented unabridged -- a comparatively new development started at the 2008 Tyroler Festival. In 1909, at its première in Dresden, a few verses of the text (and the relevant music) were cut because their explicit sexual references were considered unbecoming. Indeed as late as 1968, in the Golden Encyclopedia of Music, Norman Lloyd calls even the 'abridged' text 'too lurid'. Although the sense of what is or is not prude has changed over the decades, it was only two years ago, at a small Austrian festival at Erl, that Elektra was performed unabridged for the first time. Although the unabridged version is far from lurid, its sexually explicit text is essential to fully understand the Freudian overtones of the tragedy, and the dazzling excitement of musical forces that goes beyond Wagnerian lines. However, the main dramaturgic aspect of the production is that the Freudian tone is not the dominant feature: both Hofmannstahl and Strauss were Roman Catholic -- Hoftmannsthal was very rigorous in his religious practice; thus the stage director, Nicolaus Lehnhoff, places emphasis on an often forgotten theme of Elektra: the value of forgiveness. Elektra wants revenge and has no time for forgiveness, but Chrysothemis wants to forgive, and Clytemnestra asks for forgiveness. Indeed, forgiveness is the key argument of the two central dialogues of the opera: those between Elektra and Chrysothemis and between Elektra and Clytemnestra. The stage set (by Raimund Bauer) is a dilapidated social tenement. The costumes (by Andrea Schmidt-Futterer) are modern.
René Pape as Orest with Waltraud Meier as Clytemnestra in Richard Strauss' 'Elektra' at the Salzburg Festival. Photo © 2010 Hermann und Clärchen Baus
Daniele Gatti struck an excellent balance between the rounded but still tremendous sound of the one-hundred-and-twenty players in the orchestra pit and the voices on stage. He gave a lyrical emphasis to the score and, thanks to the skills of the Vienna Philharmonic, underlined its solo and chamber music aspects. I was in box five, and could hear and understand every single word. On 16 August 2010, Iréne Theorin, scheduled to sing the role of Elektra in all six performances, was sick; thus, she was replaced by Janice Baird, a veteran of the role, who jumped onto the stage without any previous rehearsal; due to her mastering of the technique, she deserved, and received, accolades (even though her voice is no longer what it was twenty years ago). Waltraud Meier was an imposing Clytemnestra, Eva-Marie Westbroek a sweet Chrysothemis, Renée Pape an effective Orestes, and Robert Gambill a strong Aegisthus. Elektra is in Salzburg until 28 August 2010; it will also be a feature of Vienna State Opera's program over the next few years.
Copyright © 19 August 2010 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy
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Rough and Shining Jewels Music & Vision 14 agosto
Rough and Shining Jewels
GIUSEPPE PENNISI visits the
2010 Rossini Opera Festival
On the Adriatic shore, Pesaro is a lively and hospitable city all year round. Its population grows from 90,000 to nearly 150,000 during the summer because it is a well-known, reasonably-priced seaside resort. It also has an immaculate old city center and a territory with splendid views and unforgettable landscapes. Its population is industrious: since World War II, Pesaro changed from a lower-than-middle income town to a high income area due to manufacturing, especially in furniture and apparels. It also has the most important, and most exclusive, high fashion boutique in Central Italy -- in the past visited by high class and high spending power ladies from Milan and Rome (coming by special limousine), but now also has steady and loyal clients from Japan and Russia (who land at the nearby Rimini International Airport).
Pesaro was Gioacchino Rossini's birthplace, and for the last thirty-one years has been the city of the Rossini Opera Festival (ROF). In his last will and testament, Rossini devolved his wealth to the city to develop a conservatory -- now one of the best in Italy. ROF has made Pesaro a major international music town for a few weeks every year. ROF is a monographic festival like the Wagnerian Festival in Bayreuth. It operates along with, but distinct from, the Rossini Foundation, whose mission is to prepare critical editions of all Rossini's works. It runs a school -- l'Accademia Rossiniana -- to rediscover and preserve Rossini's special vocal style. Seats for the Festival performances are difficult to get; normally reservations have to be made in about January and not all requests are accepted. Agencies charge a hefty mark up. Seventy percent of the audience is non-Italian; only ten percent is from the Marche, the regional area containing Pesaro. There is always a large contingent of foreign press: a recent book documents that four hundred non-Italian papers, weekly and monthly, have dealt with the Festival over the last few years.
The ROF has performed its mission to discover Rossini's 'serious' operas and other forgotten masterpieces very well. Normally, during a Festival, three operas are staged: two are rediscovery and one belongs to what is now accepted as repertory in major opera houses. There is also a variety of concerts to select from. There is a lovely eight hundred seat nineteen century theatre and a modern twelve hundred seat Adriatic Arena (a sport stadium converted into an opera house for the ROF weeks (this year 9-21 August).
The 2010 Festival is dedicated to Rossini's youth: operas composed in his teens and early twenties. In this report, I follow the order not of the presentation of the three operas in Pesaro this year, but the chronology of their first performances ever with a view of getting a better feel of Rossini's dramaturgical and musical developments.
Maria José Moreno and Yijie Shi in 'Demetrio e Polibio' at the Rossini Opera Festival. Photo © 2010 Studio Amati Bacciardi
Demetrio e Polibio was composed by Rossini at the age of sixteen for the Mombelli family, a four singer travelling company active at the time in central Italy. In 1812 it was on the stage of the important Teatro Valle in Rome. It was performed quite often all over Italy until 1825, when it disappeared. One of its many versions was revived years ago at the Festival di Valle d'Itria in Martina Franca. On 10 August 2010, the first 'revision on the original sources' was unveiled at the ROF. Even now, it hard to say which arias and duets belong to Rossini and which to the rest of Monbelli's team. It has, however, two important innovations: a) the role of the young man in love is written for a mezzo in trousers, rather than for a castrato as was still the practice, and that of the father for a baritenore (a tenor who would emphasize the central register and could reach grave tonalities). The production is simple, has low costs and is designed to be seen in other theatres. The stage director (Davide Livermore) presents the dramma serio in due atti on a semi-empty modern stage where members of the Mombelli company (or their ghosts) perform the opera; the audience sees it from backstage. The stage set and costumes are the work of Accademia delle Belle Arti di Urbino (thus a University Group). Corrado Rovaris conduct a local orchestra, organized for the purpose. The four singers are all young from the Accademia Rossiniana -- thus they command comparatively low fees. Yijie Shi and Mirco Palazzi (the baritenor and the bass) were excellent. Victoria Zaytseva is a good mezzo but with little volume. The soprano Maria José Moreno has a good potential to develop. The Prague Chamber Chorus was as effective as ever. In short, a rough but pleasant draft of what Rossini, then adolescent, had in store for the future.
Sigismondo was a fiasco when it was premièred on 26 December 1814 at La Fenice in Venice; there wasn't a second performance. The libretto is a pretty horrible plot of loyalty, betrayal and love in eighteenth century Poland. It is based on a long standing legend which inspired, inter alia, Robert Schumann for Génevieve or Genoveva, his only opera. Attempts to revive Sigismondo were made by Richard Bonynge in Treviso and Rovigo (with a young cast) in 1992, but with very little success (even though there is a decent CD to record those performances). In the previous eighteen months, Rossini had composed five operas, including four absolute masterpieces like Il Signor Bruschino, l'Italiana in Algeri, Tancredi and Il Turco in Italia. He was an attractive twenty-two-year-old in a happy-go-lucky Venice and had quite a variety of girlfriends. Most likely, he was exhausted by both composing and the maze of his romantic life. However, the opera is interesting for musicologists because, with quite a bit of humor, the complicated plot was treated by the composer with a rather light hand by borrowing from previous operas (such as Tancredi) and providing first rough drafts of future masterpieces such as Il Barbiere di Siviglia and La Cenerentola. It a rough jewel, a precursor of future elegant and precious necklaces and rings.
Daniela Barcellona and Olga Peretyatko in 'Sigismondo' at the Rossini Opera Festival. Photo © 2010 Studio Amati Bacciardi
On 9 August, at the opening performance of the 2010 ROF, Michele Mariotti, the conductor, the orchestra and chorus of the Teatro dell'Opera di Bologna and the singers (Daniela Barcellona, Olga Peretyatko, Antonino Siragusa in the main roles, with Andrea Concetti, Manuela Bisceglie and Enea Scala in supporting parts), did marvels to capture Rossini's ambiguity (and humor) towards the crazy and disconnected libretto. They were not helped at all by the stage direction (Damiano Michieletto), the costumes (Carla Teti) or the lighting. Michieletto is a young up-and-coming and highly 'politically correct' stage director in the Italian opera firmament. This staging cannot be qualified with an adjective acceptable to M&V readers. It is totally unrelated to either the music or common sense. The plot was transferred from a fairytale Poland to an early twentieth century mad house; a very old trick -- seen in the 1990s for several productions of Lucia, Traviata, I Puritani and Pikovaya dama. Now it is dusty and smells old. In addition, in spite of the supertitles, it was impossible to follow what was going on stage in this B-rated Ibsen (not Rossini) context, appropriate to a high school performance in Sweden and million of miles distant from Rossini's cunning talent. Michieletto may consider taking a rest from his swirly stage direction engagements, in short a sabbatical to read a few good books and, in the event, have a good talk to his analyst. He would have appreciated that the boos in the audience were accolades for Rossini (in spite of his own doing). Whilst the madhouse was showing its senseless aimlessness, from the pit and on the stage, a rough but delicate Rossini was laughing at us with a lot of irony thanks to Mariotti's superb conducting, Barcellona and Peretyatko's lush vocalizing and Siragusa's High Cs (at times, excessively shouted). Let us hope that ROF will produce a CD but set aside any plan for a DVD (maybe until Michieletto's return from his badly-deserved sabbatical).
