Available as a recording for the first time ever: the first of Mikis Theodorakis' 3 great ''lyrical tragedies'' (i.e. operas). The composer based his arrangement of the plot on Sophokles' version of the famous ancient tragedy – thus the 'theodorakian' Electra is the protagonist. She is the daughter of King Agamemmnon. After 10 years of battle for Troy the King has just returned to his palace in Mykene – only to be treacherously killed by his faithless wife Klytaimnestra and her lover Aigisthos. The murderous couple marries soon after the crime; however, their plans haven't considered Electra, who is craving revenge for her father ... ''Electra'' was composed between 1991 und 1994; its world premiere was held on May 2nd 1995 at the municipial theater of the former 'european capital of culture', Luxemburg. The 3-CD-recording was actualized under direction of Mikis Theodorakis himself with the St.Petersburg State Academic Orchestra & Choir.

With his operas "Electra", "Antigone" and "Medea" about three ancient Greek female figures – which he himself defined as ''lyrical tragedies'' – Theodorakis fulfilled an artistic promise made on August 6th, 1988 following the premiere of his "Zorba" ballet at the Verona Arena, namely to compose three pieces dedicated to the great Italian opera composers Verdi, Puccini and Bellini. ''For the last five years, I have lived with the texts of Euripides and Sophocles and worked on them. Five years which have become the best of my life, because the whole day long – mostly opposite the Acropolis, giving me the feeling that my house was on the foundations of the house of Sophocles, for we know he lived here where I live, in Athens – I could delve deep into the universal harmony I seek,'' he wrote after finishing his ambitious project.

R E V I E W:



VERDI La Traviata • Antonio Pappano, cond; Renée Fleming ( Violetta ); Joseph Calleja ( Alfredo ); Thomas Hampson ( Germont ); Royal Op House Ch & O • OPUS ARTE OA 1040 D (DVD); OA BD7076 D (Blu-ray: 154:00) Live: Covent Garden 6/27 & 30/2009


Back in Fanfare 34:1 I reviewed the recent DVD of La traviata with Angela Gheorghiu, Ramón Vargas, Roberto Frontali, and Lorin Maazel at La Scala. To summarize that briefly, my verdict was: excellent staging, superlative Gheorghiu, good Vargas and Maazel, hapless Frontali and comprimario singers. I also provided an extensive overview of other versions of the opera on DVD; all are flawed, but the best alternatives are the 1968 film version on VAI with Anna Moffo, Franco Bonisolli, Gino Bechi, and Giuseppe Patané; a 1972 Tokyo staging starring Renata Scotto, José Carreras, Sesto Bruscantini, and Nino Verchi, also on VAI; and the 2006 Los Angeles Opera production on Decca with Renée Fleming, Rolando Villazón, Renato Bruson, and James Conlon. Opus Arte now brings us a new version with Renée Fleming, and while it too is not without its flaws, it joins the aforementioned entries in the top rank of La traviata performances on video.


At the risk of seeming like a gaggle of geese nibbling this DVD to death, I will state up front that this version of the opera is carried by a few great strengths over multiple secondary weaknesses. The strengths are easy to state: All the principal roles are securely sung, a top-notch conductor is on the podium, and the staging is sensible. In particular, Joseph Calleja is one of the greatest Alfredos ever to record the role. While not ideally handsome and dashing in physical appearance, he has the ringing tenor voice, secure technique, heartbreaking plangency of timbre, and interpretive imagination for the ideal Alfredo. Every time he opens his mouth, you simply don’t want him to close it again. He is also an effective actor whose facial expressions, postures, and gestures harmonize with his singing.


