Salzburger Zeitung - Betulia Twice Liberated - Part I

As has become the tradition of the past few years the PfingstFestspiele began with an opera conducted by Riccardo Muti. The first two years were opera buffa (comic operas) last year an opera seria (tragic opera) and this an Azione sacre (Sacred Theatre piece) - all in the Napoletano style.

Azione sacre was a particularly genre of opera meant for the period of Lent when the theatres theoretically were closed but the impresarios still had singers under contracts and seats to fill. A Biblical subject would be chosen, preferably one with a good moral message and set to music that was often so similar to that heard in opera that there was really very little difference. The azione sacre often included more chorus work as most of those uplifting religious subjects involved crowds praying, imploring or if they were horrid Babylonians cavorting so a choir was needed. And the work was seen in a simplified staging but often with some scenery and costumes. It was a crafty work-round the religious restrictions of the season.

Pietro Metastasio, the great Italian librettist, considered Betulia liberta (Bethulia Liberated) to be his finest azione sacre and it is easy to see why. His take on the apocryphal story of the widow Judith and her victory over the Assyrians is unusual for the subject - it was normal to accentuate the erotic end of things with the beautiful but pious widow seducing the foreign commander but in this case Holofernes never appears. Metastasio centres his story around the inhabitants of the town of Bethulia and their faith under fire during the siege. The seduction and beheading is only described by Guiditta (Judith) in a passage of recitative which is perhaps one of the most powerful descriptions of a murder I have ever heard. And the second act includes a dialogue between Ozia, the Prince of Bethulia and his captive the Assyrian Achior that is a masterpiece of Christian rhetoric and was often cited in theological discussions. It is a solid, concentrated piece of theatre with a clear message of the Power of God through faith - just the message wanted for the Lenten period.

It is thought that Metastasio's work was set to music on at least 40 occasions and for this year's Festival Muti decided to perform two version with music composed at different periods by two composers at very different periods in their artistic lives.

Italo Grassi's model for a scene from Act I of Betulia Liberata - an interesting trio of semi-circular walls revolved around each other. It was an effective use of abstract forms to convey locale and, with Marco Filibeck's lighting, mood.

In 1771 during a tour through Italy a 15-year old Wolfgang Mozart was commissioned to set the libretto by a rich patron in Padua and it was to be presented there during Lent in 1772. For some reason it was never performed then nor during Mozart's lifetime. It is obviously the work of a young composer - Mozart did not have the confidence, or his patron's leave, at that point to so much as change or omit a word of the libretto - but the music that accompanies Guiditta's retelling of her act is intensely dramatic and matches the power of Metastasio's words. And as performed by Alisa Kolosova became, rightly, the centre piece of the work. Theatrically it was stunning as words, music and performance.

It is telling that as a conductor Muti seemed to give a much importance to the recitative throughout the performance as he did to the big arias and choral moments. Speranza Scappucci's provided a pointed continuo that kept the story moving without that often mindless plunking and plucking when everyone wants to just get through it and on to the next big aria.

Though big arias there are: as can be expected some are very formula - a young man writing what is expected of him; while others show the undeniable talent that was forming. All follow the AABA format of the period i.e. Section A is sung, then repeated, Section B (often a contrasting text or emotion) is sung, then Section A repeated with variations. However often the arias are bracketed by the chorus - this is particularly true of the music for Guiditta and Ozia to heighten the emotional impact. It is a well crafted work by any composer, exceptional when you think it was written by a teenager.


With the exception of Maria Grazia Schiavo the young singers in the cast were all new to me. Schiavo appeared in last year's opera at Whitsun and this year after a slightly unsteady start - I may be wrong but I believe she was pregnant unless it was a costume decision to heighten the effect of her pleas on behalf of the besieged people of Bethulia - she delivered her arias with an honest intensity and some lovely but subtle ornamentation. It should be noted that though Muti allows his singers to ornament the da capo section of most arias it is always within certain boundaries of taste. Michael Spyres (left with Alisa Kolosova) sang the strenuous tenor lines of Ozia, the Prince of Betulia, with a fine lyric sense of style and his handling of the theological duologue with Nahuel Di Pierro's fine bass Achior was a model of recitative singing. Di Pierro brought power to his final aria as the foreign Prince recognizes and accepts the power of the God of the Jews.