Alex Esposito, Lawrence Brownlee, Marianna Pizzolato, Paolo Bordogna and Nicola Alaimo in 'La Cenerentola' at the Rossini Opera Festival. Photo © 2010 Studio Amati Bacciardi
La Cenerentola is the third offering. Your reviewer was admitted to the 8 August dress rehearsal in the huge Adriatica Arena. It is a dramma giocoso, one of the very few Rossini operas always performed even during romanticism and verismo, when most of his productions disappeared from most theatres (even in Italy). The plot is well known; it is a modification of Perrault's fairytale because in 1817 in the Pope's State, it was forbidden to stage supernatural events. The libretto by Jacopo Ferretti is a well-balanced comedy about growing to adulthood (for the Prince and Angelina, the Cinderella of the plot) with plenty of comic relief (the two half-sisters, their father, the Pince's valet Dandini). However, it would have been a dramma giocoso as many of that period without Rossini's charming and scintillating score -- a true polished, shining and elegant jewel. Yves Abel unveiled the bounty of beauties from the swift and tender overture. Lawrence Brownlee (the Prince) and Marianna Pizzolato (Angelina) were just charming in the lovely first Act duet. The comic baritone and bass group (Nicola Alaimo, Paolo Bordogna, Alex Esposito) are as hilarious as they should be. Less brilliant were the two half sisters (Manon Strauss Evrard and Cristina Faus). The sextet of stupefaction in the second Act after the Prince and Dandini have taken shelter in Don Magnifico's run down house, was great. Angelina's final rondo was of high quality.
Copyright © 14 August 2010 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy
In 2011, the Rossini Opera Festival features Adelaide di Borgogna, Mosé in Egitto and La Scala di Seta, and the world première of the critical edition of Il Barbiere di Siviglia. Anyone interested should book early at www.rossinioperafestival.it
GIOACCHINO ROSSINI
ITALY
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GIUSEPPE PENNISI visits the
2010 Rossini Opera Festival
On the Adriatic shore, Pesaro is a lively and hospitable city all year round. Its population grows from 90,000 to nearly 150,000 during the summer because it is a well-known, reasonably-priced seaside resort. It also has an immaculate old city center and a territory with splendid views and unforgettable landscapes. Its population is industrious: since World War II, Pesaro changed from a lower-than-middle income town to a high income area due to manufacturing, especially in furniture and apparels. It also has the most important, and most exclusive, high fashion boutique in Central Italy -- in the past visited by high class and high spending power ladies from Milan and Rome (coming by special limousine), but now also has steady and loyal clients from Japan and Russia (who land at the nearby Rimini International Airport).
Pesaro was Gioacchino Rossini's birthplace, and for the last thirty-one years has been the city of the Rossini Opera Festival (ROF). In his last will and testament, Rossini devolved his wealth to the city to develop a conservatory -- now one of the best in Italy. ROF has made Pesaro a major international music town for a few weeks every year. ROF is a monographic festival like the Wagnerian Festival in Bayreuth. It operates along with, but distinct from, the Rossini Foundation, whose mission is to prepare critical editions of all Rossini's works. It runs a school -- l'Accademia Rossiniana -- to rediscover and preserve Rossini's special vocal style. Seats for the Festival performances are difficult to get; normally reservations have to be made in about January and not all requests are accepted. Agencies charge a hefty mark up. Seventy percent of the audience is non-Italian; only ten percent is from the Marche, the regional area containing Pesaro. There is always a large contingent of foreign press: a recent book documents that four hundred non-Italian papers, weekly and monthly, have dealt with the Festival over the last few years.
The ROF has performed its mission to discover Rossini's 'serious' operas and other forgotten masterpieces very well. Normally, during a Festival, three operas are staged: two are rediscovery and one belongs to what is now accepted as repertory in major opera houses. There is also a variety of concerts to select from. There is a lovely eight hundred seat nineteen century theatre and a modern twelve hundred seat Adriatic Arena (a sport stadium converted into an opera house for the ROF weeks (this year 9-21 August).
The 2010 Festival is dedicated to Rossini's youth: operas composed in his teens and early twenties. In this report, I follow the order not of the presentation of the three operas in Pesaro this year, but the chronology of their first performances ever with a view of getting a better feel of Rossini's dramaturgical and musical developments.
Maria José Moreno and Yijie Shi in 'Demetrio e Polibio' at the Rossini Opera Festival. Photo © 2010 Studio Amati Bacciardi
Demetrio e Polibio was composed by Rossini at the age of sixteen for the Mombelli family, a four singer travelling company active at the time in central Italy. In 1812 it was on the stage of the important Teatro Valle in Rome. It was performed quite often all over Italy until 1825, when it disappeared. One of its many versions was revived years ago at the Festival di Valle d'Itria in Martina Franca. On 10 August 2010, the first 'revision on the original sources' was unveiled at the ROF. Even now, it hard to say which arias and duets belong to Rossini and which to the rest of Monbelli's team. It has, however, two important innovations: a) the role of the young man in love is written for a mezzo in trousers, rather than for a castrato as was still the practice, and that of the father for a baritenore (a tenor who would emphasize the central register and could reach grave tonalities). The production is simple, has low costs and is designed to be seen in other theatres. The stage director (Davide Livermore) presents the dramma serio in due atti on a semi-empty modern stage where members of the Mombelli company (or their ghosts) perform the opera; the audience sees it from backstage. The stage set and costumes are the work of Accademia delle Belle Arti di Urbino (thus a University Group). Corrado Rovaris conduct a local orchestra, organized for the purpose. The four singers are all young from the Accademia Rossiniana -- thus they command comparatively low fees. Yijie Shi and Mirco Palazzi (the baritenor and the bass) were excellent. Victoria Zaytseva is a good mezzo but with little volume. The soprano Maria José Moreno has a good potential to develop. The Prague Chamber Chorus was as effective as ever. In short, a rough but pleasant draft of what Rossini, then adolescent, had in store for the future.
Sigismondo was a fiasco when it was premièred on 26 December 1814 at La Fenice in Venice; there wasn't a second performance. The libretto is a pretty horrible plot of loyalty, betrayal and love in eighteenth century Poland. It is based on a long standing legend which inspired, inter alia, Robert Schumann for Génevieve or Genoveva, his only opera. Attempts to revive Sigismondo were made by Richard Bonynge in Treviso and Rovigo (with a young cast) in 1992, but with very little success (even though there is a decent CD to record those performances). In the previous eighteen months, Rossini had composed five operas, including four absolute masterpieces like Il Signor Bruschino, l'Italiana in Algeri, Tancredi and Il Turco in Italia. He was an attractive twenty-two-year-old in a happy-go-lucky Venice and had quite a variety of girlfriends. Most likely, he was exhausted by both composing and the maze of his romantic life. However, the opera is interesting for musicologists because, with quite a bit of humor, the complicated plot was treated by the composer with a rather light hand by borrowing from previous operas (such as Tancredi) and providing first rough drafts of future masterpieces such as Il Barbiere di Siviglia and La Cenerentola. It a rough jewel, a precursor of future elegant and precious necklaces and rings.
Daniela Barcellona and Olga Peretyatko in 'Sigismondo' at the Rossini Opera Festival. Photo © 2010 Studio Amati Bacciardi
On 9 August, at the opening performance of the 2010 ROF, Michele Mariotti, the conductor, the orchestra and chorus of the Teatro dell'Opera di Bologna and the singers (Daniela Barcellona, Olga Peretyatko, Antonino Siragusa in the main roles, with Andrea Concetti, Manuela Bisceglie and Enea Scala in supporting parts), did marvels to capture Rossini's ambiguity (and humor) towards the crazy and disconnected libretto. They were not helped at all by the stage direction (Damiano Michieletto), the costumes (Carla Teti) or the lighting. Michieletto is a young up-and-coming and highly 'politically correct' stage director in the Italian opera firmament. This staging cannot be qualified with an adjective acceptable to M&V readers. It is totally unrelated to either the music or common sense. The plot was transferred from a fairytale Poland to an early twentieth century mad house; a very old trick -- seen in the 1990s for several productions of Lucia, Traviata, I Puritani and Pikovaya dama. Now it is dusty and smells old. In addition, in spite of the supertitles, it was impossible to follow what was going on stage in this B-rated Ibsen (not Rossini) context, appropriate to a high school performance in Sweden and million of miles distant from Rossini's cunning talent. Michieletto may consider taking a rest from his swirly stage direction engagements, in short a sabbatical to read a few good books and, in the event, have a good talk to his analyst. He would have appreciated that the boos in the audience were accolades for Rossini (in spite of his own doing). Whilst the madhouse was showing its senseless aimlessness, from the pit and on the stage, a rough but delicate Rossini was laughing at us with a lot of irony thanks to Mariotti's superb conducting, Barcellona and Peretyatko's lush vocalizing and Siragusa's High Cs (at times, excessively shouted). Let us hope that ROF will produce a CD but set aside any plan for a DVD (maybe until Michieletto's return from his badly-deserved sabbatical).
