Verdi’s 1849 opera La battaglia di Legnano is loosely based on a battle that took place in 1176 between the forces of Frederick Barbarossa and those of the Lombard League; just one episode in the interminable struggle between Guelfs and Ghibellines.  By Verdi’s time the battle had been appropriated by Italian nationalists (at least in northern Italy) as symbolic of the Italians struggle against the Austrian occupiers and that’s pretty much where Verdi is at.

Onto the politics the opera grafts a rather conventional plot where a husband, Rolando; leader of the Lombards, suspects his wife, Lida, of infidelity on startling flimsy grounds that nobody bothers to interrogate with any intelligence.  Basically her former fiancé, Arrigo, is thought to have been killed in a previous battle but he shows up again miffed that his betrothed has married someone else.  They have a row but she sends him a note saying she wants to see him before he goes off to die in battle.  Said note is the “evidence” of adultery.  He is duly mortally wounded in gallant combat and clears her with his dying breath.  Pretty much standard bel canto fare.  Musically it’s a bit mixed.  It’s a bit heavy on rumpty tumpty “Death or Glory” choruses but it has a few decent arias and some well constructed ensemble numbers.  Overall it’s not top class Verdi but it stands up pretty well dramatically and musically; at least compared to a lot of Italian operas of the period.

VOICEBOX: Opera in Concert presented it on Sunday in the Jane Mallett Theatre in their usual style.  It was piano accompaniment and concert dress but there was some staging.  It wasn’t just a row of singers in front of music stands.  They also managed to find three really strong singers for the three crucial roles.  Evan Korbut was convincing theatrically and sang strongly across all his registers as Rolando.  Lida was taken by Julia MacVicar who sang with sufficient heft to match the guys in the ensembles and still managed to float some lovely notes in her arias.  Perhaps the real star though was Scott Rumble as Arrigo. He manages some proper Verdi tenoring with authentic ringing high notes and great drama.  These three really carry the piece with a lot of individual arias and some big duets and trios that are really done well.

Everything else is fine with decent cameos from Sebastien Belcourt as the moustache twirling Marcovaldo; a German prisoner who betrays Lida proving that there’s always a beastly Hun, and Handaya Rusli as a suitably blustering Barbarossa.  The chorus is properly, if unsubtly, heroic and Helen Becqué provides nicely paced and sympathetic piano accompaniment.

All in all not a bad way to end a season of Verdi rarities.