Amital (Maria Grazia Schiavo) rejoices as Achior (Nahuel Di Pierro) praises Jehovah, the one god as Ozia (Spyres) and Giuditta (Kolosova) look on.

The production by Italian director Marco Gandini was a simple clear telling of the story within Italo Grassi austre setting of three revolving semi circular walls. The chorus - the remarkable Philharmonia Chor Wien - were treated as individuals and the direction of the soloists pointed up the tensions in a group under siege, the people, their leaders and the brave woman who saves them. Gabriella Pescucci's costumes were subdued and vaguely oriental in style with only Giuditta bringing any colour onto the scene - a deep marine blue gown as she adorned herself for her mission and for her triumph a red dress almost the colour of the blood she had shed to liberate her community.

Giuditta (Alisa Kolosova) describes her beheading of the drunken Olfernes in a powerful accompanied recitative that is the pivotal point in both Metastasio's libretto and Mozart's score.

If the costuming kept Giuditta as the focus of the piece so did Kolosova's performance. The young Russian mezzo has only recently appeared on the international scene and appears to have taken a path through various Young Singers projects to her current position with the Atelier Lyrique at the Paris Opera. Muti may have been taking a chance on casting her in the title rule of the centre piece of the Festival but it was a chance that paid off. As I mentioned her handling of the "azione" recitative was riveting and her arias showed a rich voice which promises much for the future.

Muti's Mozart may be a bit old-fashioned but it suits this particular work well. I am always astounded by how he is able to communicate his incredible musicality to his singers and the orchestra. His Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini is, of course, the "house band" for the festival and play beautifully under his command. The key to anything that has been presented here since he took over four years ago has been the thorough preparation that goes into what is being presented.

The entire team behind Betulia Liberata - production team, conductor, soloists, chorus and orchestra - take their final curtain call at the end of the first performance.

This may have been "minor" Mozart but as always with Muti and his troupe it was a "major" performance. It was going to be interesting to see how the older and more famous - at the time - Niccolo Jommelli handled the same subject in 1743.

All photos by Silvia Lelli for the Salzburg Festival who graciously allows free use of them.

06 giugno - San Norberto di Premontre

Mercoledi Musicale - Late

I am really getting late with these Mercoledi posts - I might have to reconsider the name but not sure how snappy a title I can work out of Giovedi?????

As I've mentioned more than once, lately a smell, a word or a snatch of music seems to trigger memories from the past. I suppose it an age factor though I would prefer to think of it as the Proust factor - the old smell of madeleines dipped in tea:

She sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called petites madeleines, which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim's shell. And soon, mechanically, weary after a dull day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place…at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory…

In Search of Lost Time, Volume 1: Swann's Way

I heard a snatch of this piece on the radio the other day - very briefly I was on my way out and it brought back a memory from a trip to France in the mid-1970s.



It was a very warm July evening in Aix-en-Provence and it was the last concert during our stay. I honestly can't remember the venue other than it was one of the many romantic courtyards in one of the many hotel de ville throughout that beautiful town. Josef Krips was conducting and Jean-Pierre Rampal was the flautist. As they launched into the Adantino movement from Mozart's Concerto for flute and harp there was a blackout. As we sat in the dark, under the clear, starry Provencal sky Rampal and the harpist (whose name I completely forget)continued on for several minutes. Those few minutes were magic - the darkness, the stars, the perfume from the courtyard vines, the summer heat radiating off the stone walls and Mozart!

What is that old saying: The Angels play Bach for God but Mozart for their own enjoyment. Lucky angels!

14 gennaio - San Felice di Nola

Mercoledi Musicale

In my old parish church in Toronto, as in most Anglo-Catholic parishes, if a major feast falls on a Sunday it is normally transferred to the next day. Well November 22 was the Feast of Santa Cecilia, the patron saint of music. As I have mentioned in the past her association with music appears a bit tenuous - other than the fact it may have been played at her ill-fated wedding and that she sang while being executed - a three day event if the legend is to be believed - there doesn't seem to be much else of a connection.