Alex Esposito, Lawrence Brownlee, Marianna Pizzolato, Paolo Bordogna and Nicola Alaimo in 'La Cenerentola' at the Rossini Opera Festival. Photo © 2010 Studio Amati Bacciardi
La Cenerentola is the third offering. Your reviewer was admitted to the 8 August dress rehearsal in the huge Adriatica Arena. It is a dramma giocoso, one of the very few Rossini operas always performed even during romanticism and verismo, when most of his productions disappeared from most theatres (even in Italy). The plot is well known; it is a modification of Perrault's fairytale because in 1817 in the Pope's State, it was forbidden to stage supernatural events. The libretto by Jacopo Ferretti is a well-balanced comedy about growing to adulthood (for the Prince and Angelina, the Cinderella of the plot) with plenty of comic relief (the two half-sisters, their father, the Pince's valet Dandini). However, it would have been a dramma giocoso as many of that period without Rossini's charming and scintillating score -- a true polished, shining and elegant jewel. Yves Abel unveiled the bounty of beauties from the swift and tender overture. Lawrence Brownlee (the Prince) and Marianna Pizzolato (Angelina) were just charming in the lovely first Act duet. The comic baritone and bass group (Nicola Alaimo, Paolo Bordogna, Alex Esposito) are as hilarious as they should be. Less brilliant were the two half sisters (Manon Strauss Evrard and Cristina Faus). The sextet of stupefaction in the second Act after the Prince and Dandini have taken shelter in Don Magnifico's run down house, was great. Angelina's final rondo was of high quality.
Copyright © 14 August 2010 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy
In 2011, the Rossini Opera Festival features Adelaide di Borgogna, Mosé in Egitto and La Scala di Seta, and the world première of the critical edition of Il Barbiere di Siviglia. Anyone interested should book early at www.rossinioperafestival.it
GIOACCHINO ROSSINI
ITALY
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'Juditha triumphans' at the Sferisterio Festival, 9 agosto
Sex and Heroism
'Juditha triumphans' at the Sferisterio Festival,
appreciated by GIUSEPPE PENNISI
Anything goes in Holofernes' encampment. During the siege of the Jewish town of Bethulia, the night before the final attack to conquer it, the Assyrian soldiers seem to have a very happy, and sexy, time. Nearly all of them are busy with all kinds of intercourse: mostly heterosexual, but also gay and lesbian. Their chief and leader, the general Holofernes, was sent directly by Nebuchadnezzar (remember Verdi's Nabucco?) to take land, towns and breeds from the Jews. He is a bit bisexual and has, in his initial arias, quite a go on his favorite eunuch and servant Vagaus. However, he does clearly prefer girls. There are quite a few around him. His adversaries know it and send the young widow Juditha (with her friend Abra) to the Assyrian camp with the purpose of seducing him, first, and doing away with him, immediately afterwards.
Juditha is very attractive. Thus, Holofernes plans to have quite a night with her: in preparation, he has four girls kissing his nipples, caressing his legs and tickling the most intimate parts of his body just covered by flashy and fleshy golden slips. He wants to be very much excited to show Juditha what a real Assyrian is able to do (in bed). The night is such a night that after a lot of sex with Juditha, Holofernes falls asleep. His soldiers and retinues follow him into the world of deep dreams also, because the party has been wetted with plenty of booze; they too are exhausted after so much sex and alcohol. Well, the gentle lady beheads the man whose body she just had enjoyed with pleasure. And the High Priest of the Jews, Ozias, praises her as the savior of the fatherland.
Miljana Nikolic as Juditha and N'Mon Ford as Holofernes in Vivaldi's 'Juditha triumphans' at the Sferisterio Festival. Photo © 2010 Foto Tabocchini
This is not, of course, the Bible, but how a priest in 1716 used the text to make it an oratorio -- Juditha triumphans devicta Holofernis barbarie, normally known as Antonio Vivaldi's Juditha triumphans, catalogue number RV 644. Vivaldi is generally remembered as one of the leaders of late baroque music. For thirty years, he held an important musical post at St Mark's Basilica in Venice, but this did not prevent him from travelling widely throughout Europe and having a complicated personal life, even though he was a priest. He found time to compose an enormous number of works, including some forty opera and various choral pieces, in addition to the concertos for which he is best known now. The Juditha triumphans libretto was written by Giacomo Cassetti, a wordy Venetian lawyer very familiar with real life behind the curtains in the Republic around 1715.
A scene from Vivaldi's 'Juditha triumphans' at the Sferisterio Festival. Photo © 2010 Foto Tabocchini
Juditha triumphans was an occasional piece commissioned by the Ospedale della Pietà to celebrate the victory of the Republic of Venice against the Turks who had landed on Corfu to lay siege to the island whose population resisted until the Venitian fleet arrived to settle the matter. The manuscript, found in the Academy of Santa Cecilia Archives, reveals that it was meant to be sung only by women, including the chorus. Even though the vocal and the orchestral score is full of lust and eros, rather common on Venetian stages (as Cavalli's work shows), partly as a reaction to the bigotry of the Counter-Reformation. The string orchestra was augmented by timpani, trumpets, mandolins, theobos, viola da gamba, viola d'amore, oboes, organ and even soprano chalumeaux just to extract a very lush sound.
A scene from Vivaldi's 'Juditha triumphans' at the Sferisterio Festival. Photo © 2010 Foto Tabocchini
At the Sferisterio Festival, Juditha triumphans [seen 6 August 2010] was performed not as an oratorio but as a fully fledged opera. Thus a number of adjustments had to be made. First of all, the sexual part: it is clearly in the score, but it is highly doubtful that it was be performed in 1716 in the Ospedale della Pietà with a cast of two sopranos and three altos and a women only chorus. Thus, the brilliant stage director Massimo Gasparon lowered Holofernes' vocal part by three octaves and entrusted the role to N'mon Ford, a young and attractive baritone 'd'agilità' who could cope with the baroque vocalizing and act intelligently while showing as much of his muscles as opera house conveniences allow. His Juditha is Miljana Nikolic, young, attractive and able to marry a good center register with a scary acute which she handled with ease and without any fear, albeit missing tonalities and without a pleasant tint in her voice. Giacinta Nicotra is the eunuch Vagaus, clearly in love with Holofernes; she has great distressing arias about her feelings not being fully understood by the Assyrian general. Alessandra Visentin (Ozias) and Davinia Rodriguez (Abra) have comparatively minor roles, and handled them effectively.
Miljana Nikolic as Juditha, N'Mon Ford as Holofernes and Giacinta Nicotra as Vagaus in Vivaldi's 'Juditha triumphans' at the Sferisterio Festival. Photo © 2010 Foto Tabocchini
The conductor, Riccardo Frizza, was not in a hurry -- as he generally seems to be -- and extracted the sensual color from the orchestra -- a good ensemble but not a baroque orchestra with period instruments or instruments patterned after those of the early 1700s. Nonetheless, at the end of the performance, accolades were for the excellent stage direction and superb singing and acting more than for the conducting or for the orchestra.
In short, a successful performance which may very well deserve a DVD.
Copyright © 10 August 2010 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy
ANTONIO VIVALDI
ITALY
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'Juditha triumphans' at the Sferisterio Festival,
appreciated by GIUSEPPE PENNISI
Anything goes in Holofernes' encampment. During the siege of the Jewish town of Bethulia, the night before the final attack to conquer it, the Assyrian soldiers seem to have a very happy, and sexy, time. Nearly all of them are busy with all kinds of intercourse: mostly heterosexual, but also gay and lesbian. Their chief and leader, the general Holofernes, was sent directly by Nebuchadnezzar (remember Verdi's Nabucco?) to take land, towns and breeds from the Jews. He is a bit bisexual and has, in his initial arias, quite a go on his favorite eunuch and servant Vagaus. However, he does clearly prefer girls. There are quite a few around him. His adversaries know it and send the young widow Juditha (with her friend Abra) to the Assyrian camp with the purpose of seducing him, first, and doing away with him, immediately afterwards.
Juditha is very attractive. Thus, Holofernes plans to have quite a night with her: in preparation, he has four girls kissing his nipples, caressing his legs and tickling the most intimate parts of his body just covered by flashy and fleshy golden slips. He wants to be very much excited to show Juditha what a real Assyrian is able to do (in bed). The night is such a night that after a lot of sex with Juditha, Holofernes falls asleep. His soldiers and retinues follow him into the world of deep dreams also, because the party has been wetted with plenty of booze; they too are exhausted after so much sex and alcohol. Well, the gentle lady beheads the man whose body she just had enjoyed with pleasure. And the High Priest of the Jews, Ozias, praises her as the savior of the fatherland.
Miljana Nikolic as Juditha and N'Mon Ford as Holofernes in Vivaldi's 'Juditha triumphans' at the Sferisterio Festival. Photo © 2010 Foto Tabocchini
This is not, of course, the Bible, but how a priest in 1716 used the text to make it an oratorio -- Juditha triumphans devicta Holofernis barbarie, normally known as Antonio Vivaldi's Juditha triumphans, catalogue number RV 644. Vivaldi is generally remembered as one of the leaders of late baroque music. For thirty years, he held an important musical post at St Mark's Basilica in Venice, but this did not prevent him from travelling widely throughout Europe and having a complicated personal life, even though he was a priest. He found time to compose an enormous number of works, including some forty opera and various choral pieces, in addition to the concertos for which he is best known now. The Juditha triumphans libretto was written by Giacomo Cassetti, a wordy Venetian lawyer very familiar with real life behind the curtains in the Republic around 1715.
A scene from Vivaldi's 'Juditha triumphans' at the Sferisterio Festival. Photo © 2010 Foto Tabocchini
Juditha triumphans was an occasional piece commissioned by the Ospedale della Pietà to celebrate the victory of the Republic of Venice against the Turks who had landed on Corfu to lay siege to the island whose population resisted until the Venitian fleet arrived to settle the matter. The manuscript, found in the Academy of Santa Cecilia Archives, reveals that it was meant to be sung only by women, including the chorus. Even though the vocal and the orchestral score is full of lust and eros, rather common on Venetian stages (as Cavalli's work shows), partly as a reaction to the bigotry of the Counter-Reformation. The string orchestra was augmented by timpani, trumpets, mandolins, theobos, viola da gamba, viola d'amore, oboes, organ and even soprano chalumeaux just to extract a very lush sound.
