Italy Rossini Opera Festival 2024 [1] – Rossini, Bianca e Falliero: Soloists, Coro del teatro ventidio basso, Orchestra sinfonica nazionale della RAI, Roberto Abbado (conductor). Auditorium Scavolini, Pesaro, 7.8.2024. (AB)
Production:
Director – Jean-Luis Grinda
Set designs and Costumes – Rudy Sabounghi
Lighting – Laurent Castaingt
Chorus director – Giovanni Farina
Cast:
Doge Priuli – Nicolò Donini
Contareno – Dmitry Korchak
Capellio – Giorgi Manoshvili
Falliero – Aya Wakizono
Bianca – Jessica Pratt
Constanza – Carmen Buendía
Officer/ Usher – Claudio Zazzaro
Chancellor – Dangelo Díaz
Since its basis in 1976, the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro has carried out wonders in selling and re-evaluating the works of Gioachino Rossini. Over the years, it has staged productions of all his 39 operas and initiated new vital editions by the Fondazione Rossini. In phrases of what a music competition devoted to a single composer can obtain in advancing the understanding and important debate of their oeuvre, the ROF undoubtedly stands alongside the Bayreuth Wagner and Göttingen Handel festivals.
This 12 months’s opening manufacturing of Bianca e Falliero – o sia Il consiglio dei tre (Bianca and Falliero, or The Council of Three) within the newly renovated Auditorium Scavolini completely illustrates this level. Even amongst Rossini fanatics, it have to be one of many least seen or heard of his opere serie. Composed for and first carried out at Milan’s La Scala on 26 December 1819, it was the 27-year-old composer’s fourth opera that 12 months, following Ermione, Eduardo e Cristina, and – most notably – La donna del lago, from which Bianca borrows the modified finale. Despite its unique run of 39 performances – one of many longest for any Rossini opera – the work shortly fell into obscurity. Only just a few numbers grow to be fashionable in live performance performances, and so Bianca remained largely forgotten till it was revived in Pesaro in 1986, with a second manufacturing in 2005.
The plot of Felice Romani’s libretto is a typical opera seria combine of affection, politics, and household drama, set throughout Venice’s seventeenth-century warfare with Spain. Contareno, second solely to the Doge in energy, tries to pressure his daughter Bianca into marrying the nobleman Capellio to finish a household feud and safe his personal social standing. But Bianca’s coronary heart belongs to the victorious and dashing normal Falliero, who’s compelled to flee their secret rendezvous to the neighbouring backyard of the Spanish ambassador. Venetian martial legislation deems this an offence punishable by loss of life, however simply earlier than his execution, Bianca seems earlier than the Council of Three to disclose the true circumstances. In a transferring flip of occasions, it’s Falliero’s rival Capellio who takes a stand in opposition to the unhuman legislation and convinces Contareno to desert his fierce opposition to the lovers’ union.
As director Jean-Louis Grinda emphasises in his manufacturing notes, ‘the historical period of the story is of marginal importance’ to him. Video projections of unique black-and-white movie footage displaying civilians fleeing war-torn cities, together with the costumes appear to put the motion within the Thirties. However, these are the one historic or contextual cues. Instead, Grinda focuses on permitting the interior workings of the music to take centre stage, concentrating on the vary of feelings skilled by every character.
Rudy Sabounghi’s set design, supported by Laurent Castaingt’s lighting, aligns with this strategy. The set contains a lot of wood-panelled bins of various sizes that, Jenga-like, are often moved and rearranged on the open stage to create summary representations of the varied Venetian interiors the place the motion takes place.
While this creates at instances some putting visible compositions, it additionally limits character interplay, typically leaving the performers static, with some scenes feeling extra like posed tableaux than dynamic drama. Even the refrain (the superb Coro del Teatro Ventidio Basso led by Giovanni Farina) appears typically merely ornamental than really engaged within the motion.
A curious addition is an aged girl strolling with a cane who shadows Bianca in most scenes, casting disapproving glances at her actions. Is she an older model of Bianca? Her mom? A logo of foreboding that the top will not be as comfortable as marketed? The manufacturing provides no clear solutions, leaving the viewers to puzzle over her position. Yet, no matter ambiguities the staging presents are simply eclipsed by the night’s excellent musical performances.
Jessica Pratt’s Bianca is nothing wanting a triumph. Her coloratura passages are by no means mere shows of virtuosity; they subtly convey the torment of a soul torn between filial responsibility and love for Falliero. She demonstrates her mastery of the excessive and ultra-high register with obvious ease, all the time utilizing it as a way of expression slightly than an finish in itself, as supremely demonstrated within the last rondo.
In Aya Wakizono’s Falliero, Pratt has discovered a perfect counterpart. Wakizono superbly portrays the heroic satisfaction and interior turmoil of this en travesti position. Her mezzo-soprano is vivid and lyrical, effortlessly navigating the coloratura passages and including a deep sensuality to the Act I duet with Bianca, ‘Sappi che un Dio crudele’, which is a pure pleasure to listen to.
Dmitry Korchak as Contareno likewise delivers with confidence, dealing with the excessive notes with aplomb and being notably compelling within the lyrical sections. His rendition of ‘Pensa che omai resistere’, one of many trickiest coloratura items Rossini ever wrote for tenor, is a testomony to his talent.
Finally, Giorgi Manoshvili completes this set of excellent vocal performances, bringing a profound humanity to Capellio together with his superbly resonant bass. Thanks to this mix of outstanding singers the Act II quartet ‘Cielo, il mio labro ispira’ emerged because the musical and emotional spotlight of the night, because it rightly must be.
The onstage excellence was matched within the pit by Roberto Abbado, main the excellent Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI. His tempi and clever studying of Rossini’s intricately elaborate rating have been excellent, as have been the recitatives superbly rendered with cello (Jacopo Muratori) and double bass (Matteo Magigrana), alongside the fortepiano (Andrea Severi).
In sum, the distinctive high quality of the music making makes a superb case for Bianca e Falliero to seek out its approach into the repertoire, although it deserves a extra engaged and vivid route in future.
Andreas Bücker