Kulturkompasset | critics of culture events

LA LUCE NEL TEMPO and CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA


LA LUCE NEL TEMPOcoreografia di Francesco Nappa, musiche di F. J. Haydn

LA LUCE NEL TEMPO, choreography. Francesco Nappa
music F.J.Haydn. with MaggioDanza. photos: Terraproject/Contrasto

and

CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA, di Pietro Mascagni

Firenze, Italy, 2014 october 30th

Reviews by Fabio Bardelli, Photos: Terraproject/Contrasto

FIRENZE/ITALY: After inaugurating the season with Il Campiello by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, a refined opera that failed to fill the house, now one of the most popular operas, Cavalleria rusticana by Pietro Mascagni, is on stage in Opera di Firenze. This time Cavalleria isn’t paired as usual with the other famous Veristic opera Pagliacci by Leoncavallo, but with a Ballet, La luce nel tempo (The light in time) coreographed by Francesco Nappa on music by Franz Joseph Haydn.

Unfortunately the fact that this opera is so loved by italian audiences, was not enough to bring audiences into the house, and there were many empty seats at the performance we’re reviewing, last October 30th. Besides we don’t understand the connection between these two compositions, if there is one, or the matching isn’t just quite casual.

LA LUCE NEL TEMPO, choreography. Francesco Nappa
music F.J.Haydn. with MaggioDanza. photos: Terraproject/Contrasto

Ballet La luce nel tempo doesn’t show particular ideas or something new on the choreografic side. It is almost a research about “light” evidently suggested to Coreographer Nappa by Haydn‘s music (Simphony in fa minore Hob. 1:49 and Simphony in sol maggiore Hob. 1:94). The dancers of MaggioDanza show their accuracy and athletism, even if the choreography isn’t particularly interesting.

Cavalleria Rusticana by Pietro Mascagni in Firenze. photos: Terraproject/Contrasto

Mario Pontiggia’s staging of Cavalleria rusticana, is traditional and didactic: a Sicilian village with its little church (with a curious vertical cut all along the wall, so people unpleasantly don’t enter in the church only from the main door, but also from the missing wall…), small cafè tables, children dressed as seminarists or little priests, the embroidered tablecloth handworked by the village women (we ask to ourselves if it’s possible that on Easter day women spend their time embroiding a cloth in the village square…), then the coppola hats, Cristo Risorto statue, wine demijohns and poor straw-chairs.

Cavalleria Rusticana by Pietro Mascagni in Firenze. Turiddu, Sergio Escobar with Mamma Lucia, Cristina Melis
. photos: Terraproject/Contrasto

The costumes also are popular and poor, but all the visual part seems boring and as a postcard, while the acting of singers and chorus seems foreseeable. Something that we have seen many many times
. We saw this same staging some years ago in Florence noticing already that it wasn’t unforgettable at all, so the only reason to use it again could be a great vocal cast, which doesn’t happen in this occasion.

Conductor Giampaolo Bisanti, not very effective in Haydn‘s music used for the initial ballet, finds in Mascagni an author much more congenial, he conducts with a good theatrical pace and is able to keep together well together stage and orchestra.

Luciana D’Intino is Santuzza, and comes to these Florentine performances after a long and heavy career. Her voice shows only some correct moments of singing, the voice is not homogeneous in the various registers, and the singer forces even where it’s not necessary; moreover she abuses of her chest register, which isn’t very agreeable to hear. In the whole, D’Intino scenically depicts a credible and tormented character, but with too many vocal defects.

Cavalleria Rusticana in Firenze. Santuzza: Luciana D’Intino. Photo:Terraproject/Contrasto

Tenor Sergio Escobar is a good surprise, he shows a really pleasant youthful voice, with a good volume that goes through the orchestra, his character is well depicted, the singer reaches empatically the audience but unfortunately he ends his performance with a noisy wrong note in his farewell to mother: a real pity.

Alberto Mastromarino as Compar Alfio shows an extremely tired and abused, rather uneven instrument: the duet between Santuzza and Alfio is a real “musical torture” for Florentine audience. Cristina Melis was under an average level as Mamma Lucia, even worse Elena Traversi as Lola.

Globally this Cavalleria rusticana seems a provincial performance, and although hosted in new functional and very expensive House as Opera di Firenze, this production is only on a medium-low level.
“It is like a poor wine: even if we drink it in a crystal glass, it remains poor wine.”

Review by Fabio Bardelli

translation from italian Bruno Tredicine

Casts:

Conductor, Giampaolo Bisanti

Orchestra e Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

Maestro del coro, Lorenzo Fratini

 La luce nel tempo:

MaggioDanza

Coreografia, scene e costumi, Francesco Nappa

 Cavalleria Rusticana:

Santuzza, Luciana D’Intino

Turiddu, Sergio Escobar

Compare Alfio, Alberto Mastromarino

Lola, Elena Traversi

Mamma Lucia, Cristina Melis

Regia, Mario Pontiggia

Scene e costumi, Francesco Zito

Luci, Gianni Paolo Mirenda

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