A scene from Vivaldi's 'Juditha triumphans' at the Sferisterio Festival. Photo © 2010 Foto Tabocchini
At the Sferisterio Festival, Juditha triumphans [seen 6 August 2010] was performed not as an oratorio but as a fully fledged opera. Thus a number of adjustments had to be made. First of all, the sexual part: it is clearly in the score, but it is highly doubtful that it was be performed in 1716 in the Ospedale della Pietà with a cast of two sopranos and three altos and a women only chorus. Thus, the brilliant stage director Massimo Gasparon lowered Holofernes' vocal part by three octaves and entrusted the role to N'mon Ford, a young and attractive baritone 'd'agilità' who could cope with the baroque vocalizing and act intelligently while showing as much of his muscles as opera house conveniences allow. His Juditha is Miljana Nikolic, young, attractive and able to marry a good center register with a scary acute which she handled with ease and without any fear, albeit missing tonalities and without a pleasant tint in her voice. Giacinta Nicotra is the eunuch Vagaus, clearly in love with Holofernes; she has great distressing arias about her feelings not being fully understood by the Assyrian general. Alessandra Visentin (Ozias) and Davinia Rodriguez (Abra) have comparatively minor roles, and handled them effectively.
Miljana Nikolic as Juditha, N'Mon Ford as Holofernes and Giacinta Nicotra as Vagaus in Vivaldi's 'Juditha triumphans' at the Sferisterio Festival. Photo © 2010 Foto Tabocchini
The conductor, Riccardo Frizza, was not in a hurry -- as he generally seems to be -- and extracted the sensual color from the orchestra -- a good ensemble but not a baroque orchestra with period instruments or instruments patterned after those of the early 1700s. Nonetheless, at the end of the performance, accolades were for the excellent stage direction and superb singing and acting more than for the conducting or for the orchestra.
In short, a successful performance which may very well deserve a DVD.
Copyright © 10 August 2010 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy
ANTONIO VIVALDI
ITALY
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The 'Glory of God' through three Verdi operas Musc & Vision 2 agosto
Dramatic Strength
The 'Glory of God' through three Verdi operas
at the Sferisterio Festival 2010,
reviewed by GIUSEPPE PENNISI
Near to the Adriatic coastline and its bustling beaches, Macerata lies quietly on the 'Marche' green hills. Now a small provincial capital in central Italy, it is only a dot on the map of Italy -- a total population of forty-five-thousand in a province of some one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand -- but it has a long history. The University of Macerata is the third most ancient in the world (after those of Paris and Bologna). In 1797, the town made a strong impression on Napoleon Bonaparte who wrote to his wife about its beauty and elegance. It features a very well-preserved eighteenth and nineteenth century city centre, an architectural rarity even in Italy where conservation has a long tradition.
Within Macerata there are several places just perfect for musical theatre or for musical performances in general. Firstly, the Teatro Lauro Rossi, a four hundred seat elegant theatre with three tiers of boxes and a family circle within the City Hall Palace; it was designed in the late eighteenth century by the Bibiena family of architects -- authors also of the Bologna and Mantua city theatres -- and until well into the second half of the twentieth century, it was reserved for the aristocracy. Secondly, the Sferisterio Arena, a rather peculiar open air building with a huge wall and two tiers of large boxes, originally conceived for a unique sport, 'Pallone al Bracciale' (where the players would ride horses and throw large armbands at the wall, following a set of rather complex rules), but since early in the twentieth century utilized mostly for music performances. It can accommodate an audience of three thousand and has an acoustic similar to that of the Oranges open air theatre. Thirdly, the Teatro Italia, built in the 1940s for both cinemas and plays. Fourthly, the San Paolo Auditorium, a former church now being used as main hall of the University and as a performing area. Finally, a nineteenth century chamber music hall. In short, there are plenty to choose from; nearby, in rural Urbisaglia, the ruins of a Roman theatre are sometimes used for performances of Norma or Aida.
In Summer, there has been a Festival for the last sixty years. This is the 46th Festival if account is taken of the years when, during the war or for other reasons, the Festival hasn't been held. For a few decades, the Summer Festival was mainly aimed at attracting holidaymakers from the Adriatic Coast beach resorts to the Sferisterio. Thus, the program included solely very popular operas and neither staging nor musical direction were necessarily innovative or of high quality. In the last few years, the summer event has become an important 'theme festival' of interest also to foreigners and with important international partnerships. In the opening week of the current Festival (which runs from 29 July to 10 August), reporters and opera reviewers from ten countries were present. During the last four years, the themes have been: initiation, seduction, power games and deception. This year the theme is 'The Great Glory of God', also because 2010 is the four hundredth anniversary of the death of the Macerata-born Jesuit Matteo Ricci, one of the first Europeans to explore China and to become an important dignitary at the Emperor's Court.
The 'Great Glory of God' is presented through three Verdi operas (I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata, Attila and La Forza del Destino), Gounod's Faust, a staged Vivaldi oratorio (Judita Triumpans), a staging of Monteverdi's Vespri della Beata Vergine, a series of lectures and a play. Thus, a very wide menu. I will deal only with the musical aspects of the Festival -- not with the lectures and the play. In this report, I focus on the three Verdi's operas -- a festival within the Festival. I hope to return to Macerata and to review the rest of the Festival.
From the outset, however, it is useful to point out that, for reasons of both economy and stylistic unity, the Festival has been entrusted to only two stage directors: Pier Luigi Pizzi and Massimo Gasparon. The former has developed a single basic stage set for the Sferisterio Arena. The latter has applied the same method to the operas to be performed at the Teatro Lauri Rossi. Likewise, similar sets of costumes have been used and a well-integrated group of singers has been employed in all the operas. The approach has been successful: it is likely that some of the productions will travel as far as Hong Kong and Macao.
The three Verdi operas are a good sample of his musical and philosophical development. Verdi had lost his faith in his late twenties, and his second wife, Giuseppina Strepponi, was a well-known atheist. In Verdi's operas, religion is generally shown as oppressive. Nonetheless, he had always had doubts about the existence and the manifestation of His Almighty. Thus, he was what we can call a 'doubtful atheist' or an atheist full of doubts.
I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata (1843) and Attila (1846) belong to his first period or style of composing; the benchmark is normally assumed to be Macbeth (1847). Basically, the two operas reflect Donizetti's vision of melodrama: a set of cavatinas, arias, cabalettas, duets, quartets and concertatos.
A scene from Verdi's 'I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata' at the Sferisterio Festival. Photo © 2010 Foto Tabocchini
On 1 August 2010, in the Sferisterio Arena, I attended the first performance of I Lombardi at the Festival. In I Lombardi there are also powerful unison choruses to political words that aroused intense enthusiasm. Their libretto mirrored the intellectual movement towards the unification of Italy (even though such an issue left Verdi quite lukewarm) as it is based on a poem in verse which was well read among the anti-Austrian intellectuals of Milan.
Dimtra Theodossiou as Giselda in 'I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata' at the Sferisterio Festival. Photo © 2010 Foto Tabocchini
The plot may seem rather confused because family feuds and a complex series of conversions (viz Christians becoming Muslims and vice versa) are quite entangled with a dramatization of the history of the Crusaders' war to free Jerusalem. These days, it has a bit of spicy actuality because in its forefront there is a love story between a Christian and a Muslim. Musically, it has many innovative aspects: the opera starts with a concertato, the real protagonist is the chorus, among the main characters, the villain must sing with a baritone voice in the first Act and with a bass voice in the others. Also there are a few 'solo' chamber music moments, including a violin intermezzo with a dancer.
Dimtra Theodossiou as Giselda, Francesco Meli as Oronte and Michele Pertusi as Pagano in 'I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata' at the Sferisterio Festival. Photo © 2010 Foto Tabocchini
The stage direction was impressive, especially in scenes with plenty of mass movements. Daniele Gallegari's conducting was very perceptive in giving a good balance to orchestra, voices, chorus and 'a solo' chamber movements. David Crescenzi, the chorus master, deserves a praise for the way he conducted the 'real protagonist' of the three operas. Three good interpreters had the task of acting and singing the main roles: Dimtra Theodossiou (Giselda), a veteran of the role (but now slightly close to her limits, especially in an open space performamce), the young Francesco Meli (Oronte) in full bloom, and Michele Pertusi (Pagano) effective both as baritone in the first Act and as a bass in the rest of the opera.
On 30 July, I was admitted to a dress rehearsal of Attila in the Teatro Lauro Rossi. Thus, my review is based on a work still in progress. Briefly, the stage sets and direction by Massimo Gasparon proved excellent and give wholeness and sense to a very complex libretto where the Glory of God stopping the Huns getting to Rome is mixed with a plot of love, betrayal, deception and what-have-you. Riccardo Frizza did not seem to seize the opportunity to conduct in a small theatre and to give the orchestra a chamber music slant; rather, he had a baton as swift and as tough as that of a military band.
Maria Agresta as Odabella and Nmon Ford in the title role of Verdi's 'Atilla' at the Sferisterio Festival. Photo © 2010 Foto Tabocchini
A stunning surprise was the young Maria Agresta (Odabella) who has just completed her transition from a mezzo to a full dramatic soprano with superb acute. The protagonist was the American Nmon Ford, a bass-baritone whilst the role is for a bass tout court; he did not reach very grave tonality (as requited by the score) but supplemented this limit with excellent acting. Claudio Sugra (Ezio) had an open stage applause after his second Act aria. Giuseppe Gipali (Foresto) improved gradually during the dress rehearsal.
