Constant searching has led me to a film of Rossini's L'Italiana in Algeri from Whitsun at Salzburg in 2018. This is regie, of course. The subtitles seem to be in French. We are in Mustafa's bedroom where his wife makes advances while husband Mustafa is sleeping. He doesn't like it. Lindoro comes in with a vaccuum, smoking, wearing dreads and a tattoo. There is lots of nice music for Lindoro and Mustafa. The houses in the street all have satellite dishes.
After the guys leave, Cecilia comes in riding on a camel. Camel raises tail, Cecilia holds nose. This is an opera comedy that seems actually to be funny. Corbelli runs out of one of the stores to save Cecilia from bandits [cops?] waving guns? She says he is her uncle and shows her passport. Isabella is a contralto and is fairly easy for Cecilia. Everything is charming. I'm so glad she is singing this and that I am finally seeing it. My traveling days may be over.
In the next scene Isabella meets Mustafa and critiques his figure. In a row behind them are men smoking hookahs and blowing the smoke out onto the stage. Lindoro and Isabella see each other. Stuffed chairs roll around the stage. Isabella tells Mustafa he already has a wife.
This is fun. It is wonderful to see Isabella played by the essential Italian woman. Cecilia has long been my favorite Italian.
In the prelude to act 2 there are annoying banging sounds which turn out to be people slicing vegetables. The male chorus, clearly Mustafa's flunkies, carry boxes of electronics. Is Mustafa selling them, stealing them, what? Mustafa is arranging a meeting with Isabella. Cecilia enters smoking, but I don't see smoke. Sight gags. Smooching.
Taddeo takes off his trousers and is wearing Superman briefs. We have as many sight gags as you could possibly want. I am enjoying this very much. Suddenly male chorus all have guns and shoot them off. Perhaps Mustafa is an Algerian mafioso.
Back in Isabella's apartment she is taking a bubble bath with people all around, including us, of course. Mustafa enters in his night clothes and tries to get an eyeful. Isabella is waving bras around and singing. It is a fact that this is my first time seeing The Italian Girl in Algiers with a real Italian girl. So we know what has been missing. The aria ends and Lindoro wheels the bathtub off stage. Isabella soon reenters in her nightgown. Taddeo assumes the lotus position. Everything is getting out of control when Elvira enters. Mustafa passes out.
We see clips of La Dolce Vita where Anita Ekberg gets into the Trevi Fountain, the ultimate Italian woman film. I don't know what the general reception for this production was, but I am loving it. It is colossally silly with the spectacular Cecilia Bartoli in the middle. I find that I am shockingly unfamiliar with most of the music in this opera.
In the final scene the male chorus are all dressed as soccer players. Isabella feeds them from a giant pot of pasta. She sings "Pensa la patria" to Lindoro who is also Italian. This is at last familiar, probably from one of Cecilia's albums. She flirts with everyone. Mustafa is to be made a Pappataci. He goes back to his regular wife and the Italians all sail off for Italy. Bon voyage. Everyone lives happily ever after. Isabella and Lindoro are doing Titanic at the end, but let's assume their fates are different. How many icebergs can there be in the Mediterranean?
For me this production was perfect. Yes, it's modernized but I found the changes never to be a distortion of the story. After all, an Italian woman is an Italian woman in any era. I also thought the cast was as good as it gets, most of all our Italian woman, Cecilia Bartoli.
Teatro alla Scala Verdi's Giovana d’Arco opens with Anna Netrebko.
Conductor : Riccardo Chailly
Production : Moshe Leiser, Patrice Caurier
Giovanna: Anna Netrebko (soprano)
Carlo VII: Francesco Meli (tenor)
Giacomo, Giovanna's father: Devid Cecconi (baritone)
Talbot, English officer: Dmitry Beloselskiy (bass)
It is interesting to see what composers and playwrights have made of Joan of Arc, known since 1920 as Saint Joan.
The Maid of Orléans play byFriedrich Schiller (1801)
Verdi's Giovanna d’Arco (1845)
Tchaikovsky's The Maid of Orleans (1881) Saint Joan play by George Bernard Shaw (1924) Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher by Arthur Honegger (1935)
These are the ones I can think of. Two are operas, one is an oratorio and two are plays. Bernard Shaw's play is long and wordy and concerns itself only with Joan's trial where it is endlessly debated whether she is saint or sinner.
Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher (Joan of Arc at the stake)is a giant flash back while she burns. The play by Schiller is the basis for at least one of the operas and maybe a bit of the other.
Joan of Arc was a real person. She grew up in a small village of French loyalists, surrounded by Burgundians who were affiliated with the English who then ruled large parts of France. (She lived in the time of the Burgundian music school. Their political affiliation with the English explains this English sounding music.) All of her fame came during her teens. She was visited by visions of saints who told her to save France. As only a teenager could manage, she simply went off and did this. She must have been incredibly charismatic and sure of herself. She didn't carry arms into battle but instead waved a banner, inspiring the French army to its greatest triumphs in the war with the English. She led them to Rheims where her king was crowned in the place where all French kings were crowned. She was injured and eventually captured by the enemy. I think it's probably not known what they argued about at her trial. At 19 she was burned at the stake.
Did she actually see visions from heaven? In 1920 the answer was yes.
War is not very easy to enact on the opera stage, I guess. So one of our Joan of Arc operas adds a romance. Ambiguity of purpose would not have served our charismatic teenager. Her achievements would have required fanaticism.
Anna Netrebko is interviewed between the acts of Verdi's Giovana d’Arco and points out what a ridiculous plot it has. "Nonsense," is the exact word. For instance, her father, who does not come up in the story, is a significant figure here. He whines and complains. Come home where you belong. Prove you are still a virgin. The energy of the drama concerns itself with Joan's departure from social norms for women. Who cares?
So in this production we have a Joan of Arc who would like to save France but her father keeps her imprisoned in her room. So she imagines that she has saved France instead. Why not? It makes as much sense as the libretto. I love Meli in his all gold outfit, like a statue with a gold horse. I also love Netrebko in her gold armor. In France it is Joan who appears on statues on a gold horse.
You would want this opera for the Netrebko, for Meli and for the good early Verdi music. Netrebko carried it off, as usual. I liked the part where she cuts off her own hair. Jesus appears with his cross which he gives to Joan. I imagine the real Joan to be more like Katniss.
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Otello: John Osborn, tenor Desdemona: Cecilia Bartoli, mezzo (originally Isabella Colbran) Elmiro (Desdemona's father): Peter Kálmán, baritone Rodrigo (man chosen by Elmiro to marry Desdemona): Javier Camarena, tenor Jago: Edgardo Rocha, tenor Emilia (Jago's wife): Liliana Nikiteanu
This DVD of Rossini's Otello (1816) from the Zurich Opera records the same series of performances I reviewed here from a live stream on medici.tv.
The plot of this opera is not the same as Shakespeare or Verdi. It is clearly an opera seria but shows none of the traditional traits. Twelve years before La Muette de Portici changed opera forever, the two main characters die. This was unheard of. My researches tell me that this opera was provided with an alternate happy ending, but we in the English speaking world would be outraged. There are four scenes. All of the action takes place in Venice rather than Cyprus.
Act I
In the Doge's palace Otello is presented to the Doge as the hero of a recent battle where he recovers Cyprus for Venice. He has already married Desdemona, but this is a secret. Desdemona's father Elmiro has a candidate to marry her in Rodrigo. Otello announces that he and Desdemona are already pledged to one another, enraging Elmiro.
In this version Desdemona contributes however innocently to her own doom. She writes a letter to Otello and encloses a lock of her own hair, but the letter falls into her father's hands. In order to prevent an argument with Elmiro she tells him the letter is intended for Rodrigo. Jago tells this version to Otello who believes him.
Act II Scene 1
We are in Desdemona's room in the palazzo. She tells Rodrigo she is Otello's wife.
Act II Scene 2
We are in Otello's hangout, a dump with a pool table and refrigerator. Not only is Otello black, but he is not from Desdemona's social class either. There are simply too many things against him, hero or not. There are small issues of continuity in this scene but they shouldn't distract from the incredible singing. Jago stirs the pot. The ever hovering Emilia is there to save the situation. Desdemona has a mad scene here and pours beer over her head. P.S. I now interpret this as defiance of her father who has come to take her home.
