We left at the interval...

Vitrifrigo Arena, Pesaro, Saturday August 17, 2024 Conductor: Michele Mariotti. Production: Johannes Erath. Sets: Heike Scheele. Costumes: Jorge Jara. Video: Bibi Abel. Lighting: Fabio Antoci. Ermione: Anastasia Bartoli. Andromaca: Victoria Yarovaya. Pirro: Enea Scala. Oreste: Juan Diego Flórez. Pilade Antonio Mandrillo. Fenicio: Michael Mofidian. Cleone: Martiniana Antonie. Cefisa: Paola Leguisamón. Attalo: Tianxuefei Sun. Chorus of the Teatro Ventidio Basso. Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI. Photos: Amati Bacciardi Now we have a dog, holidays in Greece involve an August drive across Italy from Mont Blanc, passing close to Pesaro during the festival, to Ancona for a night ferry to Patras. As, to my mind,  Ermione is one of Rossini's greatest works, yet not an easy one to catch, and the cast looked promising, this year I bought tickets, brushed up my Racine, and found myself in the Vitrifrigo arena on a Saturday night. This venue really is a sports stadium. It was probably ...

Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris, Friday December 8 2017 Conductor: Jérémie Rhorer. Production, sets, costumes: Laurent Pelly, assisted by Cléo Laigret (sets) and Jean-Jacques Delmotte (costumers). Lighting: Joël Adam. Il Conte Almaviva: Michele Angelini. Figaro: Florian Sempey. Rosina: Catherine Trottmann. Bartolo: Peter Kálmán. Basilio: Robert Gleadow. Berta: Annunziata Vestri. Fiorello: Guillaume Andrieux. Le Cercle de l’Harmonie. Unikanti chorus. Photo: Vincent Pontet According to the TCE’s website, this Barber combined “The verve of Jérémie Rhorer, the poetry of Laurent Pelly and a seasoned cast at ease with this repertoire.” I’d flown in that morning from a week in Houston, so perhaps I was tired. But I sat there thinking that verve, or better still a touch of Rossinian madness, was exactly what was lacking as Jérémie Rhorer conducted the none-too-accurate Cercle de l’Harmonie. I have yet to understand how and why he has become so well-known (the website mentions his Mozar...

Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris, Friday June 10 2016 Conductor : Jean-Claude Malgoire. Production and sets : Christian Schiaretti. Costumes: Thibaut Welchlin. Lighting: Julia Grand. Isabella: Anna Reinhold. Lindoro: Artavazd Sargsyan. Taddeo: Domenico Balzani. Mustapha: Sergio Gallardo. Elvira : Samantha Louis-Jean. Haly : Renaud Delaigue. Zulma. La Grande Ecurie et la Chambre du Roy. Ensemble Vocal de l’Atelier Lyrique de Tourcoing. Rossini There’s something seriously wrong when the best-cast parts in L’Italiana in Algeri are Taddeo and Zulma. My neighbour thought it was “criminal” to push these gauche young singers on to the stage of the TCE in parts so far beyond their means. The audience was indulgent, but by the end of “Languir per una bella” there was already a hint of booing from high up on the left. I will say no more about the singing. Jean-Claude Malgoire was something of a pioneer of the baroque revival in France, and this production was, if I understood correc...

Théâtre des Champs Eysées, Paris, Monday January 11 2016 Conductor and fortepiano: Ottavio Dantone. Soprano: Olga Peretyatko. Accademia Bizantina. Il viaggio a Reims : “Partir, oh Ciel! Desio… Grazie vi rendo o Dei”. Il Signor Bruschino : Sinfonia . Il viaggio a Reims : “All’ombra amena”.  Il barbiere di Siviglia : Temporale (storm). Il turco in Italia : “I vostri cenci vi mando.. Squallida veste e bruna… L’infelice, che opprime sventura”. Semiramide : “Bel raggio lusinghier”. Tancredi: Sinfonia . Tancredi : “Di mia vita infelice… No, che il morir”. Grand’overtura obbligata a contrabasso . Matilde di Shabran : “Ami alfine… Tacea la tromba altera”. Rossini I believe Olga Peretyatko has had quite a tough schedule touring this Rossini recital. I have also read that she's in the habit of introducing the numbers herself, but was advised against it (possibly by the TCE management?) in Paris, a detail she announced, using a microphone, at the start of the evening. Per...

Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris, Saturday October 24 2015 Conductor: Yuri Temirkanov. Soprano: Camilla Tilling. St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra. Rossini : Barber of Seville overture Mendelssohn : Symphony N°4, Italian Symphnoy Mahler : Symphony N°4. An evening of undemonstrative virtuosity. You might call Temirkanov an "anti-Bernstein". His gestures are sparing and his conducting seems ( ars being celare artem ) likeably literal and straightforward: no showiness (or showmanship), no lush wallowing, no violent extremes, no pulling the score about: when the score comes to an abrupt halt (e.g. the end of the second movement of the Mahler), no slowing down to smooth the abruptness out.   The magnificent orchestra comes across, under his guidance, as quietly impressive: one vast, neat, gently humming machine, with not so much a sense of separate sections as one of a single, intricately interconnected mechanism. Never a note out of place, of course; not one quack f...