The grand opening of La Forza del Destino, one of the most difficult of Verdi's opera to stage and to sing, took place on 31 July 2010. There are two versions of the opera: the St Petersburg 1862 version -- with a Byron-like desperate ending -- and the (normally performed) 1869 La Scala version -- very much revised in the third Act and, more significantly, with a Christian ending based on the virtue of pardon. A clear indication of the road taken by Verdi as an atheist yet full of doubts. The plot runs over several years, two countries and many different places. The stage direction read the story as a drama of three youngsters (Leonora, Alvaro and Carlo) fighting with destiny as well as with a world of adults unable and unwilling to understand them. Also the time of the action is changed: from the mid-eighteenth-century to the Spanish war in the mid-1930s.
A scene from Verdi's 'La Forza del Destino' at the Sferisterio Festival. Photo © 2010 Foto Tabocchini
From the outset, Daniele Callegari stressed the theme of destiny in the grandly designed overture but also gave room to the clarinet and organ solos in various parts of the opera. The opera was presented in two parts with only one intermission. As a result, the first Act sounded even more concise and lofty than it is: a misty ballad story with a love scene as its nucleus. In that scene, the twenty-five year old Teresa Romano showed how her voice could fill the large open air auditorium with a clear timbre and only some very slight difficulties in the acute. Nonetheless, with Zoran Todorovich (another young rising star of the operatic firmament) as her partner, she built up the magnificent climax, from the doom-laden moderato in the first scene, and the melancholy andante of her farewell aria to the passionate brio of the love duet and the agitated presto of the final scene. The second Act is built on a sharp contrast between the colorful movements of the crowd scene and the religious atmosphere of the monastery. Unfortunately, the baritone contracted to sing Carlo (Marco de Felice) was ill; he was replaced by Elian Fabian in the pit and a mime on stage; thus the crowd scenes (and other parts of the opera) lost their pathos. In the monastery scene, however, Teresa Romano and Roberto Scandiuzzi (Padre Guardiano), with the chorus and the organ, brought the work back to a dramatic and musical climax when the first rosy glow of dawn appears and Leonora's noble melody rises again in the orchestra.
Teresa Romano as Leonora and Roberto Scandiuzzi as Padre Guardiano in Verdi's 'La Forza del Destino' at the Sferisterio Festival. Photo © 2010 Foto Tabocchini
The beginning of the second part -- the third Act in the traditional staging -- has Alvaro's main aria (O tu che in seno agli Angeli) handled very well by Todorovich (who received an open stage applause). In the duet, Alvaro's wonderful rhythmic cantilena was joined by Carlo's somber and more restrained melody -- a dark foreboding -- was partly impaired by the arrangement that had to be made to replace de Felice. The final Act, which overflows with musical wonders, was at a high level, in the introduction, the agitated theme of destiny, Leonora's aria imploring the Almighty (Pace, Pace, mio Dio) and the final trio with each voice distinguished by his characteristic music with its dramatic strength and exquisite melodies. Romano, Todorovich and Scandiuzzi made marvels and deserved accolades for their art, and 'in the Great Glory of God'.
Copyright © 4 August 2010 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy
GIUSEPPE VERDI
LAURO ROSSI
ITALY
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The 'Glory of God' through three Verdi operas
at the Sferisterio Festival 2010,
reviewed by GIUSEPPE PENNISI
Near to the Adriatic coastline and its bustling beaches, Macerata lies quietly on the 'Marche' green hills. Now a small provincial capital in central Italy, it is only a dot on the map of Italy -- a total population of forty-five-thousand in a province of some one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand -- but it has a long history. The University of Macerata is the third most ancient in the world (after those of Paris and Bologna). In 1797, the town made a strong impression on Napoleon Bonaparte who wrote to his wife about its beauty and elegance. It features a very well-preserved eighteenth and nineteenth century city centre, an architectural rarity even in Italy where conservation has a long tradition.
Within Macerata there are several places just perfect for musical theatre or for musical performances in general. Firstly, the Teatro Lauro Rossi, a four hundred seat elegant theatre with three tiers of boxes and a family circle within the City Hall Palace; it was designed in the late eighteenth century by the Bibiena family of architects -- authors also of the Bologna and Mantua city theatres -- and until well into the second half of the twentieth century, it was reserved for the aristocracy. Secondly, the Sferisterio Arena, a rather peculiar open air building with a huge wall and two tiers of large boxes, originally conceived for a unique sport, 'Pallone al Bracciale' (where the players would ride horses and throw large armbands at the wall, following a set of rather complex rules), but since early in the twentieth century utilized mostly for music performances. It can accommodate an audience of three thousand and has an acoustic similar to that of the Oranges open air theatre. Thirdly, the Teatro Italia, built in the 1940s for both cinemas and plays. Fourthly, the San Paolo Auditorium, a former church now being used as main hall of the University and as a performing area. Finally, a nineteenth century chamber music hall. In short, there are plenty to choose from; nearby, in rural Urbisaglia, the ruins of a Roman theatre are sometimes used for performances of Norma or Aida.
In Summer, there has been a Festival for the last sixty years. This is the 46th Festival if account is taken of the years when, during the war or for other reasons, the Festival hasn't been held. For a few decades, the Summer Festival was mainly aimed at attracting holidaymakers from the Adriatic Coast beach resorts to the Sferisterio. Thus, the program included solely very popular operas and neither staging nor musical direction were necessarily innovative or of high quality. In the last few years, the summer event has become an important 'theme festival' of interest also to foreigners and with important international partnerships. In the opening week of the current Festival (which runs from 29 July to 10 August), reporters and opera reviewers from ten countries were present. During the last four years, the themes have been: initiation, seduction, power games and deception. This year the theme is 'The Great Glory of God', also because 2010 is the four hundredth anniversary of the death of the Macerata-born Jesuit Matteo Ricci, one of the first Europeans to explore China and to become an important dignitary at the Emperor's Court.
The 'Great Glory of God' is presented through three Verdi operas (I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata, Attila and La Forza del Destino), Gounod's Faust, a staged Vivaldi oratorio (Judita Triumpans), a staging of Monteverdi's Vespri della Beata Vergine, a series of lectures and a play. Thus, a very wide menu. I will deal only with the musical aspects of the Festival -- not with the lectures and the play. In this report, I focus on the three Verdi's operas -- a festival within the Festival. I hope to return to Macerata and to review the rest of the Festival.
From the outset, however, it is useful to point out that, for reasons of both economy and stylistic unity, the Festival has been entrusted to only two stage directors: Pier Luigi Pizzi and Massimo Gasparon. The former has developed a single basic stage set for the Sferisterio Arena. The latter has applied the same method to the operas to be performed at the Teatro Lauri Rossi. Likewise, similar sets of costumes have been used and a well-integrated group of singers has been employed in all the operas. The approach has been successful: it is likely that some of the productions will travel as far as Hong Kong and Macao.
The three Verdi operas are a good sample of his musical and philosophical development. Verdi had lost his faith in his late twenties, and his second wife, Giuseppina Strepponi, was a well-known atheist. In Verdi's operas, religion is generally shown as oppressive. Nonetheless, he had always had doubts about the existence and the manifestation of His Almighty. Thus, he was what we can call a 'doubtful atheist' or an atheist full of doubts.
I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata (1843) and Attila (1846) belong to his first period or style of composing; the benchmark is normally assumed to be Macbeth (1847). Basically, the two operas reflect Donizetti's vision of melodrama: a set of cavatinas, arias, cabalettas, duets, quartets and concertatos.
A scene from Verdi's 'I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata' at the Sferisterio Festival. Photo © 2010 Foto Tabocchini
On 1 August 2010, in the Sferisterio Arena, I attended the first performance of I Lombardi at the Festival. In I Lombardi there are also powerful unison choruses to political words that aroused intense enthusiasm. Their libretto mirrored the intellectual movement towards the unification of Italy (even though such an issue left Verdi quite lukewarm) as it is based on a poem in verse which was well read among the anti-Austrian intellectuals of Milan.
Dimtra Theodossiou as Giselda in 'I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata' at the Sferisterio Festival. Photo © 2010 Foto Tabocchini
The plot may seem rather confused because family feuds and a complex series of conversions (viz Christians becoming Muslims and vice versa) are quite entangled with a dramatization of the history of the Crusaders' war to free Jerusalem. These days, it has a bit of spicy actuality because in its forefront there is a love story between a Christian and a Muslim. Musically, it has many innovative aspects: the opera starts with a concertato, the real protagonist is the chorus, among the main characters, the villain must sing with a baritone voice in the first Act and with a bass voice in the others. Also there are a few 'solo' chamber music moments, including a violin intermezzo with a dancer.
Dimtra Theodossiou as Giselda, Francesco Meli as Oronte and Michele Pertusi as Pagano in 'I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata' at the Sferisterio Festival. Photo © 2010 Foto Tabocchini
The stage direction was impressive, especially in scenes with plenty of mass movements. Daniele Gallegari's conducting was very perceptive in giving a good balance to orchestra, voices, chorus and 'a solo' chamber movements. David Crescenzi, the chorus master, deserves a praise for the way he conducted the 'real protagonist' of the three operas. Three good interpreters had the task of acting and singing the main roles: Dimtra Theodossiou (Giselda), a veteran of the role (but now slightly close to her limits, especially in an open space performamce), the young Francesco Meli (Oronte) in full bloom, and Michele Pertusi (Pagano) effective both as baritone in the first Act and as a bass in the rest of the opera.
