Rossini L'inganno felice
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Gioachino Rossini
Genre:
Opera
Label: Pavane
Magazine Review Date: 5/1993
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 72
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: ADW7158
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| (Il) Signor Bruschino (or Il figlio per azzardo) |
Gioachino Rossini, Composer
Alicia Slowakiewicz, Sofia Bogumit Jaszkowski, Commissario Dariusz Niemirowicz, Filiberto, Bass Gioachino Rossini, Composer Halina Górzynska, Marianna Jacek Kaspszyk, Conductor Jan Wolanski, Bruschino padre Jerzy Mahler, Gaudenzio Kazimierz Myrlak, Florville Krzysztof Moleda, Bruschino figlio Warsaw Chamber Opera Orchestra |
Composer or Director: Gioachino Rossini
Genre:
Opera
Label: Notes
Magazine Review Date: 5/1993
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 75
Mastering:
ADD
Catalogue Number: PGP21001
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| (L')Inganno felice |
Gioachino Rossini, Composer
Carlo Franci, Conductor Emilia Cundari, Isabella Ferdinando Jacopucci, Bertrando Gioachino Rossini, Composer Giorgio Tadeo, Tarabotto, Baritone Naples RAI Orchestra Paolo Montarsolo, Batone, Baritone Sergio Pezzetti, Ormondo, Bass |
Author: Richard Osborne
At long last, L'inganno felice has made it officially onto record. As far as contemporary audiences were concerned, this was far and away the most popular of the quintet of precociously brilliant farse Rossini wrote for the Teatro San Moise in Venice between November 1810 and January 1813. Since those days, it has rather disappeared from view, hamstrung perhaps by its location (a seaside mining community) and its uncomfortable ambiguous semiserio plot. (Isabella, given up for dead many years ago by her lordly husband, is rediscovered after narrowly escaping the clutches of a particularly brutal rapist.) Perhaps now that there are a couple of recordings to crib from, one of our hitherto interested but curiously reluctant smaller opera companies will get round to staging it. Always provided they can find a passable soprano and tenor, and a nicely contrasted trio of basses.
It is arguable that,L'inganno felice apart, these early Rossini farse need to be seen as well as heard. For all their musical vigour and structural sophistication, they depend to some extent on stage action of a Rixian celerity and ingenuity. Hence, on this occasion, a place for LaserDiscs in the selected comparisons (also available on VHS). All three Teldec releases (which include La Scala di seta, (LaserDisc) 9031-73828-6) were filmed live in the charming Rococo theatre in Schwetzingen, an ideal theatre for early Rossini. Each is decently sung, sprucely conducted by Gianluigi Gelmetti, and sensibly directed by Michael Hampe. True, La cambiale di matrimonio is rather dowdily designed and lit. None the less, I would prefer it, on balance, to the Claves studio recording that now reappears as part of Claves's complete cycle of Rossini's Venetian farse.
The Claves performance under Viotti is spirited enough; but having decided to move the cycle to England (it had begun back in 1988 in Turin with Il Signor Bruschino) Claves saddled La cambiale with a completely inappropriate church acoustic. What is just about tolerable in the ensembles becomes absurd in the recitatives which are meant to take place in a drawing-room, not the vaulted transept we are presented with here.
The Claves Bruschino was more accurately recorded, but here it is the performance that is outclassed. On video, the brightly-lit Schwetzingen production is a musical and dramatic delight. Meanwhile, Pavane have put onto CD Kaspszyk's astonishing Polish-based recording, a performance of wit, affection and near-manic intensity that conveys in sound alone much of the cruelty and anarchic humour of Rossini's score. (Gianni Schicchi's great precursor.) In such company, the too carefully sung Claves Bruschino is no more than a worthy also-ran.
The remaining three Claves recordings are new, recorded last year in the more manageable acoustic of London's Rosslyn Hill Chapel. Though I prefer the Teldec video of La scala di seta, both as a performance and for its theatrical visibility, the Claves performance goes well. In the mayhem at the start, the Giulia, Teresa Ringholz, is splendidly in charge and Alessandro Corbelli is admirable in the pivotal role of the woozy old retainer, Germano. InL'occasione fa il ladro (which the Buxton Festival revived, not unsuccessfully, several years ago) it is possible to think, not for the first time, that Viotti's conducting isn't sufficiently up-tempo and forward-moving. But with a charming Berenice, Maria Bayo, and Natale De Carolis successfully taking on the role of insolvent, egocentric, two-faced, winebibbing, womanizer Don Parmenione the opera comes up pretty well. What's more, this is currently the only available recording of the opera in the UK. (Ponnelle's uproarious Pesaro production did, I think, make its way on CD but what imported sets there were seemed to vanish as mysteriously as they appeared.)