After Calleja, however, the “yes, but” element of this review enters in for everyone and everything else, beginning with the Violetta of Renée Fleming. Doubtless she is a very good Violetta, and superior to many rivals, but I do not think she is a truly great one. Compared to her Los Angeles performance from three years earlier, her interpretation is considerably deeper but her vocal technique (particularly in “Sempre libera”) is more labored and the sound less creamy. Thankfully, she does far less of the distracting grimacing and bizarre grinning than before, though sometimes it still intrudes (someone needs to tell her to rehearse in front of a mirror). However, my greater concern is that her acting is too calculated and external to the character rather than indwelling it; she expends too much energy portraying, rather than being, Violetta. The gestures and movements all seem too self-conscious; instead of just picking up a champagne bottle, or flitting a handkerchief, or sitting down in a chair, one can almost see her thinking, “Now I’m supposed to pick up the champagne bottle,” “Now I should flit my handkerchief,” “Now I should sit down in this chair.” Again, I would prefer to emphasize the real improvement in her characterization in just three years, but this dimension is present and it does matter.


Next there is the Germont of Thomas Hampson. The good news is that he is in steady and secure voice here—not always the case recently—which is more than can be said for much of his painfully superannuated competition. The less than ideal news is that, in order to keep the voice steady, he constantly forces it so that every syllable is pushed out at a forte with a hard, unyielding tone that limits him to a single mode of expression, one of preemptive sternness. His acting and facial gestures are similarly limited and wooden; when Violetta pleads for his fatherly embrace he remains stock-still and ignores her, and displays equal unconcern for his son at “Di Provenza il mar.” In an unintentionally comic sartorial aspect, the light green piping on his brown suit unavoidably conjures up a chocolate sundae with mint drizzle icing, while his stiff posture and lumbering gait in an over-padded full-length fur coat keep bringing to mind actor Fred Gwynne (aka Herman Munster). Again, I don’t want these smaller details to override the fact that Hampson’s Germont trumps that of many lesser singers, but again they are present and do matter.


The rest can be summarized more briefly. One always expects fine Verdi conducting when Antonio Pappano is in the pit, and so it proves here; but this time he seems a bit too deferential to his singers and the performance lacks the extra frisson found in his very best interpretations, and I actually find myself preferring Maazel overall despite his occasional eccentricities. The comprimario singers are uniformly excellent to a rare degree—every one of them could easily be singing a principal role in a major opera instead—and the deft stage direction makes their momentary interactions contribute far more to the cogency of the plot that I have ever experienced before. The recorded sound and film quality are quite good, with the quality of the Blu-ray disc only marginally superior to that of the regular DVD; the camerawork is sensible if not exceptional; the costumes are of the period and (Hampson’s suit and coat excepted) attractive and elegant; the ballet sequence at Flora’s party is nicely staged.


My one other major reservation concerns the production’s sets, which are quite pedestrian. Act I is set in a round room with brown wood paneling and a single large window with blinds in the back, with a small round settee and semicircular padded backless benches around it—no banquet table, chandelier, or anything else to indicate either elegance or the intended significance of Violetta in the round. While not the awful Willy Decker sofa and clock, it’s a major disappointment. The villa interior for act II, scene 1 is painted a drab eggshell blue and has no furniture other than a long work table and a few chairs. Several paintings—whether waiting to be hung or sold is not clear—are stacked on the floor to one side, and several little squares painted with stripes—color swatches, perhaps?—rest in a row on the wall molding halfway off the floor. It’s not very attractive, and simply leaves one baffled regarding the desired effect. By contrast, Flora’s party in act II scene 2 is appropriately elegant, marred only by garish red stage lighting, a huge modern dome light fixture hanging from the ceiling like an oversized cafeteria heat lamp hovering over sandwiches. Act III has an appropriately simple setting of a bare room outfitted with a bed, a dresser, and a couple of chairs, but again is marred by two enormous windows with blinds, against which inexplicably tall shadows (up to 30 feet) of carnival revelers are cast after Violetta finishes “Addio del passato.” Compared to the high-class La Scala staging for Gheorghiu, this is an impoverished country cousin.