Now it may not be a major feast day in the church calender but it has been here on the blog for the past few years. And this year I've decided by my own rules that the feast would be celebrated today as part of Mercoledi Musicale. And what better way to celebrate it than with one of the greatest of her followers Mozart. I couldn't find anything that he wrote with the Saint particularly in mind but here is the setting of the Agnus Dei from his Coronation Mass (my favorite of all his church music) sung by Canadian soprano Donna Brown. Nothing could be more lovely in honour of the Patron of Music.


And to my own bright Cecilia - I know its a day or two late but there was no way I'd forget.

25 settembre - Santa Cecilia - trasferito

20th Century Blues - Part I

After a weekend of Baroque at Salzburg in May-June, this past month seems to be devoted to the 20th Century with one brief excursion into the late 1800s. Just to be perverse I'll start with the last first - yesterday's trip up to the Festival of the Two Worlds in Spoleto.

This year's Spoleto Festival continued with what seems to be a mini-theme: obscure French musical theatre. Last year is was Albert Roussel's opera-ballet Padmâvatrî, and this year Reynaldo Hahn and Sasch Guitry's boulevard musical Mozart. Created in 1925 by Guitry for his wife Yvonne Printemps, Mozart was chiefly an excuse for her to appear in travesti, gamine and winsome and display her vocal talents. Aside from two brief numbers for secondary characters the music is restricted to an energetic overture, a few pieces of background music and three arias for the title character. As with most Boulevard theatre the story line is rather flimsy and an excuse for bon mot and witty dialogue; the teenage Mozart returns to the home of Baron Grimm in Paris, the scene of his earlier triumphs as a child prodigy. He flirts with four woman in the household and has perhaps seduced ne of them, but we never find out who. He is sent packing before he can do any real damage but three men have been made aware of how important the women in their lives are to them. Perhaps Guitry was thinking of his own wife who was soon to leave him for the younger Pierre Fresnay.

Director-Designer Pier Luigi Pizzi set the action squarely in the period of the work's creation, the 1920s. His art deco set in blacks, whites and grays enclosed the action perhaps too closely forcing some of the staging down onto the auditorium floor which made for some odd dynamics of sound as did the placement of the Orchestra J Futura. His costumes were marvels of period clothing - many reflecting the influence of Erté and other designers of the French Music Hall - with glorious splashes of color, purples, oranges and for the period clad Mozart pinks amongst the blacks and whites. My friend Simonetta knew she could carry off that daring first little number in black worn by Orianne Moretti as La Guimard, the ballerina - and if anyone I know could it would be her. The problem with Pizzi's setting came mostly for the dance numbers - choreographed and danced by Gheorghe Jancu and Moretti they were awkward attempts to fit Charleston and 20s dance steps to pastiche 18th century music.

Of the actors the obvious standouts were Jean Morel (left), still handsome at 75, as Baron Grimm and Marie-Therese Keller as Madame d'Epinay - both seasoned performers with the lightness of touch to deliver Guitry's slightly dated lines with grace and wit - Keller positively throbbing with passion as much when she received Mozart's attention as when she avowed her love for the Baron. The rest of the supporting cast were fine but could have taken a few notes from their seniors. Boulevard theatre requires a style that most performer today lack.

But ultimately Mozart was written as a vehicle for a star like Printemps and as fine as Sophie Haudebourg was she didn't have that "je ne sais quoi" that is need for the part. Perhaps it was Pizzi's direction but she played the part on one, perhaps two, notes with too much boyish laughter. Her vocalizing was good if at times slightly wayward but again placement for her arias - on the auditorium floor for two - may have worked against her. And Mozart's final exit with the bravado declaration that someday the world would recognize his genius went for little - something I'm sure Printemps as an actress and Guitry as a director would never have let pass.
Pier Luigi Pizzi and the cast of Mozart - note that rather daring dress on Orianne Moretti.
At the end of the performance I chatted briefly with Alberto Testa, the renowned Italian dancer-choreographer-author - who has a fondness for the Paris of Printemps and Guitry. He remarked on how light and charming the work was and how captivating in its innocence and despite the drawbacks I've mentioned I must agree with him. Yes it is a period piece but as entertainment it works and though there aren't stars like Printemps in our day to give it that final lift, it made for an enjoyable afternoon's entertainment.

Postscript:

A violent thunderstorm that lasted almost 2 hours meant we had to forgo an after performance walk around Spoleto and forced us to sit on an umbrellaed terrace drinking aperitvo and consuming copious nibbles proffered by the thoughtful barrista - there are worse ways to spend a late Saturday afternoon.