ONP Bastille, Thursday September 25 2014 Conductor: Carlo Montanaro. Production: Damiano Michieletto. Sets: Paolo Fantin. Costumes: Silvia Aymonino. Lighting: Fabio Barettin. Il Conte d’Almaviva: René Barbera. Bartolo: Carlo Lepore. Rosina: Karine Deshayes. Figaro: Dalibor Jenis. Basilio: Orlin Anastassov. Fiorello: Tiago Matos. Berta: Cornelia Oncioiu. Un Ufficiale: Lucio Prete. Orchestra and Chorus of the Opéra National de Paris. Paris’s new production of Il barbiere – not altogether new, as it was created in Geneva in 2010 – should be fairly easy to describe. The curtain rises on an ordinary, slightly shabby, yellow street façade in Seville. We see the ground floor and three storeys above, but there could be more. To the left is a tapas bar (the Barracuda) with a giant ice cream cone and a table and chairs outside. In the middle, under Rosina’s balcony, is Almaviva’s (blue) car. All over is a multitude of realistic detail: the fire hydrant, the blue-and-white street numbers, t...

Metropolitan Opera, New York, Monday January 21 2013 Conductor: Maurizio Benini. Production: Bartlett Sher. Sets: Michael Yeargan. Costumes: Catherine Zuber. Lighting : Brian MacDevitt. Adèle: Pretty Yende. Isolier: Karine Deshayes. Ragonde: Susanne Resmark. Count Ory: Juan Diego Flórez. Raimbaud: Nathan Gunn. The Tutor: Nicola Ulivieri. “Her voice has a luminous sheen combined with steely resolve that powers both her clarion top notes and her outstandingly rich low register. She delivered some of the most difficult coloratura passages with scintillating precision… She took her curtain call amid a storm of bravos, whistles and whoops.” That was the New York Times , quoted on the Met’s website, on the subject of Pretty Yende, a South African singer who has made her Met début standing in at the last minute as Adèle. She certainly is remarkably promising. If she isn’t pounced on and pushed into too many rôles that are too taxing, too soon, in five years or so she’s going to be a t...

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday April 29 2012 Concert performance Conductor: Evelino Pidò. Otello: Gregory Kunde. Desdemona: Anna Caterina Antonacci. Elmiro: Giovanni Furlanetto. Rodrigo: Dmitry Korchak: Jago: Dario Schmunck. Emilia: Josè Maria Lo Monaco. Lucio: Stefan Cifolelli. Doge/Un Gondoliere: Tansel Akzeybek. Orchestra and Chorus of La Monnaie. Ana Caterina Antonacci has only to sing one note for me to think (settling snugly into my seat and, for once, looking forward to a feast): “At last, a real voice!” But what’s a “real” voice? Years ago I remember reading a lengthy attempt (by Gombrich or Pevsner or Clark or someone like that; I tried to find it again yesterday but couldn’t) to define art, that still ended with a cop-out along the lines of ”Anyway, when you’ve had enough of it, you know it when you see it.” After hundreds of opportunities, over the years, to leave at the interval, bored by bland voices and non-existent acting, you know a real voice when you hear one. A...

ONP Garnier, Friday June 18 2010 Conductor: Roberto Abbado. Production: Lluís Pasqual. Sets: Ezio Frigerio. Lighting: Vinicio Cheli. Costumes Franca Squarciapino. Giacomo V (Uberto di Snowdon): Juan Diego Florez. Duglas d’Angus: Simon Orfila. Rodrigo di Dhu: Colin Lee. Elena: Joyce DiDonato. Malcolm Groeme: Daniela Barcellona. Albina: Diana Axentii. Serano: Jason Bridges. Paris Opera Orchestra and Chorus. It's a brave (or foolhardy) house that schedules a killer work like La Donna del Lago . How to stage it these days is a trivial question beside that of how to cast it. The Paris Opera has put together about the best cast you could hope for (the next morning I listened to Pollini's recording; in the comparison, only Ramey came across as better) but even so, it was a case of "safety in numbers." The ensembles, from duets upwards, were less precarious than the solo arias because, plucky though everyone was, nobody was wholly at ease, wholly consistent throughout the ran...

