Trailer here:
This was a marvellous experience. An amazingly obscure work (written when the composer was 17…17!!!) by a pretty obscure composer - although he is now getting his due as an early C.20th classic composer (i.e. pre-Hollywood/Captain Blood/Elizabeth & Essex/Robin Hood soundtracks etc etc etc…)
‘Lushly agonised’ was the phrase that first came to mind with a very varied orchestral soundscape - not to mention sweatily passionate as well. The vocal lines are pretty demanding. Power and lyricism are needed equally and for the male parts, particularly the tenor, great power and great sweetness with no hint of strain, even when at the top of the register - where a fair proportion of the roles, somewhat cruelly, lie. The music responds well to the drama and words and rarely indulges in itself for it own sake; there always seems to be some dramatic and narrative drove in the music that is matched in the words and vice-versa. The story is very ‘operatic’ and the music shows and evokes this. In that way it reminds me of La Gioconda - not musically, obviously, but in the intensity of the emotions shown in the music. The intensity of the music was matched, to a degree by the libretto (but only judging from the English translation shown) in that there was a degree of rich floridity in some of it that recalled the Wilde of Salome. The music responded to the changing situation very quickly and sensitively though and with a close relationship to the music of Salome as well echoes of which one could often hear. The obsessiveness of love, its power and how it can take one over, all aspects of Salome were also shown here in this work with similar overheated music reflecting the often luridly dramatic situation.
The set was richly simple - all in shades of red, with largely white and black costumes, well evoking the aristocratic aura of Venice during the Carnival. The black feathered bird one of Alfonso was particularly dramatic and effective.
The plot was luridly passionate - very operatic in that sense - with a slow start dramatically establishing the place and time but with an effective delaying of the heroine’s entrance - an obsessively romantic character and whose nature was very well conveyed by the singer. Alfonso, a heavy and high-ranging tenor part was equally effectively taken and the singer had the requisite powerful and wide ranging voice to do justice to the demanding music written for him. He did gradually gain dramatic sympathy even with his somewhat unlikely ‘poor misunderstood kid’ act to change Violanta’s feelings for him - but this was large;y done by the power of the music rather than the dramatic nature and development of the words of the libretto - with words alone it would have been unlikely and implausible. Perhaps that’s why opera works!
And by the end the music was utterly convincing with words and music superbly matching and marrying one another.
So, fascinating work, more than done justice by the performance.
Cast:
ViolantaAnnemarie Kremer
Simone Trovai Michael Kupfer-Radecky
Alfonso Norman Reinhardt
Giovanni Bracca Peter Sonn
Bice Soula Parassidis
Barbara, Violanta's nurse Anna Maria Chiuri
Matteo Joan Folqué
First soldier Cristiano Olivieri
Second soldier Gabriel Alexander Wernick
First handmaid Eugenia Braynova
Second handmaid Claudia De Pian
Conductor: Pinchas Steinberg