Act III
We are in Desdemona's room in the palazzo. She writes "Nessun maggior dolore che ricordarsi del tempo felice" ["Nothing is Sadder than the Memory of Happiness."] on the wall. She sings a very beautiful rendition of the willow song. She kisses Emilia because she knows she's doomed. When Otello arrives, she is angry and defiant with him, very different from Verdi. Otello kills her then himself.
John Osborn as Otello is in black-face. Since race is the whole point of the story, this seems right. Black-face is a comic minstrel tradition only in the United States, so criticizing a French/Swiss production for doing it would seem pretty silly. It is shocking how much Otello hates Desdemona.
Cecilia is taking on heavier repertoire these days, and Otello seems on the heavy end of her abilities but still well within her grasp. She is very intense here. Someone asked me about her the other day. She was everywhere for a while and then suddenly she was gone. I explained that her Columbia Artists Management manager moved back to Europe and she along with him. I followed her there, at least in spirit, but for most Americans she ceased to exist.
This is an outstanding sample of her work now, her emotional intensity turned to serious drama. This is bel canto at its most serious extreme. For people who hate regie it won't work, but I'm not one of them. Perhaps you aren't either. Love it along with me. #ad
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Timed perfectly to coincide with the opening night of Rossini's Otello in Paris, my DVDs of Le Comte Ory and Otello from Zurich (that is the Opera Awards winning Zurich Opera) have arrived. Since I saw Otello stream on medici.tv, I am watching Ory first.
Conductor: Muhai Tang Production: Moshe Leiser & Patrice Caurier (they are growing on me)
Le Comte Ory: Javier Camerena La Comtesse Adele: Cecilia Bartoli Isolier (Ory's page): Rebeca Olvera (Adalgisa in Cecilia's Norma at Salzburg) Ragonde (La Comtesse's companion): Liliana Nikiteanu Le Gouverneur (Ory's tutor): Ugo Guagliardo Raimbaud (Ory's co-conspirator): Oliver Widmer
The opera begins with Ory and his assistant Raimbaud brushing their teeth in flip flops and shorts. Then they go into the trailer and Ory changes into his outfit as a blind hermit who lures young women. The men of the town are away on crusade and have left a token force at home to guard the women. Cough, cough.
I notice I said that Florez did not get an aria at the Met, but here Camarena opens the opera with a lovely aria which he sings in his blind hermit outfit.
Cecilia drives up to visit Ory in a blue Peugeot, called an Ente when I lived in Germany. I have been searching diligently for a photo of Cecilia in her entrance outfit, in vain. She has her hair back, steel rim glasses, a fancy collar, white pearl earrings, a dark suit, a handbag and a pair of white gloves, in every way the perfect woman of 1959. I love this. Rebeca Olvera in her soldier's outfit as Isolier is also adorable. This is as close as I could get.
I find the plot much easier to follow here, and less offensive for some reason. Perhaps hanky panky among the moderns seems better. It actually seems funny. Camarena plays everything straight which makes him seem less slimy. Pardon me. I hated the Met version, didn't laugh even once.
In the castle the women are holding up a picture of Charles de Gaulle who was president of France from 1959 to 1969. We may presume that the husbands are off fighting in Algeria. I was ready to throw this opera out on its ass, but this is charming. Bartoli and Camarena are marvelous in French, very suave and cute. Musically it could not be more sweet and graceful. This is, of course, the new critical edition, and the Met used the old souped up romantic edition. I am in danger of becoming a convert. Perhaps this lightness and graceful subtlety is due at least in part to the lighter orchestration obvious here. The orchestra is La Scintilla.
The staging of the bedroom trio was also very much superior. It is clear here that Isolier and the Countess are conspiring against Ory. They exchange clothing, and Isolier places the Countess lovingly on the floor where it is presumed a mere page would lie. There is no ambiguity about what is going on.
Everything is staged and sung, and indeed played to perfection. If you want an Ory, try this one.
And now the prompter has crawled out of his hole in the floor and is receiving a bow. That generally means his services were needed. He faces upstage until one of the actors turns him toward the audience.
