Recensioni del profilo
1This work being, as I remarked, so operatic in character, there is always the question of the quality of the solo voices: my main motivation in wanting to hear and review this recording lay in my wish to hear rising star Dinara Alieva, having heard and admired her in her two solo recital and duet (with tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko) albums on the Naxos and Delos labels. Her crucial entry on “Sed signifer” is perfect, so it is all the more of a pity that she doesn’t quite nail the piano top B flat on the final “Requiem” in the “Libera me”; no doubt if this had been a studio or composite production that could and would have been patched. Otherwise her vibrant singing there is reminiscent of the young Leontyne Price in her prime: smoky, soaring and effulgent – and she certainly does ace the final top C. This recording is almost worth acquiring for her alone, but she is worthily partnered by Olesya Petrova, a singer new to me; she has large, rich, steady voice and even if there is a slight edge in her highest, loudest notes, her lower register at the close of “Liber scriptus” is impressive. She blends beautifully with the similarly dark-toned Alieva in the “Recordare” and takes her place among those mezzos who dominate the role rather than just sing it.
Recensioni di produzioni precedenti
2An elusive and dreamy Don Giovanni seen in Wiesbaden for the last premiere of this season at the Hessische Staatstheater. Nicolas Brieger brings the action from Seville to a non-place made of walls, environments and stairs that vaguely recall certain metaphysical landscapes in shapes and colors. In the almost dreamlike scenario built by Raimund Bauer, where lemon yellow predominates, the whole catalog of the drives that move the playful drama of the award-winning Mozart / Da Ponte company unfolds. Libido and desire, but also tenderness and dedication. Against this aseptic and rotating background, even the feelings of the protagonists are not embossed in the round and let us glimpse ambiguities and unexplored areas. Donna Anna would like and would not like. Zerlina, mischievous and well performed by Katharina Konradi, combines the freshness of youth with almost sadistic moments, as in the duet " For these your little hands ", a rarity almost never performed nowadays. The Wiesbaden show is in fact a "hybrid" between the version of Don Giovanni which premiered in Prague and its first Viennese performance. In the six months that elapsed between the two performances, Da Ponte and Mozart reworked the libretto and score. Three arias were added, two of which (" Dalla pace di lui " by Don Ottavio and " Mi betita quel alma ingrat " by Donna Elvira) have firmly entered the performance practice, while that duet is rarely heard. Andrea Schmidt-Futterer's beautiful baroque costumes, which at times refer to the fleeting duplicity of carnivals in the Lagoon, add other shades of indeterminacy. To be honest, sometimes the meaning of this Don Giovanni played between real and surreal escapes, which he also had of the objections to the first and that somehow trivializes the Promethean tension of the drama. Certainly you won't get bored, thanks also to some risqué ideas and some gags like the catalog of conquests tattooed on Leporello's skin. And in the finale, the German director opens a new perspective: Don Giovanni is not sucked into the bowels of the Earth but interned in a hospice. As if to say that the serial seducer not only fights against the overcoming of the banal human condition, but above all against the relentless passing of time. Losing the battle. A pity that the New York baritone Christopher Bolduc has to suffer this fate. Supported by a cover and manly physique interpretative energy, it returns well the passions of Don Giovanni with a warm and always confident voice. Ribald and captivating, the worthy appears Leporello brought to the stage by Shavleg Armasi. Solid voice, in the air of the Catalog he must proceed to a strip to show the astonished Elvira the names of the conquests that she bears stamped on her skin. Netta Or appropriates the painful role and dramatic colorature of Donna Anna and exhibits a broad and colorful voice. Heather Engebretson intensely plays the role of Donna Elvira, the most complex female character in the work; crystal clear voice and fiery acting recreate all the anger, but also the vulnerability, of her character. Don Ottavio by Ioan Hotea who, finished " From his peace " (moved by Brieger in the final, after the refusal by Donna Anna), a shot is fired. Daniel Carison was also very good for his voice and expressiveness, called at the last moment to impersonate Masetto. Powerful the Commander of Young Doo Park. The unhurried times imposed by Konrad Junghänel at the Hessisches Staatsorchester make all the charm of Mozart's score shine. At the end warm applause for all the protagonists of the evening.
International opera houses such as Covent Garden need fail-safe productions of works that feature in most seasons, in which multiple casts can be accommodated as unfussily as possible. Now eight years old, and in its fourth reincarnation, Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser's staging of Madama Butterfly has, surprisingly perhaps, evolved into one of those dependables. Over the years, much of the kitsch that characterised it when new seems to have been quietly abandoned, although traces remain: the landscape, covered with what looks like pink bubble bath, that replaces the backdrop of Nagasaki when Butterfly makes her first appearance; and the tacky flapping gestures she makes as she dies. But generally the production's straightforwardness and refusal to labour political subtexts has become its strength, and its ability to retain its crispness is shown by this excellent revival, which Caurier and Leiser themselves returned to supervise.