Salle Pleyel, Paris, Sunday June 3 2007 Concert version Conductor: René Jacobs. Tancredi: Bernarda Fink. Amenaide: Rosemary Joshua. Argirio: Lawrence Brownlee. Roggiero: Anna Chierichetti. Orbazzano: Federico Sacchi. Isaura: Elena Belfiore. Orchestre des Champs-Elysées. The English Voices. Back to the Salle Pleyel on Sunday for an interesting and sometimes exciting concert version of Rossini’s Tancredi – but a tough one to write up: René Jacobs’ approach, with a “period” orchestra and a cast of mostly Händelian singers (a deliberate choice of course) results in so different a Rossini that I’d really have liked to hear it several times before commenting. The programme notes remind us that only 22 years separate Tancredi , which Jacobs calls “the most Mozartian of Rossini’s operas,” from La clemenza di Tito ; that Rossini was known as “Il tedeschino”; and that he had assimilated Gluck’s reforms. As you would expect, the “HIP” orchestral sound strips off the varnish of smooth, 20th-centu...

Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, Thursday January 18 2007 Conductor: Jean-Christophe Spinosi. Production and video: Giorgio Barberio Corsetti, Pierrick Sorin. Marchesina Clarice: Sonia Prina. Baronessa Aspasia: Jennifer Holloway. Donna Fulvia: Laura Giordano. Pacuvio: Christian Senn. Conte Asdrubale: François Lis. Giocondo: José Manuel Zapata. Conte Macrobio: Joan Martín-Royo. Fabrizio: Filippo Polinelli. Ensemble Matheus. Chorus of the Teatro Regio di Parma. It isn’t often the production team gets the loudest applause of all, in Paris or elsewhere, especially for what would presumably pass, in the US, for Eurotrash. Rossini’s La Pietra del Paragone is an almost plotless piece of first-class fluff, untainted by a moment’s depth, lasting a full three hours. It requires two main things to avoid eventual lassitude: an unflaggingly entertaining, well-regulated production, and excellent playing and singing. While the singing, last night, was creditable, the production was outstandingly imaginat...

Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, Wednesday March 1 2006 Frederica von Stade, Anna Caterina Antonacci, Vladimir Chernov. Fanny Ardant (narrator). David Harper (piano), David Watkin (‘cello). Staging by Lotfi Mansouri and Paul Paradis. "Fanny Ardant is wearing a dress from Christian Dior Haute Couture, designed specially for her by John Galliano." The evening’s concept was a staged recital of songs by Pauline Viardot, but also by her father and friends: Rossini, Gounod, Meyerbeer, Chopin and Berlioz. On the left, a black Second-Empire throne on a podium; on the right, a black and gold Japanned screen and three matching Second-Empire chairs for the singers; in the middle, a grand piano; at the rear, a dark backdrop with three reddish, arched shapes cast by dramatic spotlights. Fanny Ardant hosted the evening. Actressy, arch and artificial, over-powdered and over-dressed, she laboured through a biography of Pauline Viardot, clumsily scripted to sound improvised. The audience murmured ...

Théâtre du Châtelet – Paris, Monday December 12 2005 Conductor: Valery Gergiev. Production: Alaina Maratrat. Corinna: Irma Guigolachvili. Marchesa Melibea: Anna Kiknadze. Contessa di Folleville: Larissa Youdina. Madama Cortese: Anastastia Belyaeva. Cavalier Belfiore: Dmitir Voropaev. Conte di Libenskof: Daniil Shtoda. Lord Sidney: Edouard Tsanga. Don Profondo: Nikolaï Kamenski. Barone di Trombonok: Vladislav Ouspenski. Don Alvaro: Alexeï Safioulin. Don Luigino: Andreï Ilioushnikov. Maddalena: Elena Sommer. Modestina: Olga Kitchenko. Antonio: Pavel Shmoulevich. Orchestra of the Mariinski Theatre, St Petersburg. Mariinski Theatre Academy for Young Singers. And the horse, Prince. If this second Viaggio of the season played with a 30-minute interval I suspect it was only because French bank Crédit Agricole needed the half-hour to pour champagne down the throats of the numerous and assorted bigwigs invited for their Christmas treat. Certainly, time flies when you’re having fun, and as we w...

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday October 30 2005 Conductor: Rani Calderon. Production: Luca Ronconi. Corinna: Carmela Remigio. La Marchesa Melibea: Daniela Pini. La Contessa di Folleville: Désirée Rancatore. Madama Cortese: Alexandrina Pendatchanska. Il Cavaliere Belfiore: Riccardo Botta. Il Conte di Libenskof: Lawrence Brownlee. Lord Sydney: Michele Pertusi. Don Profondo: Giovanni Furlanetto. Il Barone di Trombonok: Bruno Praticò. Don Alvaro: Riccardo Novaro. Don Prudenzio: Shadi Torbey. Don Luigino: Marc Coulon. Delia: Rosa Brandao. Maddalena: Isabelle Everarts de Velp. Modestina: Beata Morawska. Zefirino: John Manning. Gelsomino: Tie Min Wang. Antonio: Pierre Doyen. Orchestra and Chorus of La Monnaie. Theater De Spiegel. According to La Monnaie’s web site (my translation): “Despite its unusual structure - a single act with nine major numbers – Rossini’s last Italian opera is certainly one of the most brilliant, an apotheosis of all the kaleidoscopic facets of his genius.” As this was a ...