Il Trovatore – Live from Barcelona
But first – Il Trovatore from Barcelona! Last Tuesday we went to St. Louis to the movie theatre to see a live feed of Il Trovatore from the Grand Theatre del Liceu. The production was conducted by Marco Armiliato and I thought he was excellent. The cast was pretty much unknown to me, except for Paata Burchuladze who sang Ferrando. The rest of the cast included Fiorenza Cedolins as Leonora, Marco Berti as Manrico, Vittorio Vitelli as DiLuna and Luciana D’Intino as Azucena. For the most part musically the cast was good. The standouts – for me – were Azucena, Manrico and Ferrando. I particularly liked Azucena, but Manrico nailed Di Quella Pira and provided some of the most thrilling musical moments of the production. I also really enjoyed the last Act, musically. This is partly because some of my favorite music from the opera is here – but it was also well done. The scene with the off-stage monks chorus with Leonora and Manrico is masterful and beautiful and it was well perfomed by all. Also the prison scene was also beautifully performed.
I had really looked forward to seeing this because I have heard a great deal about Liceu and was anxious to see and hear this opera from that theater. Musically it was satisfying, but in every other aspect it was a real disappointment. First the production – or I should say the non-production. What was that? There was essentially no acting, no sets, no costumes (really). There was nothing to this production except some fancy painted backdrops in red or blue and then the wooden box for the prison. This production was a concert opera. They might as well have had the orchestra on stage with the singers, it would have been more interesting to watch, that is for sure. Azucena was the only member of the cast who really made any effort towards acting. Ferrando was ok, but in his case he had no one or nothing to work off of. The chorus might have been placed on risers. They did nothing. They sounded great, but they marched on stood on stage, sang and then marched off.; any stage “business” for the chorus (like the anvil thing or the dice game) was handled by a couple dancers. The anvil chorus was particularly disappointing.
And among the non acting, perhaps the weakest in this regard was DiLuna. He was never credible as the villain. I got the impression that he is probably a really nice guy in real life, because that is the way he came off. Why would Leonora turn him down? He is cute and nice. And why didn’t he just run off with Inez and save himself all the trouble. OK – the plot has problems, but in order for Trovatore to have any chance of working the DiLuna has to be the bad guy, and the audience has to believe he is the bad guy. It didn’t work here. He should take some lessons from Marius Kwieken whose Enrico, Live from the Met, was the most chillingly evil Enrico I have ever seen. Vocally I warmed up to DiLuna the longer it continued. By the last act he had come into his own and put in a brilliant vocal performance. Il balen however, I felt was shaky and a little out of tune.
But the problems with the production were with the direction, or lack there of. A word about costumes: in general there didn’t seem to be costumes. Except for these strange soldier outfits which made the chorus look like storm troopers from Star Wars – in blue and red. When the chorus made their entrance in the first act members of the audience laughed out loud. And the women had no costumes at all – just long dresses. It looked to me like Azucena just wore her concert black dress.
This production was not worth $22. But this is not the end of the difficulties. There were no sub-titles until the middle of Act II. I didn’t need them, but if you don’t know Trovatore well you absolutely need sub-titles for Act I, Scene I or you will never be able to pick up the ins and outs of the complex off the wall plot. And why did Leonora’s audio keep disappearing from the broadcast. During trio that closes the 2nd scene of Act I it became a duet because you could not hear Leonora. This was not her fault. It was a technical problem of some sort since you could hear her echo.
Finally, my last comments are directed at my fellow audience members. Look folks, we are at the opera. I know it feels like we are at a movie, but it is not a movie, it is the opera. This means that it is not cool to talk loudly, make comments and be generally rude. It also means that it is not ok to chomp on your popcorn really loud. Overall Tuesday at the opera was pretty disappointing.
The Met Hoffman. Unfortunately I missed this. I had to work on Saturday and I will also miss the encore as it falls on the Feast of the Epiphany – what lousy planning! I have registered my unhappiness with the Met that the encore schedule is horrid – for me. I much preferred the Sunday afternoon encore performance. So, I will have to wait until it is released on the online Met Player. I did hear parts of it on the radio and it sounded fantastic. I heard Olympia’s aria and the last part of Act III and the Epilogue. All of it sounded fantastic. I loved Joseph Caleja’s voice and will look forward to seeing the whole thing sometime in the future.
Finally enjoy these Christmas clips – Merry Christmas…..
This is the finale from Act II of Boheme, which takes place on Christmas Eve. This is a fine performance from La Scala – the Zefferelli production with Hei-Kyung Hong as Musetta.
I had thought of putting up a clip of the finale to Massenet’s “Werther” since it also takes place on Christmas Eve and there is this cool off stage children’s chorus Christmas celebration that happens right at the end. But what is happening on stage is sooo depressing. I thought perhaps it might be nicer to share this lovely moment from Hansel and Gretel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6Fr3I4fUAoThe Evening Prayer from Humperdink’s Hansel und Gretel with Kathleen Battle and Frederica von Stade with Andre Previn conducting.
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