One thing we did manage was pranzo at La Pecchiarda, my favorite restaurant in town. Sitting on the terrace in their garden (above) we were well looked after by a wonderful waitress - how can you not love someone who recommends a wine by saying that "ladies seem to develop a tenderness for it" - we tucked into a splendid menu of antipasti, secondi, desert, coffee and wine for four at half the price you would pay in Roma.




I had their wonderful take on Melanzane Parmigiana followed by real Chicken caccitore (we must talk about the abomination they serve under that name in Canada one day)along with wonderful roast potatoes; Simonetta favoured a thick and tasty bean soup and a local beef dish with grilled zucchini; Ben went for a truffled bruschetta and strangozzzi with porcini; and Laurent tried the truffle fritta (a creamy scrambled egg flecked with earthy truffles)and a beef dish with ruccola and shavings of Parmesan cheese. The only less than magnificent items were the rather ordinary pana cotta and semi-fredo that ended the meal. A really wonderful lunch made that much more enjoyable by the company.

And that wine that invoked such tenderness was a light, slightly fizzy white from Cantina Baldasarri in the region. If a lady could develop a tenderness for it I could see a few people developing an outright passion.

05 lulgio - Sant'Antonio Maria Zaccaria

Mercoledi Musicale

This is the season for Summer Opera Festivals throughout North American and Europe: Glimmerglass, Santa Fe, Glyndebourne, Aix-en-Provence, Salzburg - it seems if there's a venue then there's a Festival. And at most Opera Festivals - save perhaps the Wagnerian endurance test that is Bayreuth - there is normally one of the Mozart-DaPonte operas: Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni or Cosi fan tutte.

While the first two have remained popular since their premieres Cosi was infrequently performed - it was considered highly frivolous by the Romantics and downright immoral by the Victorians. All that began to change in 1934 when it was the surprise hit of the first Glyndebourne season (the 1935 recording of that production is still a benchmark and a best seller for EMI.) It is now recognized as perhaps the subtlest and at times most disturbing of Mozart's collaboration with Da Ponte.

Two young officers make a wager with an old confirmed bachelor that their respective fiances (two sisters) are faithful. To prove their fidelity they pretend to be called away to battle then return in disguise to woe each other's girl. The wager is made in a spirit of cynicism, the emotions that surface unexpected and the outcome uncertain - though they return to their respective partners there is a question as to how happy any of them will now be.

The trio from Act 1 is perhaps the best known piece of music in the opera, thanks largely to its use in Sunday, Bloody Sunday. The two women watch their lovers depart and they pray for soft breezes and safe journey for the ones they love. It is one of those times in Mozart when time stands still and even the instigator of the wager seems to succumb to the emotion of the moment.



I have to admit that Cosi is my favorite opera - I have 6 versions of it on CD including that 1935 classic. I've seen it on stage 10 times and don't ever recall the trio not having an emotional pull. Though I don't particularly like the decor or the Giorgio Armani costuming in this 1997 production from Covent Garden, Soile Isokoski, Helene Schneiderman and Alessandro Corbelli are an incredible blend of voices and the heart strings are tugged.

And to any of you travelling for the summer holidays: May the breezes be gentle and the waves calm.

13 agosto - San Ipolito

Salzburger Zeitung - Monday I

My good blog friend and the doyenne of Opera bloggers, the fabulous Opera Chic managed to get up to Salzburg for the second performance of Il matrimonio in aspetatto. As always she has posted her witty and wise view of the performance.

And she also found what has to be the ultimate winner in a city awash in Mozart ticky-tacky souvenirs. Though I honestly think this runs a close second:

Poor Mozart! Other than give many of them a source of income, what has he ever done to Salzburgers to deserve having his face emblazoned on a cow's udders?

12 maggio - San Epiphanius

...But Mozart for Their Own Pleasure - I

The Angels sing Bach for God,
but Mozart for their own pleasure.

If anything could make me believe in the existence of a good and loving Creator it would be the music of Mozart.


Le Nozze di Figaro - the Letter Duet
Ileana Cotrubas and Kiri Te Kanawa - John Pritchard conducting
Glyndebourne 1973.