Giacomo Sagripanti / Recensioner

Uno spettacolo che conferma l’alto profilo della rassegna proprio perché interroga questi testi, da intendersi nell’accezione più ampia del termine, fornendone risposte non univoche. La chiave di volta è senz’altro costituita dalla direzione attenta, calibratissima, lungamente meditata di Giacomo Sagripanti, che parte proprio dalla definizione di ‘oratorio’, scelta in occasione della creazione parigina dell’opera nel corso della Settimana Santa: filiazione, certo, di quella napoletana come ‘azione tragico-sacra’, ma secondo una prospettiva ancora più ampia. Nelle mani del direttore abruzzese, alla guida dell’Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI di straordinaria compattezza e fluidità, Moïse diventa un bassorilievo marmoreo punteggiato dai momenti ‘sublimi’ – per impiegare la terminologia impiegata da Ilaria Narici – in cui figura l’intervento del soprannaturale.

The Rossini Opera Festival had planned a new production of Moïse et Pharaon for its 2020 edition, which was disrupted by the pandemic. Instead, it opens this year’s festival. Director Pier Luigi Pizzi had a whole year to rethink his staging, which has ended up changing considerably. Scenes are minimalistic and elegant, in pure Pizzi style, Massimo Gasparon's lighting playing a big role in shaping the images. Costumes are colour coded: the Egyptians in blue and purple; the Jews in white and Earth tones. Videos on the back of the stage gave life to the most spectacular events: the plagues of Egypt, the destruction of the great pyramid, and the parting of the Red Sea.

You sometimes hear people describe Don Pasquale as a ‘cruel’ comedy – though they’re often a bit vague as to what they mean. Pin them down and the complaint seems to be that the 70-year-old gentleman who belatedly gets married in the plot is treated cruelly. But Don Pasquale begins the opera by attempting to impose his will upon his nephew’s choice of wife, and disinheriting him when he refuses to comply; any cruelty in the opera starts there. There are undoubtedly tricky moments for director, cast and even the audience to negotiate collectively, most notoriously when during their battle of marital wills in Act III, Norina – Pasquale’s fake bride, whom he has willingly married as part of his scheme to disinherit nephew Ernesto – slaps her elderly husband’s face.

If you want escapist bliss — and who doesn’t right now? — the Royal Opera’s new staging of Donizetti’s comic opera is almost perfect. Almost, because it slightly runs out of steam just before the end. By then, however, I had been richly entertained by Damiano Michieletto’s clever modern-day staging, dazzled by mostly brilliant singing and the scintillating playing of the orchestra under Evelino Pido’s seasoned direction and touched by the acting of a top-notch cast. The latter is most surprising because I thought myself impervious to the “fun” of an opera in which an old man who craves a pretty wife is tricked, bullied and humiliated. Yet his treatment doesn’t feel cruel here. In part that’s because Olga Peretyatko, as the marriage-brokered bride

Die Koloraturen in der Kavatine „Come, innocente giovane“ gelingen perfekt, ihr für den Belcanto so prägende mezza di voce, das An- und Abschwellen der Stimme, ist ein Genuss. Es sind tatsächlich die lyrischen, leisen Momente, die zarten Zwischentöne im Auf- und Ab ihres Seelenlebens, die einen am stärksten in ihren Bann zieht. Wenn Annas Lage ausweglos wird und sie zwischen zwei verlorenen Lieben zerrissen und aufgerieben wird, rücken dramatische Elemente in den Vordergrund. Erschütternde Spitzentöne, vokal makellos dargeboten, cantabile und stets auf Fassung und Würde bis in den Tod bedacht.

Für Diana Damrau an sich kein Problem, sie kann gestalten und weiß ihre Figuren zu präsentieren. Am Samstag agierte die deutsche Sopranistin von Beginn an sängerisch ausgezeichnet. Bis hin zur Wahnsinnsszene am Schluss wusste sie ihre Kraft einzuteilen, beherrschte ihr edles Material in allen Lagen.

If it's not broke, don't fix it!" Most clichés gain their status through being true, but that one is honoured in the breach as often as in its application, the desire to sell something new (even if it isn't really) as addictive to the vendor as it is to the buyer. Not always though. "25 years of Richard Eyre's La Traviata" is emblazoned (in gold, no less) on the cast list and the programme compiles a Who's Who of opera stars who have sung the roles in that quarter century - it was staged here as recently as January after all! So you've every right to expect something good, something slick, something that can fill hundreds of seats on wet Tuesday night a week before Christmas. And that's what you get.

Apart from Oropesa’s Violetta, the superb tenor Liparit Avetisyan gives a convincing performance as the passionate Alfredo, a role that is rarely achieved in operatic productions. The German baritone Christian Gerhaher in the role of Giorgio Germont, the man responsible for the break-up, also offers an impressive performance. The entire leading cast as well as the rest of the cast secured the narrative’s realism that is so brilliantly embedded in its musical fabric, which translates on stage in a manner that even those not musically trained, gain a satisfying musical and dramatic experience. The stamp of the director of this revival, Pedro Ruibeiro, is much in evidence. The dramatic performance, highlighting the conflict between father-son, the shift in Germont’s attitude towards Violetta, the ‘saintly courtesan’, is made clear in their first encounter in Act II. His hard tone and demeanour towards this fallen reveal early signs of softening and gestures of respect. The social norms layered with hypocrisy are superbly probed musically and dramatically in that first encounter between the two. The dramatic tension is given momentary relief by the colourful and beautifully performed gypsy’s singing dancing and the matadors. They lighten up the atmosphere before the mood darkens.The evening, in its entirety, can be summed up as memorable