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I came for this, of course. I wanted to experience the Norma at Salzburg for myself. Now Cecilia Bartoli is talking about taking it on the road, so look for it in a theater near you.
I saw Norma once with Sutherland and Horne in San Francisco. They mostly just stood around and sang. It was very beautiful, mind you, but it could have been a concert. Cecilia's Norma--what else can you call it?--is sort of the opposite. Norma is the leader, the sacred object, the chaste priestess, the leader of men, the leader for peace in a crowd of people who want war.
This is a modern dress production. My theory of modern dress holds here. Dressing the actors like people we know makes them feel to us like people we know, makes their loves and hates feel like our own.
Then their leader whom even her father loves and follows, turns out to have been living a lie. Instead of chastity, she reveals first to Adalgisa and later to everyone else that she has been the lover of the proconsul and has had two children by him. Once she knows that Norma has been with Pollione, Adalgisa wants nothing more to do with him and fades from the story. She's there mainly for duets.
In this production all the cuts are restored. The opera doesn't seem that long to me so it's hard to see why cuts were necessary. Orchestrally the bel canto was a period of transition. New instruments were invented and moved gradually into general use. Cecilia has chosen to move unambiguously back to an antique instrument ensemble.
Once she has found out the ugly truth about Adalgisa and Pollione, Norma considers killing everyone by turns--
first her children,
then the entire Roman army,
then Pollione whom her partisans have captured trying to kidnap Adalgisa,
and then finally herself.
She confesses. It is a role waiting to be discovered.
I felt that this production by Mosche Leiser and Patrice Caurier completely worked. Every concept was theatrically viable, involving, even jolting. "Guerra" shouted at us from the front of the stage was particularly thrilling.
Michele Pertusi as Norma's father Oroveso has sung with Cecilia since her early Cenerentola recording. He is always strong vocally and theatrically. Liliana Nikiteanu is another long time colleague of Cecilia's from the Zurich Opera. John Osborn appeared with her in Rossini's Otello. Only Rebeca Olvera is new. She is a member of the Zurich ensemble. They are a strong cast.
But this is Cecilia Bartoli's production, and it rises and falls with her. This marvelous theatrical concept requires Cecilia Bartoli to bring to success. She is attempting nothing less than the complete recreation of Anna Magnani, the passionate Italian actress. The result is more like Broadway than opera, because the emphasis shifts to the action, and no one sings dramatic recitative better than Cecilia. The strength of characterization is powerful well beyond the normal confines of opera, but vocally it is less than a perfect fit for her.
The character of Norma disintegrates into drunkenness at one point. At the end Pollione calls her a "sublime woman." Yes. I can say nothing more.
Giulio Cesare: Andreas Scholl, countertenor Cleopatra: Cecilia Bartoli, mezzo-soprano Cornelia: Anne Sofie von Otter, mezzo-soprano Sesto: Philippe Jaroussky, countertenor Tolomeo: Christophe Dumaux, countertenor Nireno: Jochen
Kowalski, countertenor Achilla: Ruben Drole, bass Curio: Peter Kálmán, bass
Conductor: Giovanni Antonini, l'Orchestre Il Giardino Armonico Regisseur: Olivier Simonnet Production: Moshe Leiser et Patrice Caurier
While watching Giulio Cesare stream from Salzburg, I took notes.
The production is in modern dress, soldiers with helmets and rifles dancing. There is fire on the stage. The stage is full of lizards and oil wells. The chorus is not much.
Scholl as Caesar in a medium blue suit steps out of a limousine with a statue of himself lying on the roof. The statue is taken off and placed on the stage. To the victor belong the spoils. He wears the Roman victory laurel, but quickly takes it off. He sits down and reads the newspapers while singing about victory.
Von Otter and Jaroussky, Pompey's family, appear in time to see Pompey's head delivered in a blue box with a green ribbon. Caesar doesn't know what's in the box and opens it in front of the family.
Caesar goes back to the car to get his gun and sings through the window. Now he is mad as hell. Jaroussky is dressed as a kid. I completely do not buy the head left lying on the floor. They would have done something with it. Cornelia is in despair and puts her head in a lizard's mouth. Sesto is pissed and sees a ghost of Dad. He at least acknowledges the head on the floor.
