Rossini’s Adina was written in 18i8; two years after Barber of Seville, but wasn’t premiered until 1826 in Lisbon, after which it pretty much disappeared. It’s a bit difficult to see why it fell out of favour, unless it’s because at 90 minutes or so it was considered too short, because it’s a pretty classic Rossini comedy with a silly but amusing plot and enjoyably frothy music.
So Thursday lunchtime I went to see Karoline Podolak and Wesley Harrison supported by Mattia Senesi and Brian Cho in the RBA. It was a “schmaltzy” programme (Wesley’s description not mine!). The whole thing consisted of arias and duets from La Traviata, The Barber of Seville and Don Pasquale with a bit of Lehar and a final Prayer chucked in.
It was the sort of rep that if it came up on University Challenge any opera goer would be hitting the buzzer in under two seconds! And it’s all lovely of course. It was beautifully sung by two beautiful people with two excellent pianists. They sing beautifully separately and wonderfully together and Karoline’s coloratura is spectacular. It’s rep that fits them like a glove at this stage of their careers and I’m not going to bore you with a blow by blow account. It was unalloyed, undemanding enjoyment made all the better by being in the RBA on a sunny day!
Photo credfit: Karen E. Reeves.
Without notice or fanfare the COC season announcement landed in my email inbox at 11.30 this morning. I kind of miss the old 10am press conference which at least offered an opportunity to ask about the rationale of some of the decisions. I guess though that the number of people writing about opera in Toronto these days would fit in a phone box so maybe it’s too much to hope for. There are some mildly surprising aspects to the announcement. There’s no Mozart or Puccini nor, more consequential, any sign of the various new opera projects that COC has/had under development which do have a bit of a habit of disappearing without trace. There’s also no “second stage” production. I guess that experiment is done. So it’s six main stage productions in the traditional three pairs.
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Tuesday’s RBA concert with members of the Ensemble Studio was themed around composer rivalries though not the really toxic ones. No Mozart/Salieri or Wagner/Meyerbeer here! The most convincing as a rivalry was the first; Berlioz vs Rossini. So Queen Hezumuryango sang “Le spectre de la rose” with some sensitive handling of the text and a pretty fiery “Cruda sorte” from L’Italiana in Algeri with plenty of emotion. I definitely like her voice more when she’s going for drama as she’s got plenty of power and expressiveness.
Next up was Duncan Stenhouse with four pieces that illustrated the complex relationship between Brahms, Wagner and Dvořák. “Der Tod, das ist die kühle Nacht” from the Vier Lieder Op. 96 and “Při řekách babylonských” from the Biblické písně were sung with excellent control and expressiveness but if there’s a connection it’s not obvious to me. The two operatic pieces though; “Běda!, Běda!” from Rusalka and “Abendlich strahlt der Sonne Auge” from Das Rheingold have, I think, more obvious affinities; both dramatically and musically. Both were very well sung. It’s so good to have a genuine bass in the Ensemble again! Continue reading
Wednesday lunchtime saw the members of the COC’s Ensemble Studio kick of the free concert series season in the RBA. It was good. Pianists Brian Cho and Mattia Senesi started off in fine style with a four hands version of the overture to The Barber of Seville and then it was on to the singing.
The Met HD in cinemas line up has been announced for 2024/25 so here’s my take on it. The first thing to notice is that there are only eight shows. There have been ten per season since 2012/13 and twelve before that. This is likely a reflection of the problems with audience numbers that all North American opera companies have been having. In the same time period the COC has cut back from 65-70 main stage performances per year to 42 and the Met’s “in house” audience problem has been well publicised. So what does that leave us with?
Le siège de Corinthe is a 1826 reworking, for Opéra de Paris, of Rossini’s earlier Maometto II so besides, of course, being in French it is restructured as a three act tragédie lyrique with a substantial ballet in Act 2. The plot is straightforward enough. It’s the mid fifteenth century. Mahomet II is besieging Corinth but unknown to him the king, Cléomène’s, daughter Palmyra is the girl he fell in love with during an incognito trip to Athens. Cléone has promised Palmyra to his top warrior Néoclès. After Corinth falls Mahomet promises clemency to the Greeks as long as Palmyra marries him. She agrees and is cursed as a traitor by her father. The marriage doesn’t happen for various reasons and Palmyra flees to the camp of the once again revolting Greeks. When they are defeated for a second time she commits suicide rather than submitting to Mahomet.
Herbert Fritsch’s production of Rossini’s Il barbiere di Sivigla filmed at the Wiener Staatsoper in 2021 is strangely ambiguous. At first blush it looks like the sort of hyper traditional production the WSO might have had in repertory for fifty years. There are big wigs, knee breeches and so on but it soon becomes apparent that something more (or less) is going on. Tje costumes are exaggerated. The fabrics are elaborate and shiny and very not early 19th century at all. The wigs are odd colours. Rosina’s dress shows rather a lot of leg. There’s virtually no scenery and the only props I recall in the whole piece are a ladder and Lindoro’s sword at the end of Act 1.
Damiano Michieletto’s production of Rossini’s La donna del lago filmed at the Rossini Festival in Pesaro in 2016 has some odd features but at least it’s not as all around annoying as the Met production the year before.
Rossini’s Otello is an interesting piece with a completely different plot to the Shakespeare/Verdi version. It’s entirely set in Venice for a start. For more details on the plot and the not insignificant casting demands you might find the first few paragraphs of my review of a 2012 recording from Zurich helpful.
operaramblings 