Kulturkompasset | critics of culture events

Claudio ABBADO in Firenze


Claudio Abbado, Conductor, guesting in Firenze with a program by Wagner, Verdi and Berlioz and featuring the Soprano, Juliane Banse Verdi´s Te Deum. With Orchestra Mozart and Orchestra e Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. at Florence, Italy, Teatro Comunale 2013 may 4th.

Review by Fabio Bardelli, photo Gianluca Moggi, New Press Photo Firenze

Program:  

Richard WagnerTannhäuser, Ouverture

Giuseppe Verdi: Te Deum, per doppio coro e orchestra, (soprano solista Juliane Banse)

Hector Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique op. 14

 

Claudio Abbado concerto firenze 4.5.2013, foto Gianlucca Mogga

FIRENZE:  Claudio Abbado comes back to Florence in great style, conducting two orchestras reunited in one ensemble: the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, that belongs to the theatre, and parts of Orchestra Mozart
. It is also the occasion to celebrate 
Verdi’s and Wagner’s anniversaries, in fact 2013 marks two hundred years from the birth of both composers. 

It is strange how a secular man like Abbado has chosen for the first part of the concert mystic works, or more or less religious in their spirit. Of course, also a laicist can’t stay indifferent in front of such a mystic depht of some of Wagner’s composition like Tannhäuser, whose magnificent Ouverture is conducted by Claudio Abbado so precisely and with a sound so transparent that one could define it almost perfect, also thanks to the excellent orchestra.

Verdi’s Te Deum is one of his very last compositions and with Abbado’s interpretation has got a sort of new life that has made it fully enjoyable by the audience, considering that it is non among the best creations of Giuseppe Verdi. Maggio Musicale’s Choir conducted by Lorenzo Fratini was very good; not so good was German soprano Juliane Banse, who sang her very short part, just the last phrase of the whole work, which could have been easily (and, who knows, maybe better) sung by a soprano of the choir.

Really very seldom I have heard Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique op. 14 performed in a such enthralling way as this time under Abbado’s baton. No need to say how clear and coherent was the reading of the colossal score. The conductor finds perfect colours and athmospheres, characterized by an extrahordinary formal perfection, really very exciting for the listener.

Berlioz’s Symphony is one of the most difficult compostions of early 1800s to perform, it is in repertoire with every orchestra and every conductor, and Mr. Abbado exalts the phonic power specially in last movement, conducting his orchestra almost of Mahler’s proportions: eleven contrabasses, four harps and so on. All the elements are to be praised with no exception
.

The first parts of the Orchestra were all extraordinary, and all of them were joined by Claudio Abbado in the final triumph that the audience has tributed to the conductor, who has refused to be remunerated for this concert for being close to the Theatre of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, that risks in the actual situation bankruptcy, unless the public authorities don’t make their part very soon.

Fabio Bardelli

translation from italian Bruno Tredicine

 

 

 

 

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