On 30 July, I was admitted to a dress rehearsal of Attila in the Teatro Lauro Rossi. Thus, my review is based on a work still in progress. Briefly, the stage sets and direction by Massimo Gasparon proved excellent and give wholeness and sense to a very complex libretto where the Glory of God stopping the Huns getting to Rome is mixed with a plot of love, betrayal, deception and what-have-you. Riccardo Frizza did not seem to seize the opportunity to conduct in a small theatre and to give the orchestra a chamber music slant; rather, he had a baton as swift and as tough as that of a military band.
Maria Agresta as Odabella and Nmon Ford in the title role of Verdi's 'Atilla' at the Sferisterio Festival. Photo © 2010 Foto Tabocchini
A stunning surprise was the young Maria Agresta (Odabella) who has just completed her transition from a mezzo to a full dramatic soprano with superb acute. The protagonist was the American Nmon Ford, a bass-baritone whilst the role is for a bass tout court; he did not reach very grave tonality (as requited by the score) but supplemented this limit with excellent acting. Claudio Sugra (Ezio) had an open stage applause after his second Act aria. Giuseppe Gipali (Foresto) improved gradually during the dress rehearsal.
The grand opening of La Forza del Destino, one of the most difficult of Verdi's opera to stage and to sing, took place on 31 July 2010. There are two versions of the opera: the St Petersburg 1862 version -- with a Byron-like desperate ending -- and the (normally performed) 1869 La Scala version -- very much revised in the third Act and, more significantly, with a Christian ending based on the virtue of pardon. A clear indication of the road taken by Verdi as an atheist yet full of doubts. The plot runs over several years, two countries and many different places. The stage direction read the story as a drama of three youngsters (Leonora, Alvaro and Carlo) fighting with destiny as well as with a world of adults unable and unwilling to understand them. Also the time of the action is changed: from the mid-eighteenth-century to the Spanish war in the mid-1930s.
A scene from Verdi's 'La Forza del Destino' at the Sferisterio Festival. Photo © 2010 Foto Tabocchini
From the outset, Daniele Callegari stressed the theme of destiny in the grandly designed overture but also gave room to the clarinet and organ solos in various parts of the opera. The opera was presented in two parts with only one intermission. As a result, the first Act sounded even more concise and lofty than it is: a misty ballad story with a love scene as its nucleus. In that scene, the twenty-five year old Teresa Romano showed how her voice could fill the large open air auditorium with a clear timbre and only some very slight difficulties in the acute. Nonetheless, with Zoran Todorovich (another young rising star of the operatic firmament) as her partner, she built up the magnificent climax, from the doom-laden moderato in the first scene, and the melancholy andante of her farewell aria to the passionate brio of the love duet and the agitated presto of the final scene. The second Act is built on a sharp contrast between the colorful movements of the crowd scene and the religious atmosphere of the monastery. Unfortunately, the baritone contracted to sing Carlo (Marco de Felice) was ill; he was replaced by Elian Fabian in the pit and a mime on stage; thus the crowd scenes (and other parts of the opera) lost their pathos. In the monastery scene, however, Teresa Romano and Roberto Scandiuzzi (Padre Guardiano), with the chorus and the organ, brought the work back to a dramatic and musical climax when the first rosy glow of dawn appears and Leonora's noble melody rises again in the orchestra.
Teresa Romano as Leonora and Roberto Scandiuzzi as Padre Guardiano in Verdi's 'La Forza del Destino' at the Sferisterio Festival. Photo © 2010 Foto Tabocchini
The beginning of the second part -- the third Act in the traditional staging -- has Alvaro's main aria (O tu che in seno agli Angeli) handled very well by Todorovich (who received an open stage applause). In the duet, Alvaro's wonderful rhythmic cantilena was joined by Carlo's somber and more restrained melody -- a dark foreboding -- was partly impaired by the arrangement that had to be made to replace de Felice. The final Act, which overflows with musical wonders, was at a high level, in the introduction, the agitated theme of destiny, Leonora's aria imploring the Almighty (Pace, Pace, mio Dio) and the final trio with each voice distinguished by his characteristic music with its dramatic strength and exquisite melodies. Romano, Todorovich and Scandiuzzi made marvels and deserved accolades for their art, and 'in the Great Glory of God'.
Copyright © 4 August 2010 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy
GIUSEPPE VERDI
LAURO ROSSI
ITALY
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LA STRADE DELLE RIFORME EUROPEE E L’OBBLIGO DELLA SEMPLICITA’ in Avvenire 7 settembre
LA STRADE DELLE RIFORME EUROPEE E L’OBBLIGO DELLA SEMPLICITA’
Giuseppe Pennisi
Oggi a Bruxelles si tiene la riunione dell’Eurogruppo (ossia dei Ministri dell’Economia e delle Finanze dei 16 Stati che fanno parte dell’unione monetaria) e subito quella dei 27 dell’Ue, ossia l’Ecofin vero e proprio. E’ una sessione “straordinaria” l’Eurogruppo dovrebbe delineare il “nuovo patto di crescita e stabilità”, l’Ecofin una serie di nuove misure di monitoraggio e vigilanza sull’insieme dell’Ue a 27 e soprattutto la posizione “europea” all’ormai imminente assemblea annuale del Fondo monetario internazionale (Fmi) e della Banca mondiale in calendario a Washington a ottobre.
L’attenzione è naturalmente puntata sul “nuovo patto di stabilità”. Non dovrebbe trattarsi unicamente di un lavoro di manutenzione ed aggiornamento del “patto” concluso quando entrò in circolazione l’euro, a sua volta modellato su alcuni articoli del Trattato di Maastricht. A 20 anni circa della formulazione dei cinque parametri (poi diventati due: indebitamento netto e stock di debito in rapporto al Pil), una revisione sulla base dell’esperienza sarebbe stata comunque necessaria. In effetti, ne venne effettuata una nel marzo 2005 tramite un “protocollo interpretativo” che ne rendeva l’applicazione più flessibile. Ora, dopo i timori di una crisi finanziaria tale da coinvolgere pesantemente i titoli di Stato di vari Stati dell’Eurogruppo (Grecia, Portogallo e Spagna, in primo luogo) non si tratta semplicemente di serrare i freni (tornando alla lettera ed allo spirito di una dozzina di anni fa) ma di dare nuovi concetti e nuovi contenuti all’accordo di base dei soci del Club dell’euro.
Nessuno si illude che la sera del 7 settembre 2010 i Ministri possano parafare una bozza di trattato da portare alla firma dei Capi di Stato e di Governo e subito dopo a ratifica parlamentare. Si spera, però, di potere definire l’architrave. Essa dovrebbe essere composta da due nuovi acronimi “SCP” (Stability and Convergence Program- Programma di Stabilità e di Convergenza) e “NRP” (National Reform Program – Programma Nazionale di Riforme). Il secondo, ossia le riforme, indicherebbe gli strumenti per dare corpo al primo, la stabilità finanziaria e la convergenza economica. La novità procedurale sarebbe l’organizzazioni di sessioni di bilancio parallele negli Stati dell’euro. E’ un’innovazione che ha una portata molto più limitata di quanto non si voglia fare apparire: già da anni i principali Stati del gruppo (Francia, Germania, Italia, Spagna) e molti dei minori hanno adottato esercizi di bilancio che più o meno coincidono con l’anno solare e, di conseguenza, la presentazione del bilancio preventivo avviene in autunno e la sessione di bilancio termina verso Natale. Il significato sarebbe maggiore se il nuovo “patto” prevedesse che tutti gli Stati dell’area dell’euro passassero al bilancio “di cassa” (come ha fatto l’Italia) ed a classificazioni di bilancio analoghe. Sono traguardi non irrealistici, nell’arco – ad esempio – di cinque anni e tali da fornire le basi ad una politica di bilancio comune da poter giustapporre ad una politica della moneta anche essa comune.
Questi strumenti comporterebbero una batteria di indicatori quantitativi che non sostituirebbe gli attuali ma li arricchirebbe. Per quanto si possa auspicare che il nuovo “patto” non tratti solo di deficit annuale e stock di debito pubblico in rapporto al Pil e che vengano introdotti indicatori di economia reale, d’occupazione e di situazione sociale, occorre fare attenzione: l’Ue ha avuto la tendenza ad ampliare la gamma degli indicatori tanto da rendere le politiche ingestibili o, peggio ancora, di invitare implicitamente a truccare i numeri. Il destino dei “protocolli di Lisbona” che nel marzo 2000 avrebbero dovuto rendere l’Ue l’area più dinamica del mondo dovrebbe essere un monito a non strafare ma anzi a tenersi il più essenziali possibile.
Giuseppe Pennisi
Oggi a Bruxelles si tiene la riunione dell’Eurogruppo (ossia dei Ministri dell’Economia e delle Finanze dei 16 Stati che fanno parte dell’unione monetaria) e subito quella dei 27 dell’Ue, ossia l’Ecofin vero e proprio. E’ una sessione “straordinaria” l’Eurogruppo dovrebbe delineare il “nuovo patto di crescita e stabilità”, l’Ecofin una serie di nuove misure di monitoraggio e vigilanza sull’insieme dell’Ue a 27 e soprattutto la posizione “europea” all’ormai imminente assemblea annuale del Fondo monetario internazionale (Fmi) e della Banca mondiale in calendario a Washington a ottobre.
