Bellini's LA STRANGE in Florence – Review by William Fratti and Renata Fantoni – The work deserves to be permanently included in the billboards –
Florence, 14 May 2019. Much opera repertoire from the first half of the 19th century, mainly romantic bel canto, has unfortunately almost fallen into oblivion, even though it was a fundamental step for Italian culture and international musical art. And this concerns not only composers who are followers or considered secondary, such as Meyerbeer or Mercadante, Paër or Mayr, but also some or different titles of the authors considered more important.
Vincenzo Bellini's The Stranger, like its sister film Il Pirata, deserves to be permanently included in the programmes, both for its musical and dramatic theatrical value.
On this long-awaited occasion, Fabio Luisi chooses to perform the work in the 1829 version, in the critical edition edited by Marco Uvietta, soon to be published. Certainly the direction and the very precise Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino are the true protagonists of the evening. The sounds are extremely clean and refined, the colors are particularly romantic, rightly pathetic or heroic where necessary. Not least is the astonishing Chorus prepared by Lorenzo Fratini, which does its utmost in particularly emotional phrasing.
Salome Jicia is a very respectable Alaïde, technically perfect, with a very homogeneous singing line, excellent in agility. It's a shame that endings with low notes are opted for and that the variations are reduced to the bare minimum, but it's understandable given that it's a critical edition. Even the interpretation is not the most engaging, but the direction and staging certainly did not help the aim.
Dario Schmunck returns to take on the role of Arturo, again under the direction of Luisi, with extreme ease, very linear, a polished voice, excellent delivery. Even in his case, the phrasing and rendering of the character are not the best due to the show.
The same arguments that find a profound dichotomy between the precision in the notes and the highlighting of the expressive elements of the musical discourse also apply to the talented Serban Vasile, very correct, velvety vocality, excellent momentum.
Particularly notable is the Isoletta of Laura Verrecchia. He is very comfortable with the role and shows off his skills as a bel canto singer.
Also quite effective are the supporting roles of Shuxin Li as Lord of Montolino, Adriano Gramigni as Prior and Dave Monaco as Osburgo.
Mateo Zoni's show is unfortunately not worthy of the successful musical and vocal part. First of all, the setup is too visibly low cost, becoming in bad taste. The sketches of the scenes designed by Tonino Zera and Renzo Bellanca and the costumes designed by Stefano Ciammitti are rather pleasant, but they were created with materials which, under the rather approximate lights of Daniele Ciprì, look like cheap plastic beads and sequins , aluminum foil, self-adhesive mirror-reflective plastic paper, warehouse latex. The whole time the visual part of the show seemed to be screaming “I wanted to, but I couldn't” distracting from listening. The directorial work wasn't the best, sometimes only sketchy. A dominant mind was perceived exclusively in choral moments, but rather banal and provincial. The projections, however, are appreciable.
The protagonists did not seem comfortable in the interpretation and presumably would have rendered better phrasing and greater eloquence if the performance had been in concert form.
William Fratti and Renata Fantoni
PHOTOS ©Michele Monasta