Connecting With Rienzi
May 17, 2013
Italy Wagner: Rienzi. Chorus and Orchestra of Teatro dell’Opera Rome. Chorus master, Roberto Gabbiani; Conductor, Stefan Soltetsz; Sets, Costumes and Staging, Hugo de Ana 14.05.2013 (JB)
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The Noble Return of Alessandra Ammara
May 15, 2013
Italy Chopin and Ravel: Alessandra Ammara (piano). Palazzo Chigi, Ariccia. 13.05.2013 (JB)
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Grigory the Great with Schubert and Beethoven
May 10, 2013
Italy Schubert and Beethoven: Grigory Sokolov (piano). Sala Santa Cecilia, Parco della Musica, Rome. 08.05.2013 (JB) Read more
Mozart’s Sun
April 28, 2013
Italy Mozart Chorus and Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Chorus master, Ciro Visco. Benedetto Lupo (piano). Conductor, Fabio Biondi. Sala Santa Cecilia, parco della Musica. 27-03-2013. (JB) Read more
Mariella Devia’s Norma
April 18, 2013
Italy Bellini, Norma: Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro Comunale, Bologna. Conductor, Michele Mariotti Bologna Teatro Comunale. 16.04.2013 (JB)
Conviction by a Sleight of Hand: Samson et Dalila
April 13, 2013
Italy Saint-Saëns, Samson et Dalila. Chorus and Orchestra of Teatro dell’Opera, Rome. Conductor, Charles Dutoit; Stage Director and Designer, Carlus Padrissa with La fura dels Baus; Chorus Master, Roberto Gabbiani; Costumes, Chu Uroz Rome. 09.04.2013 (JB)
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In Search of the Two Foscaris
March 14, 2013
Italy Verdi, I Due Foscari. Chorus and Orchestra of Teatro dell’ Opera, Rome. Conductor, Riccardo Muti. Chorus master, Roberto Gabbiani. Stage director, Werner Herzog. Sets and Costumes, Maurizio Balò 8.3.2013 (JB) Read more
With Love, from Australia
March 12, 2013
Italy Bach, Schumann, Ligeti, Liszt: Jayson Gillham (piano) Teatro Ghione, Rome. 10.03.2013 (JB) Read more
Has-Been, Would-Be and If-Only-If
March 7, 2013
Italy Elio Pandolfi at the Teatro Ghione, Rome. 05.03.2013 (JB)
This was a trip down memory lane. Nostalgia without compromise, was the order of the day. Many of Mr Pandolfi’s fans are also his contemporaries, including the great actress, Valeria Valeri, who was leading the applause. Both are in their late eighties. (A friend in the know, has just corrected me: she is ninety one.) And bundles of energy. Elio Pandolfi is mostly revered for his “voices” : in Italy he was the voice of Laurel (of Laurel and Hardy fame) as well as Groucho Marx, Peter Ustinov and many others. He performed in Variety, live and on television, and in operetta. It was to this last art that this evening was largely focused.
The show shot me back to the age of seven when my grandfather took me to Blackpool Central Pier to an entertainment called Thanks for the Memory in which Randolph Sutton had brought out of retirement such great Edwardian Music Hall stars as Ella Shields and Gertie Gitana. I was balled over. Never, before or after, have I seen such powerful musical communication skills. We were sitting in the front row. When Ella Shields came on with her signature number, Burlington Bertie from Bow, dressed as a male toff, the white powder on her face, blew all over us. What a baptism into showbiz that was!
Elio Pandolfi’s speaking voice is still a lush, melodious, rich baritone. His singing voice is scarce; most of the singing is more spoken than sung. You will remember that Swarzkopf did the same thing in her last recitals: she would talk her way through the whole programme with only the faintest hint of singing, but then on the final encore she would open up with a very loud high note on a Richard Strauss lied. The audience went away convinced that that was what they had heard all night. How clever! Nothing better than people who know their business. And Pandolfi and Swarzkopf can give lessons in that.
Befitting the informality of the Pandolfi evening, there was no programme and no information, but I want to say that Mr Whatever-his-name-was (WHN) did rather a good job at the piano. It’s not his fault that the Teatro Ghione has a tricky acoustic and on stage it’s nearly impossible to hear any partner in your music-making. It was probably the fear of drowning out the soloist that caused WHN to underplay a lot of the time. That unfortunately, is never called for in this music.
Ghosts of Lehar, and Johann Strauss were nicely invoked, among scores of lesser-known Italian operetta composers. And if Pandolfi has only a shadow of a singing voice, it’s a shadow which is better than nothing. An old Music Hall song says, Better be a have-been than a never-was.
This music calls for self-effacement. And both Pandolfi and WHN missed this. I remember as a boy hearing broadcasts of Sidney Harrison playing and talking about music which was fundamentally the most almighty trash (There was a waltz called Destiny he used to trot out among others.) But his playing was so perfectly nuanced –somewhat tongue in cheek, no doubt, now that I think of it- you were persuaded you were listening to great music.
Pushed, Pandolfi and WHN should be able to deliver this. But subtle humour has never been a natural virtue of this wonderful nation. If only…….
Jack Buckley
Das Rheingold on the Tiber
February 24, 2013
Italy Wagner, Das Rheingold in concert form. Orchestra dell’ Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Conductor, Kirill Petrenko. Parco della Musica. Sala Santa Cecilia 23.02.2013 (JB) Read more
