Rossini : La Cenerentola
The Chorus of La Cenerentola
The Orchestra of Scottish Opera
William Lacey
When you take a close look at it, La Cenerentola is actually quite a challenge to put on, because it's not just in one style. Yes, it's three-quarters opera buffa, and there's plenty of buffa, but the music for Angelina and Don Ramiro themselves is more semi-seria, not to say heroic at times, and there's a thread of real seriousness that cannot - or really should not - be ignored. Sandrine Anglade, in this co-production with the Opéra du Rhin, has taken a slightly abstract view of the piece; the setting is resolutely unrealistic, the costumes are varied, to say the least, and the impression at the start is, perhaps, that this is all a dream.
Dream there is, in the production, and it was one of the ideas that I really liked about it. The wine-cellar scene, in the second half of Act 1, is staged as a drunken fantasy, in semi-darkness, with the chorus wielding illuminated wine bottles and pens to take down Magnifico's dictates. At the end, he collapses onto a seat in the middle of the stage in a sodden stupor, there to remain in blissful oblivion until he wakes up suddenly for the act's finale. This really worked for me, but it was one of the few moments in which I found something both original and enlightening. On the whole, however, I found the setting, with its revolving armoires, dull, and the whole staging not particularly amusing. Most of the laughs I heard were provoked by the text rather than by the action, and the sisters were decidedly over the top, which is completely unnecessary.
Of course, Scottish Opera was beset by other problems tonight. They had already had to replace their scheduled Don Magnifico, too recently for the new name and biography to appear in the programme, but on top of that, their tenor, Nico Darmanin, had clearly come down with something very suddenly, because we were treated to the rare sight of his substitute, Stuart Jackson, singing from the side of the stage while Darmanin mimed his role. I presume Jackson wasn't taking over the part physically as well as vocally because the substitution was so late they hadn't had time to fit a costume for him, and he is several inches taller (and proportionately larger all around) than Darmanin. He made a good show of it though, under these awkward circumstances. His voice is perhaps a little underpowered for the large ensembles, but clear, agile and with a nice, bright, easy top.
The other replacement, Umberto Chiummo for Graeme Danby, was less felicitous. While Chiummo played Magnifico very well, a lean, scarecrow-like figure in a ridiculous baby pink suit, vocally he was very uneven, with quite bad pitch control especially in the first act. Similarly unsatisfactory was John Molloy's Alidoro, who has the agility for the part, but has a strange and not entirely pleasing vocal quality, with nasal tones, and oddly acidulous syllables emerging with uncomfortable frequency. Best of the men, on the whole, was Richard Burkhard as Dandini. While he doesn't really have the flexibility for this kind of music, he was good enough to pass, and the quality of his baritone is pleasing. He was an agreeably understated Dandini, save for "Come un' ape", but that's entirely appropriate during that aria, and I've seen too many Dandinis chewing the scenery not to appreciate a more discreet take on the character.
There are only three female voices in Cenerentola, Angelina and her sisters. The sisters were played by Rebecca Bottone (Clorinda) and Máire Flavin (Tisbe) who, as mentioned, did indulge in a lot of scenery-chewing, I trust at the behest of the director. They did throw themselves into it with zest, at least, and vocally Flavin in particular was very good. Bottone has a nice bright soprano, but it's too small, at least for this house, and only her high pitch permitted her to be heard in the ensembles. Undisputed highlight of the evening, however, was Victoria Yarovaya's warm, rich Angelina. This young Russian mezzo has a very fine voice, a lustrous, slightly bronzed timbre, completely even right through the range, from a confident, ringing top all the way down to the smoky depths of the role. She has the flexibility, though I would have liked some smoother phrasing, and came over as appropriately sympathetic, but not spineless, in her part.
I was less impressed with William Lacey and the orchestra. There were a lot of technical problems in the overture, and although the pacing, on the whole, felt right, there was not one rapid ensemble that did not drift at some point or other, either the orchestra outpacing the singers, or the singers getting ahead of the orchestra. They usually caught up quickly enough, but it was still distracting. Claire Haslin's fortepiano continuo, however, was admirably subtle, letting the singers 'speak' fluidly and easily.
So it was a rather uneven performance altogether, but largely redeemed by Yarovaya's general excellence.
[Next : 24th October]
No comments:
Post a Comment