L’attenzione è naturalmente puntata sul “nuovo patto di stabilità”. Non dovrebbe trattarsi unicamente di un lavoro di manutenzione ed aggiornamento del “patto” concluso quando entrò in circolazione l’euro, a sua volta modellato su alcuni articoli del Trattato di Maastricht. A 20 anni circa della formulazione dei cinque parametri (poi diventati due: indebitamento netto e stock di debito in rapporto al Pil), una revisione sulla base dell’esperienza sarebbe stata comunque necessaria. In effetti, ne venne effettuata una nel marzo 2005 tramite un “protocollo interpretativo” che ne rendeva l’applicazione più flessibile. Ora, dopo i timori di una crisi finanziaria tale da coinvolgere pesantemente i titoli di Stato di vari Stati dell’Eurogruppo (Grecia, Portogallo e Spagna, in primo luogo) non si tratta semplicemente di serrare i freni (tornando alla lettera ed allo spirito di una dozzina di anni fa) ma di dare nuovi concetti e nuovi contenuti all’accordo di base dei soci del Club dell’euro.
Nessuno si illude che la sera del 7 settembre 2010 i Ministri possano parafare una bozza di trattato da portare alla firma dei Capi di Stato e di Governo e subito dopo a ratifica parlamentare. Si spera, però, di potere definire l’architrave. Essa dovrebbe essere composta da due nuovi acronimi “SCP” (Stability and Convergence Program- Programma di Stabilità e di Convergenza) e “NRP” (National Reform Program – Programma Nazionale di Riforme). Il secondo, ossia le riforme, indicherebbe gli strumenti per dare corpo al primo, la stabilità finanziaria e la convergenza economica. La novità procedurale sarebbe l’organizzazioni di sessioni di bilancio parallele negli Stati dell’euro. E’ un’innovazione che ha una portata molto più limitata di quanto non si voglia fare apparire: già da anni i principali Stati del gruppo (Francia, Germania, Italia, Spagna) e molti dei minori hanno adottato esercizi di bilancio che più o meno coincidono con l’anno solare e, di conseguenza, la presentazione del bilancio preventivo avviene in autunno e la sessione di bilancio termina verso Natale. Il significato sarebbe maggiore se il nuovo “patto” prevedesse che tutti gli Stati dell’area dell’euro passassero al bilancio “di cassa” (come ha fatto l’Italia) ed a classificazioni di bilancio analoghe. Sono traguardi non irrealistici, nell’arco – ad esempio – di cinque anni e tali da fornire le basi ad una politica di bilancio comune da poter giustapporre ad una politica della moneta anche essa comune.
Questi strumenti comporterebbero una batteria di indicatori quantitativi che non sostituirebbe gli attuali ma li arricchirebbe. Per quanto si possa auspicare che il nuovo “patto” non tratti solo di deficit annuale e stock di debito pubblico in rapporto al Pil e che vengano introdotti indicatori di economia reale, d’occupazione e di situazione sociale, occorre fare attenzione: l’Ue ha avuto la tendenza ad ampliare la gamma degli indicatori tanto da rendere le politiche ingestibili o, peggio ancora, di invitare implicitamente a truccare i numeri. Il destino dei “protocolli di Lisbona” che nel marzo 2000 avrebbero dovuto rendere l’Ue l’area più dinamica del mondo dovrebbe essere un monito a non strafare ma anzi a tenersi il più essenziali possibile.
lunedì 6 settembre 2010
IL BOOM DEI COMMODITY? MANEGGIARE CON CAUTELA Syntesis settembre
IL BOOM DEI COMMODITY? MANEGGIARE CON CAUTELA
Giuseppe Pennisi
Prima o poi, doveva arrivare. E portare con sé notizie buone e meno buone. La forte crescita economia dell’Estremo Oriente (Cina, in primo luogo) e dell’India ha, da un lato, creato una nuova vasta classe di consumatori (con appetiti per i prodotti ed i servizi occidentali) e, da un altro, innescato tensioni sui mercati delle materie prime e dei prodotti di base. In Europa più che in America, ciò minaccia di mettere in moto una nuova spirale inflazionistica. Trecento milioni di cinesi hanno superato, negli ultimi dieci anni, la barriera della povertà (lo standard internazionale secondo cui si è poveri se una famiglia di due persone ha un reddito che è la metà del reddito medio del Paese in questione) ed 80 milioni (ossia tanto quanti i tedeschi) hanno un reddito superiore a quello medio dell’Ue a 27 e pari a quello dell’area dell’euro.
In un saggio ancora a circolazione limitata (NBER Working Paper No. W13184), il Premio Nobel Robert Fogel avverte che se le tendenze degli ultimi 20 anni continueranno nel 2040 il Pil della Cina sarà pari a tre volte la produzione mondiale di beni e servizi computata per il 2000. Secondo Angus Maddison il Pil della Cina, se computato a parità i potere d’acquisto è già pari all’80% di quello degli Usa con il risultato che il Celeste Impero è il vero motore dell’economia mondiale. Un mutamento strutturale di tali dimensioni non può non scombussolare l’economia mondiale. Aprendo, però, anche interessanti opportunità.
All’ultima conta, computato in dollari Usa, l’indice aggregato delle materie prime dell’Economist (in dollari Usa) è cresciuto, in 12 mesi, del 22% e quello del petrolio grezzo del 54%; ma, grazie ad alcuni raccolti eccezionalmente buoni ed a progressi nella concimazione, quello dei prodotti alimentari è rimasto stabile Negli ultimi cinque anni, in dollari Usa, i prezzi del petrolio sono aumentati del 158%, quelli del frumento del 126%, quelli del nickel addirittura del 415%. Alla Banca centrale europea (Bce), si stima che nel 2010 sarà difficile tenere la crescita dell’inflazione nell’area dell’euro al di sotto del 2% (come prescritto negli Statuti dell’istituto), alla Federal Reserve si ritiene che nell’eurozona l’inflazione viaggerà sul 3% l’anno, costringendo la Bce ad una manovra restrittiva.
Quali implicazioni per l’Ue? Un’analisi del Centro di Ricerca Economica Europea tedesco (per avere il testo si scriva a mio nome a oberndorfer@zew.de, precisando, se si vuole, di inviare la versione in inglese) dimostra che la crisi delle forniture di gas russo all’Ucraina (che si temeva si estendessero al resto d’Europa) non ha avuto alcun effetto di rilievo sulle Borse , neanche nel campo (molto volatile) delle azioni del comparto dell’energia in quanto, in parte, l’accentuazione della volatilità è stata, in parte, messa in conto ai primi annunci russi e, in parte, riequilibrata dall’espansione (inattesa) degli utili di molte aziende a ragione dei ritocchi ai prezzi dell’elettricità. Un altro studio del Centro (scrivere a dannenberg@zew.de per il testo integrale) conclude che il maggior rigore in termini di regolazione ambientale (che potrebbe essere innescato dall’aumento dei prezzi di materie prime nel campo dell’energia) potrebbe avere impatti su alcune aziende ma non farebbe neanche un soffio (negativo o positivo) agli andamenti macro-economici Ue (ai quali rispondono i mercati).
Un corollario potrebbe essere quello di aumentare gli investimenti in materie prime od in titoli strutturati che hanno i prodotti di base come sottostante. Occorre cautela, da un lato, alcuni prodotti (si pensi al nickel) potrebbe avere toccato vette dove assestarsi od anche cominciare a discendere. Da un altro, attenzione alla trasparenza dei prospetti e dei libri contabili. Robert W. Macgee della Andreas School of Business di Barry University (bob414@hotmail.com) sta circolando tra gli addetti ai lavori un’analisi dettagliata di come le aziende del settore russo dell’energia (uno dei più internazionalizzati ed avanzati) pubblicano la loro contabilità; adottano standard internazionali ma pubblicano i dati molto più tardi di imprese analoghe nel resto del mondo.
Infine occorre grande attenzione ai rapporti con la Russia, principale produttore europeo d’energia. Più che soffermarsi ulteriormente sulle specifiche dei contrasti tra Russia ed Ucraina, è bene tracciare le prospettive che si presentano nell’ipotesi (verosimile) che gli intrighi di RosUkrEnergo (il conglomerato guidato da oligarchi dei due Paesi ed unico intermediario per le vendite di gas russo a Kiev) riprendano quanto prima. Il Premio Nobel Douglas North ci ha insegnato che all’avvicinarsi di nuove regole, le vecchie si irrigidiscono , anche e soprattutto su pressione dei gruppi di interesse a cui il nuovo farebbe perdere vantaggi.
Guardando in prospettiva, occorre, in primo luogo, non nutrire troppe illusioni né su una soluzione duratura della vertenza né sulle implicazioni dei principali percorsi alternativi per portare gas dall’ex-Impero sovietico all’Ue. In primo luogo, le due condotte promosse da Mosca, il Northern Stream (di particolare interesse per la Germania) ed il Southern Stream , eviterebbero il passaggio attraverso l’Ucraina ma l’Europa resterebbe tributaria del gas russo (e dei conflitti all’interno del Cremlino e tra Cremlino e altri oligarchi). In secondo luogo, anche dopo la messa in funzione del Nabucco (il gasdotto, promossa da Use ed Ue, che dovrebbe portare gas dell’Asia Centrale, principalmente dall’Azebarjan, all’Europa), il 40% dell’import europeo di gas continuerebbe a provenire dalla Russia. In parole povere, nessuno di questi progetti sostituisce i cento miliardi di metri cubi di gas che ora attraversano l’Ucraina.
Che risposte dare? Dato che qualsiasi alternativa tecnica comporta tempi tecnici niente affatto brevi, l’Ue deve imporsi regole di comportamento: a) bloccare, con sanzioni pesanti, accordi bilaterali con la Russia che farebbe sgretolare il fronte europeo; b) premere su Ucraina e Russia perché giungano ad un contratto a lungo termine con una formula, per la definizione e l’aggiornamento del prezzo, analoga a quella in vigore in numerosi contratti tra Gazprom e Paesi europei (o i loro enti per gli idrocarburi); c) fare pressioni sull’Ucraina screditandola come partner commerciale, e mostrando sanzioni (tra cui la sospensione dal G8); d) diversificare le proprie fonti di energia.
