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Rossini: Elisabetta Regina d'Inghilterra - John-Colyn Gyeantey, Mary Plazas, Luciano Botelho - ETO (© Richard Hubert Smith) |
Moments of real fire in Rossini's first opera for Naples, hampered by a poor libretto
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Mary Plazas - (© Richard Hubert Smith) |
Rossini wrote nine operas for the Royal theatre in Naples, each in its way innovative and pushing boundaries, taking advantage of the large and well funded company, as well as a roster of distinguished singers centred round the soprano Isabella Colbran, along with a sequence of star tenors. In these operas Rossini would lay the foundations for much of Italian 19th century opera, yet they remain rarely done. The circumstances of their creation with the spectacular technical effects Rossini created for his singers means casting is tricky. Elisabetta is not Rossini's most innovative opera, but it was his first for Naples and he needed something big and showy to win over the cabals against him, and win them over he did. Though, like Handel with Rinaldo (his first opera for London), Rossini re-uses material from other operas as a showcase for his art.
The opera does have one major innovation, for the first time Rossini entirely ditched secco recitative (sung dialogue accompanied only by keyboard, or a small continuo group), and wrote fully orchestral accompanied recitative, a style the Neapolitans had grown accustomed to under the Napoleonic occupation of Naples.
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Luciano Botelho - ETO (© Richard Hubert Smith) |
Central to this was the stunning performance of Mary Plazas as the aging Queen Elizabeth I. This is the diva role, she gets to close the show with a bravura Rondo. If you can ignore the libretto's historical solecisms then the role of Elisabetta has some cracking moments as the plot shows her struggling with public regality and private feelings, Mary Plazas made Rossini's elaborate vocal writing count as emotional drama, she had the ability to really snap it out when needed. Perhaps the passagework was not always pinpoint, but Plazas showed us how to create drama out of this technical display.
The plot is not dissimilar to Donizetti's Roberto Devereux only Leicester (Luciano Botelho) is here in love with and married to Matilde (Lucy Hall) Mary Queen of Scots' daughter (yes, really). Luciano Botelho brought his lovely dark burnished sound to bear on a role written for the great Andrea Nozzari (whose voice had a baritonal quality), Botelho also showed fined technical skill and made is really care in the Act Two prison scene. But it was in the duets and ensembles where Leicester came over, particularly the terrific Terzetto between him, and the two women in his life Elisabetta and Matilde.
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Rossini: Elisabetta Regina d'Inghilterra - John-Colyn Gyeantey - ETO (© Richard Hubert Smith) |
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Lucy Hall, Emma Stannard - ETO (© Richard Hubert Smith) |
Lucy Hall was quite a find as Matilde, she brought style and power to Matilde's one aria (in Act One), and certainly held her own against Mary Plaza's strong Elisabetta in the Act Two duet and terzetto. I certainly hope we hear more of her in the repertoire.
Emma Stannard provided strong support in the smaller role of Enrico, Matilde's brother, whilst Joseph Doody (a member of the chorus) made a striking Guglielmo (Elisabetta's secretary). Both sang with confident style.
James Conway's production was admirably non-interventionist, and the simple designs by Frankie Bradshaw relied very much on the striking period costumes (albeit with chinos for the men) for their effect. Conway used the chorus (dressed all in black, but each singer in a different outfit) as mobile scenery, an effect which looked a little over deliberate (and perhaps under rehearsed). The production did not manage to disguise the way the drama sagged in Act One, but when singers and music took control then things took off such is in the Act One finale and much of Act Two.
The chorus has quite a bit role in the opera, and the young singers certainly seized their opportunities. The orchestra got off to something of an uneven start, though it didn't help that they were playing some of Rossini's best known music - the overture recycles that of Aureliano in Palmira and would in turn be recycled the following year for The Barber of Seville! But this must be a largely unfamiliar score, and the performance came together admirably, and conductor John Andrews knows how to accompany Italian bel canto sympathetically.
For all their technical innovations, not all of Rossini's serious operas work well as dramas and I can't help wishing that ETO had chose one of the other Neapolitan operas. The plot of Elisabetta does rather require some special pleading, but Saturday's performance had some moments of real fire which showed Rossini taking off as a musical dramatist, and you felt that singers and performers starting to get to grips with this relatively unfamiliar style.
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Rossini: Elisabetta Regina d'Inghilterra - chorus - ETO (© Richard Hubert Smith) |
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