Cecilia Bartoli is the Intendant of this festival and has made sure she gets plenty of costumes for this opera. No more operas where she spends the whole night in her night gown or a black dress. In her first entrance she is wearing boots and a leopard trench coat. Cute. She dances around the statue of Caesar. There are obscene gestures. This part of the opera is all about having fun.
Her brother Tolomeo throws the statue of Caesar on the floor and kicks it. He tears it up and pulls out its insides. For some unknown reason it has insides. He makes the head of Pompey and the head of Caesar kiss. He is a bum with tattoos, corn rows and long hair. I am booing. So is the audience.
Caesar comes out and lights an oil drum. He takes Pompey's head and puts it in the burning drum. At least he treats it with some respect.
You have guessed by now that this is serious Eurotrash. If it weren't for streaming we wouldn't get to see this sort of thing in America. Philistine that I am, I am enjoying it.
Cleopatra is disguised as Lydia, but as usual, the eyes give her away. She wears a wig that looks like pictures from Maria.
Except sometimes she doesn't. My dear, you are wasting all these charms on me. I already love you. This production is pretty smutty. However, there is absolutely no problem following the plot. It's theatrically quite viable.
Sesto is planning his revenge, puts soot on his face. Cleopatra as Lydia offers to help.
Caesar and Tolomeo meet over drinks. Caesar pours his drink into the flowers, and they immediately wilt. Papers are signed over oil wells, smiles and handshakes are photographed, and Caesar goes off in his limousine.
The Act ends with von Otter and Jaroussky singing an incredibly gorgeous “Son nata a lagrimar” duet.
Act II begins with the seduction scene. Caesar puts on 3D glasses to watch the show.
Cleopatra is sitting on a rocket wearing a blond, frizzy wig, sun glasses, black gloves and a camouflage trench coat. She takes off the coat to show black boots and gray feathers. More giant Sally Rand style feathers appear, held up by men. If I'm the star, I get costumes, dammit. And half naked men to hold my feathers. She sings "V'adoro pupille" and then sails off on the rocket. You knew that. Big cheers.
Caesar is sunk.
I'm not sure why, but I like Eurotrash for Handel.
Tolomeo is still trying to seduce Cornelia who tries to pour gasoline over herself and set herself on fire. Sesto stops her. He sings about snakes in front of a film of snakes. Jaroussky brings a masculine energy to the role of Sesto that a woman could not. He shoots the snake while singing insane coloratura.
Everyone warns Caesar that Tolomeo is coming, but he slowly puts on his shoes and explains he has no fear. Cleopatra wears a gold robe in this scene. Caesar flees but takes his time.
Cleopatra picks up a machine gun and waves it around. She wants the gods to protect Caesar. This aria “Se pietà” is a prayer with dancing soldiers. In the audience is a shouter. This time he says, "Gigante!" It was amazing.
Tolomeo is reading Playboy and ogling the centerfold. Caesar jumps into the sea, and Cleopatra leads the Romans against Tolomeo.
Sesto fails again to kill Tolomeo, and to end the act Cornelia and Sesto strap a bomb around his waist so he can become a suicide bomber.
At the beginning of Act III Achilla is shot. Tolomeo captures Cleopatra and makes her kneel and put a bag over her head. She thinks all is lost. Cecilia Bartoli sings the entire aria "Piangero," brilliantly, kneeling on the floor with a bag over her head.
Caesar can swim and comes up out of the sea. He lies down on the floor amid a group of dying soldiers. Caesar takes the bomb off of Sesto.
Caesar rescues Cleopatra just in time for "Da tempeste." She is happy and dances around an oil well. Curio gives her a note and some money. She counts it and gives him some. A piano comes out, and Cleopatra finishes the aria decorating the stage with strings of lights.
Tolomeo and Cornelia come out. She pulls a gun on him, but Sesto arrives and stabs Tolomeo with his bayonet.
The winners come back, surround the piano and smoke a little pot. Where do I get a picture of Cecilia inhaling? She's wearing a gold lame dress in this scene. She has her wig again.