Unicamente una strategia internazionale ed europea? Un lavoro dell’Iefe (l’istituto di studi sulle fonti di energia della Bocconi) , lo IEFE Working Paper No. 16 traccia l’evoluzione della politica energetica italiana negli ultimi tre lustri e mette, correttamente in risalto, quanto effettuato con le misure di liberalizzazione già adottate. Pone, però, in risalto che nel campo specifico del gas, si è stati lenti sia in materia di flessibilità intertemporale della capacità di immagazzinare (e trattare le riserve) sia nel funzionamento del mercato in cui i prezzi non sono stati utilizzati come segnali di scarsità relative. Un altro lavoro Iefe (IEFE Working Paper No. 13 ) tratta specificatamente di questi due temi, utilizzando un’interessante tecnica micro-economica. La (tardiva) liberalizzazione ha aumentato l’accesso agli stoccaggi , riducendo i privilegi di chi era in posizione dominante, ma è stata “dinamicamente inefficiente” : i meccanismi per la definizione delle tariffe, vincoli fisici alla capacità, e sanzioni troppo basse hanno ridotto gli incentivi ad espandere la gamma di strumenti per facilitare l’incontro tra domanda ed offerta (in tema di stoccaggio). Per superare questi ed altri nodi, occorre la creazione di un efficiente mercato a punto (spot market).
Giuseppe Pennisi
Prima o poi, doveva arrivare. E portare con sé notizie buone e meno buone. La forte crescita economia dell’Estremo Oriente (Cina, in primo luogo) e dell’India ha, da un lato, creato una nuova vasta classe di consumatori (con appetiti per i prodotti ed i servizi occidentali) e, da un altro, innescato tensioni sui mercati delle materie prime e dei prodotti di base. In Europa più che in America, ciò minaccia di mettere in moto una nuova spirale inflazionistica. Trecento milioni di cinesi hanno superato, negli ultimi dieci anni, la barriera della povertà (lo standard internazionale secondo cui si è poveri se una famiglia di due persone ha un reddito che è la metà del reddito medio del Paese in questione) ed 80 milioni (ossia tanto quanti i tedeschi) hanno un reddito superiore a quello medio dell’Ue a 27 e pari a quello dell’area dell’euro.
In un saggio ancora a circolazione limitata (NBER Working Paper No. W13184), il Premio Nobel Robert Fogel avverte che se le tendenze degli ultimi 20 anni continueranno nel 2040 il Pil della Cina sarà pari a tre volte la produzione mondiale di beni e servizi computata per il 2000. Secondo Angus Maddison il Pil della Cina, se computato a parità i potere d’acquisto è già pari all’80% di quello degli Usa con il risultato che il Celeste Impero è il vero motore dell’economia mondiale. Un mutamento strutturale di tali dimensioni non può non scombussolare l’economia mondiale. Aprendo, però, anche interessanti opportunità.
All’ultima conta, computato in dollari Usa, l’indice aggregato delle materie prime dell’Economist (in dollari Usa) è cresciuto, in 12 mesi, del 22% e quello del petrolio grezzo del 54%; ma, grazie ad alcuni raccolti eccezionalmente buoni ed a progressi nella concimazione, quello dei prodotti alimentari è rimasto stabile Negli ultimi cinque anni, in dollari Usa, i prezzi del petrolio sono aumentati del 158%, quelli del frumento del 126%, quelli del nickel addirittura del 415%. Alla Banca centrale europea (Bce), si stima che nel 2010 sarà difficile tenere la crescita dell’inflazione nell’area dell’euro al di sotto del 2% (come prescritto negli Statuti dell’istituto), alla Federal Reserve si ritiene che nell’eurozona l’inflazione viaggerà sul 3% l’anno, costringendo la Bce ad una manovra restrittiva.
Quali implicazioni per l’Ue? Un’analisi del Centro di Ricerca Economica Europea tedesco (per avere il testo si scriva a mio nome a oberndorfer@zew.de, precisando, se si vuole, di inviare la versione in inglese) dimostra che la crisi delle forniture di gas russo all’Ucraina (che si temeva si estendessero al resto d’Europa) non ha avuto alcun effetto di rilievo sulle Borse , neanche nel campo (molto volatile) delle azioni del comparto dell’energia in quanto, in parte, l’accentuazione della volatilità è stata, in parte, messa in conto ai primi annunci russi e, in parte, riequilibrata dall’espansione (inattesa) degli utili di molte aziende a ragione dei ritocchi ai prezzi dell’elettricità. Un altro studio del Centro (scrivere a dannenberg@zew.de per il testo integrale) conclude che il maggior rigore in termini di regolazione ambientale (che potrebbe essere innescato dall’aumento dei prezzi di materie prime nel campo dell’energia) potrebbe avere impatti su alcune aziende ma non farebbe neanche un soffio (negativo o positivo) agli andamenti macro-economici Ue (ai quali rispondono i mercati).
Un corollario potrebbe essere quello di aumentare gli investimenti in materie prime od in titoli strutturati che hanno i prodotti di base come sottostante. Occorre cautela, da un lato, alcuni prodotti (si pensi al nickel) potrebbe avere toccato vette dove assestarsi od anche cominciare a discendere. Da un altro, attenzione alla trasparenza dei prospetti e dei libri contabili. Robert W. Macgee della Andreas School of Business di Barry University (bob414@hotmail.com) sta circolando tra gli addetti ai lavori un’analisi dettagliata di come le aziende del settore russo dell’energia (uno dei più internazionalizzati ed avanzati) pubblicano la loro contabilità; adottano standard internazionali ma pubblicano i dati molto più tardi di imprese analoghe nel resto del mondo.
Infine occorre grande attenzione ai rapporti con la Russia, principale produttore europeo d’energia. Più che soffermarsi ulteriormente sulle specifiche dei contrasti tra Russia ed Ucraina, è bene tracciare le prospettive che si presentano nell’ipotesi (verosimile) che gli intrighi di RosUkrEnergo (il conglomerato guidato da oligarchi dei due Paesi ed unico intermediario per le vendite di gas russo a Kiev) riprendano quanto prima. Il Premio Nobel Douglas North ci ha insegnato che all’avvicinarsi di nuove regole, le vecchie si irrigidiscono , anche e soprattutto su pressione dei gruppi di interesse a cui il nuovo farebbe perdere vantaggi.
Guardando in prospettiva, occorre, in primo luogo, non nutrire troppe illusioni né su una soluzione duratura della vertenza né sulle implicazioni dei principali percorsi alternativi per portare gas dall’ex-Impero sovietico all’Ue. In primo luogo, le due condotte promosse da Mosca, il Northern Stream (di particolare interesse per la Germania) ed il Southern Stream , eviterebbero il passaggio attraverso l’Ucraina ma l’Europa resterebbe tributaria del gas russo (e dei conflitti all’interno del Cremlino e tra Cremlino e altri oligarchi). In secondo luogo, anche dopo la messa in funzione del Nabucco (il gasdotto, promossa da Use ed Ue, che dovrebbe portare gas dell’Asia Centrale, principalmente dall’Azebarjan, all’Europa), il 40% dell’import europeo di gas continuerebbe a provenire dalla Russia. In parole povere, nessuno di questi progetti sostituisce i cento miliardi di metri cubi di gas che ora attraversano l’Ucraina.
Che risposte dare? Dato che qualsiasi alternativa tecnica comporta tempi tecnici niente affatto brevi, l’Ue deve imporsi regole di comportamento: a) bloccare, con sanzioni pesanti, accordi bilaterali con la Russia che farebbe sgretolare il fronte europeo; b) premere su Ucraina e Russia perché giungano ad un contratto a lungo termine con una formula, per la definizione e l’aggiornamento del prezzo, analoga a quella in vigore in numerosi contratti tra Gazprom e Paesi europei (o i loro enti per gli idrocarburi); c) fare pressioni sull’Ucraina screditandola come partner commerciale, e mostrando sanzioni (tra cui la sospensione dal G8); d) diversificare le proprie fonti di energia.
Unicamente una strategia internazionale ed europea? Un lavoro dell’Iefe (l’istituto di studi sulle fonti di energia della Bocconi) , lo IEFE Working Paper No. 16 traccia l’evoluzione della politica energetica italiana negli ultimi tre lustri e mette, correttamente in risalto, quanto effettuato con le misure di liberalizzazione già adottate. Pone, però, in risalto che nel campo specifico del gas, si è stati lenti sia in materia di flessibilità intertemporale della capacità di immagazzinare (e trattare le riserve) sia nel funzionamento del mercato in cui i prezzi non sono stati utilizzati come segnali di scarsità relative. Un altro lavoro Iefe (IEFE Working Paper No. 13 ) tratta specificatamente di questi due temi, utilizzando un’interessante tecnica micro-economica. La (tardiva) liberalizzazione ha aumentato l’accesso agli stoccaggi , riducendo i privilegi di chi era in posizione dominante, ma è stata “dinamicamente inefficiente” : i meccanismi per la definizione delle tariffe, vincoli fisici alla capacità, e sanzioni troppo basse hanno ridotto gli incentivi ad espandere la gamma di strumenti per facilitare l’incontro tra domanda ed offerta (in tema di stoccaggio). Per superare questi ed altri nodi, occorre la creazione di un efficiente mercato a punto (spot market).
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