So, once again, we still await the ideal La traviata . In the best of all possible worlds, I would be able to take the La Scala production, replace its wretched comprimario singers with their Covent Garden counterparts, swap out Vargas for Calleja, and replace Frontali with almost any other baritone from another DVD. (Leonard Warren, where are you when we need you?) Barring such a pleasing impossibility, however, this production is as good as any other and better than most, and is recommended accordingly.


FANFARE: James A. Altena

Under the banner of a renewed interest in comic opera - at least as far as the opening titles were concerned - the 2013 edition of Martina Franca's Festival staged the first modern performance of a late work by Leonardo Leo (1694-1744), the "commedia pastorale" in three acts, L'ambizione Delusa, on a libretto by Domenico Canicà. This delightful rural comedy plot has as a counterpart truly wonderful music, rich in beautiful and original melodies which, rather than being harmonized, are set by Leo to contrapuntal accompaniments, showing Leo's great compositional mastery.

Margaret Jane Wray has performed with some of the most important musical figures of our day, including Daniel Barenboim, Maris Janssons and Seiji Ozawa and enjoys a busy career as a concert artist in addition to her varied operatic performances. Included on this disc is the rarely recorded 1862 concert ending to the 'Love Duet' from 'Tristan und Isolde'.

One of the prolific Gaetano Donizetti’s lesser-produced masterworks, Poliuto, originally banned from production in Italy in the late 1830s only to return a decade in a French translation, is a story of religious persecution, punishment and marital faithfulness. This live, Antonino Votti conducted 1960 La Scala, Milan performance’s eye-watering, jealousy-inducing cast features Maria Callas, Ettore Bastianini in the vocal prime of his foreshortened career, Franco Corelli and Nicola Zaccaria. Returning to the active catalog, this release is a direct transfer from the master tapes.

In the Elysian fields the Anzolo Rafael (the Angel from the facade of the Church of San Raffaele in Venice) informs an incredulous Goldoni that he will be able to journey down to earth, to his native Venice, and mingle with the masks of Carnival ball on the theme of Shakespeare's "Venetian dreams". Giorgio Baffo, a poet contemporary of - and hostile to - Goldoni, forces himself onto them at the last moment, as the villain of the situation. With Othello (Shakespeare in disguise), Desdemona, Arlecchino, Mirandolina and Despina, the three interact a surreal, dream-like opera where imagination runs rampant, in a whirling succession of images, where fragments are linked like in a kaleidoscope and rhythm plays an essential role. Directed by Davide Livermore, Davide Mancini. Starring Cristina Zavalloni, Alda Caiello, Barbara Hannigan.

Although one of his most consistently lyrical operas, La rondine (The Swallow) remains one of Puccini’s least known. Dissatisfied with the result of his work, Puccini wrote three versions, with two different endings, and continued to make further revisions up to his death in 1924. The innovative 2007 production at the Torre del Lago Giacomo Puccini Festival, presented on this DVD, is in effect a fourth version, which combines Acts I and II of the first version (1917), with Lorenzo Ferrero’s 1994 orchestration of parts of the Finale of Act III of the incomplete third version (1921), some of which had survived only in piano score, as well as Ruggero’s Act I romanza, Parigi è la città dei desideri, from the second version (1920).

With a sparkling score reminiscent of Franz Lehár and Richard Strauss, La rondine, set in mid-19th century Paris, tells the story of Magda de Civry, a young courtesan who falls in love one evening with Ruggero Lastouc, the handsome son of a childhood friend of her protector, Rambaldo Fernandez. Although Magda believes that her compromised social position prevents their marrying, in Puccini’s third version it is Ruggero who leaves Magda when he discovers that she is the mistress of Rambaldo. - Naxos