Scholl and Bartoli sing a wonderful love duet while rolling around on the floor. No longer dead, Tolomeo joins the finale. At the end a real tank appears in the alley behind the stage.
Much shouting.
Question: if you could do anything you wanted, would it be this?
I want to do a musical review of Giulio Cesare based on the stream.
This was my third experience of Cecilia Bartoli's Cleopatra -- first a staged version at the Zurich Opera with Marc Minkowski conducting and La Scintilla playing, then a concert version in Paris with William Christie conducting, and this staged third version from Salzburg with Giovanni Antonini and his orchestra Il Giardino Armonico. It is interesting to explore the subtle differences.
All three were long versions with little or no cuts. Minkowski and
Christie seemed to try to compensate for this by rushing through
everything.
The performance in Zurich was odd. Minkowski is a dynamic but
idiosyncratic conductor who brought out some odd features, like
performing most of the repeats sotto voce. La Scintilla was out of tune
and not in good form. They made the mistake of putting a horn player
on the stage where he proceeded to bloop every third note. I suspect
these problems have prevented this performance from being released on
DVD. Cecilia was very physically dynamic and intense throughout. There
are some poor quality recordings of bits of this on YouTube, and I
notice mainly the quick tempos.
In Paris I was handicapped by sitting behind the performers. A
concert performance can be nice, but you only get the full effect of an
opera when it's staged. There was a kind of sameness to the different
numbers. This is the most common thing that happens in a performance
and is probably the strongest indication that the maestro is present.
What is wished for is complete individuality. Is this too hard to
understand?
Of live performances I have seen, this opera remains my personal
favorite for Cecilia Bartoli. It would have been very hard for me to
miss the Salzburg performance. Thanks to the modern device of live
streaming, I had a front row seat.
We may carp over the staging of this opera, especially the raunchy bits,
but musically it was an absolute triumph. Somewhere in an interview
Cecilia said that all the participants were on the same page
musically--not a direct quote. I can't remember the precise words. It
was that rarest of musical events--the true ensemble performance.
My personal favorite is Cecilia's performance of "Tutto puo donna," a
beautiful woman can accomplish anything. She, of course, is the living
embodiment of these words. Her style of delivering this aria is her own
unique creation. Let's face it, anything she sings is her own unique
creation. This above all else is what makes her her. Her voice is at
its most gorgeous now.
But that same kind of thoughtful personal expression was everywhere,
whether nasty, tragic, sexy, triumphant, or frightened, each achieved a
personal individuality from all the artists present that combined and
blended into great beauty. Perhaps the collective soul of music soars
higher than the individual ego.
I always feel about Giovanni Antonini and his orchestra Il Giardino
Armonico that they embody a similar kind of collective enthusiasm that
spreads out to include everyone in sight. Handel was never this
wonderful.
Not one note of Ambroise Thomas' Hamlet (1868), today's HD simulcast from the Metropolitan Opera, was familiar to me. Not to worry. The romantic idiom of the piece is exactly as expected.
In Renée Fleming's interviews at intermission it was mentioned that the opera originally did not include Hamlet's death, and Anglo-Saxon audiences were horrified. As a result, an alternate ending was written in which Hamlet and Laertes fight and mortally wound one another. This later ending is the one used today.
On the whole I would recommend while viewing this opera to remember that this is an opera and not the immortal play by Shakespeare. Hamlet's father's death in the opera is the result of a conspiracy, and Polonius, Ophelia's father, is a co-conspirator. Ophelia's role is naturally bigger, and Hamlet's is smaller than in the play. It's still a wonderful role for an acting baritone, such as Simon Keenlyside. His voice didn't seem at all odd to me this time as he had at Garnier last month, and he seemed ideal for this role.
Marlis Petersen replaced Natalie Dessay. She was acceptable, especially in the mad scene. The general level of intensity was high across the cast with the exception of Marlis who seemed rather cool. It would have been different with Natalie.
The biggest shock for me was Jennifer Larmore as Gertrude. She was a bit out of her Fach in a dramatic mezzo part, but she developed a fully realized characterization that was quite intense.