Finally, there is the minor masterpiece I mentioned right at the start of this review,L'inganno felice—in two versions, one new, one reissued. The reissue, on Notes, is a 1960s Naples performance that originally appeared as a private release on the Voce label. The present reissue is a simple transfer from the Voce LPs; but where the LPs had a typewritten insert with an excellent short plot summary and artist biographies, the CD has nothing except a list of tracks. Since you can write the outline of the plot on the back of a postcard this is a false economy that will inconvenience would-be newcomers to the opera. And that is a pity when the singing, the recording and the wonderfully incisive orchestral playing have a tingling immediacy that has the opera winging its way off the page in a way that the new Claves recording never quite achieves—at least, not so consistently.
This is partly because withL'inganno felice we are back with Claves's fondness for orchestral sound that is self-evidently too recessed and too reverberant for Rossini's proto-Stravinskian sonorities. As for the Claves performance, it is stronger in ensemble than in solo numbers where the writing is inclined probe the singers' technical shortcomings. The tenor Iorio Zennaro, the widower-Duke, makes some very unappealing sounds at his first appearance; yet by the time of the finale—an ensemble of crepuscular beauty that more than hints at the famous Trio from Act 2 of Le Comte Ory nearly 16 years later—the voice seems in better shape. Similarly, Natale De Carolis as Ormondo's stooge, the conscience-stricken Batone, is far more assured in the brilliant buffo duet with Isabella's guardian Tarabotto than he is in his solo aria ''Una voce m'ha colpito''. Amelia Felle's Isabella and Fabio Previato's Tarabotto are both sympathetically portrayed and reliably sung. Danilo Serraiocco is admirable in the role of the double-dyed villain Ormondo.
All the booklets in the Claves series have an Italian libretto, and a plot summary in English. They come either as a set (eight CDs for the price of five) or individually. Unfortunately three of the operas stray over the 80-minute mark, necessitating a second CD. There is a price concession (a pair of CDs at upper mid-price) but all three sets end up as very poor value. Had Claves provided English translations and better focused recorded sound, the cycle would have been a winner. In the end, though, onlyL'occasione is currently self-recommending. La scala di seta is better enjoyed on video, whilst both Kaspszyk and Gelmetti have the edge over Viotti in Il Signor Bruschino, much as Franci does in L'inganno felice.'
It is arguable that,
The Claves performance under Viotti is spirited enough; but having decided to move the cycle to England (it had begun back in 1988 in Turin with Il Signor Bruschino) Claves saddled La cambiale with a completely inappropriate church acoustic. What is just about tolerable in the ensembles becomes absurd in the recitatives which are meant to take place in a drawing-room, not the vaulted transept we are presented with here.
The Claves Bruschino was more accurately recorded, but here it is the performance that is outclassed. On video, the brightly-lit Schwetzingen production is a musical and dramatic delight. Meanwhile, Pavane have put onto CD Kaspszyk's astonishing Polish-based recording, a performance of wit, affection and near-manic intensity that conveys in sound alone much of the cruelty and anarchic humour of Rossini's score. (Gianni Schicchi's great precursor.) In such company, the too carefully sung Claves Bruschino is no more than a worthy also-ran.
The remaining three Claves recordings are new, recorded last year in the more manageable acoustic of London's Rosslyn Hill Chapel. Though I prefer the Teldec video of La scala di seta, both as a performance and for its theatrical visibility, the Claves performance goes well. In the mayhem at the start, the Giulia, Teresa Ringholz, is splendidly in charge and Alessandro Corbelli is admirable in the pivotal role of the woozy old retainer, Germano. In
Finally, there is the minor masterpiece I mentioned right at the start of this review,
This is partly because with
All the booklets in the Claves series have an Italian libretto, and a plot summary in English. They come either as a set (eight CDs for the price of five) or individually. Unfortunately three of the operas stray over the 80-minute mark, necessitating a second CD. There is a price concession (a pair of CDs at upper mid-price) but all three sets end up as very poor value. Had Claves provided English translations and better focused recorded sound, the cycle would have been a winner. In the end, though, only
Rossini Il Signor Bruschino
Rossini L'inganno felice
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