Giacomo Puccini
LA RONDINE

Magda – Svetla Vassileva
Lisette – Maya Dashuk
Ruggero – Fabio Sartori
Prunier – Emanuele Giannino
Rambaldo – Marzio Giossi
Périchaud – Fernando Ciuffo
Gobin – Giorgio Berrugi
Crébillon – Andrea Patucelli
Yvette – Polina Volfson
Bianca – Alessandra Meozzi
Suzy – Annunziata Vestri
Fleury – Katia De Sarlo
Mariette – Chang Chiung Wen
Roro – Elisabetta Lombardo
Un maggiordomo – Alessando Manghesi

Puccini Festival Chorus and Orchestra
Alberto Veronesi, conductor

Recorded live from the 53rd Puccini Festival, Torre del Lago, Italy, on 8, 10 and 16 August 2007

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: Dolby Digital 2.0 / Dolby Surround 5.0
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, Italian
Running time: 111 mins

An admirable performance of a rare work.

‘The worst libretto Handel ever set … the construction is clumsy, the characterisation incredible,’ wrote Winton Dean, with his typical panache, in his and Merrill Knapp’s classic book on the earlier Handel operas. Never mind: if one is prepared to accept that Handel’s dramatic muse sometimes nodded, and just enjoy the music for what it is, Silla is amply worth a hearing. It had its first English revival in spring 2000, in the Handel series that Denys Darlow directs at the Royal College of Music, and the present recording is a by-product of those performances.

The opera, probably Handel’s shortest, dates from 1713 and seems, oddly, to have been written for a private performance at the main London opera house in honour of a new French Ambassador – although there is no certainty that the performance actually took place. The plot, an absurd farrago about the Roman dictator Sulla (‘Silla’ is the Italianised form), here a ruthless murderer who makes unsuccessful grabs at two of the three women in the cast (the third is his wife) and then suddenly repents, seems decidedly inappropriate for a festive occasion, or indeed any occasion at all. It’s the kind of libretto that has got baroque opera a bad name. Its sole merit – and this is quite important – is that it does allow opportunities for a considerable range of musical expression.

Curiously, however, Handel doesn’t seem to have been fully alert to those opportunities. Sulla himself, for example, gets music more amiable than so odious a character seems to deserve (including a truly lovely ‘sleep song’, with recorders), and the music for his wife Metella is often absurdly at odds with the text and her situation. But there are many attractive numbers, notably some telling music for the two pairs of lovers who find themselves threatened by Sulla’s importunities – Lepido and Flavia have two duets, the second a miniature but intensely poignant F minor Adagio, while Celia grieves the (supposed) death of her Claudio in a heartfelt G minor sarabande.

The mainly youthful cast here – these performances traditionally give opportunities to promising young singers – are very successful and I am sure we will hear a lot more of some of them. Rachel Nicholls sings Metella’s music in a pleasant, natural and very even voice, strong and resolute in the big aria that ends Act 2. As Celia, Elizabeth Cragg shows a lighter voice with a hint of an attractively grainy quality; Natasha Marsh’s full and rounded voice rings out to excellent effect in Flavia’s arias.

Except for the brief appearance of ‘Il Dio’, an odd kind of god who encourages Sulla’s ferocity in his dream vision (ably taken by Christopher Dixon), there are no true male voices. Lepido is sung by Joanne Lunn in a fresh, bright voice, accurate and rhythmic; Claudio is taken by Simon Brown, a capable and fluent countertenor with a strong and clear top register and much subtlety in handling details of stress and timing. He has a fine aria with trumpet to end Act 1. Sulla himself is sung by a Handelian of considerable and obvious experience – a fine model for the young members of the cast: James Bowman shows his knowledge of how to shape and colour Handel’s lines and (as in the fiery Act 2 aria) to sing forcefully and still musically. The voice rings well even if the lower register now has a little less character.

All the singers add a little, generally discreet ornamentation in the da capo sections. Denys Darlow, as always, conducts in a direct and unaffected fashion, showing consideration for the singers and understanding of Handel, with a good range of tempos and with spruce, lively rhythms. Handelians will not want to miss this chance of hearing a rare work admirably performed.'

-- Stanley Sadie, Gramophone [3/2001]