By Natalia DiBartolo. The booklet refers to a precise historical event that is crucial to find “the reading key” of the entire work.
This note concerning the direction and which precedes the musical review of Verdi's masterpiece staged, in the Italian version, at the Teatro alla Scala on February 14, 2023, comes immediately and spontaneously from the writer, who is used, however, to mention the direction with annexes and connected at the end of the article. Not this time, although it's enough “elastic” to directorial transpositions, provided they are intelligent, coherent and acceptable.
In this case the booklet (which even underwent the torture of the censorship as soon as it arrived in Italy from France) refers to a precise historical event which is no less important or negligible because it took place way back in 1282, but fundamental for finding “the reading key” of the entire work, set in Sicily, in Palermo, to be precise.
Director Ana's Hugo, also author of the sets and costumes of the show in question, in order to put the war into it, evoked for the public as we live it today, has bypassed the historical event Vespers and casually put a cross on centuries and centuries of history that have seen Sicily oppressed and upset by the most varied tyrannies. A bit’ exaggerated, however, the tyranny of our French cousins, in this production: as if they were the most ruthless Nazis: too many weapons, shootings, torture: too much damage. But that's not the point either: the point is that de Ana probably doesn't know Sicily, much less the Sicilians.
They have never been spontaneously “Italians”, they have become and are proudly so, but they have always been and are, first of all, proudly Sicilians. So here's that “move” their centuries as if they were chess pieces placed on the proscenium and instead highlight, in Palermo, modern warfare and so-called “moroccan”, that is, the violence perpetrated against women by the allied troops after the landing in Sicily (which made an audience!) around the 40s of the last century, demonstrates an absolute anthropological and historical lack of culture.
In the panorama of the Peninsula, Sicily has always been a geographical, political, cultural, linguistic entity in its own right: a tormented land, a proud land, in which independence ambitions have always snaked.
It is therefore believed that there is a big difference in the “transpose” (but is it really indispensable?) the story forward, but in this case it should be done no later than the 19th century (as has already been done), when the island was still the land of the Bourbons and other great nobility, large estates, exploitation of the population and violence even more violent than those that make so much audience today, with a “dribble” of this marvelous and unfortunate land among a thousand royal, political, partisan contenders of a thousand nationalities, including the Savoy kingdom, which then made it “Italian”. Look at history by removing from the Risorgimento that romantic aura that our grandparents liked so much. Here, instead, we leapt directly into 1944, but, in the first act, with such a background, the Italian tricolor flag of today appeared inconceivable in the hands of Elena, who, according to historical-philological rigor, should have had the yellow and red one with the Trinacria in the center, which was born in those situations. No Sicilian flag? If you use one of another color! All this leapt to the eye in a very annoying way, given that some red cloth waved in the hands of the commoners.
All of this, even spiced up with expensive structures worthy of a film, with scenic trappings in which coffins with metal handles strolled back and forth or used as high chairs were inflated, it was certainly implemented for a desire to “rejuvenation” (“If you don't get old, the theater remains empty especially of young people…!”) which however deformed characters, personalities, events, not only in the protagonists, but in the entire Sicilian people represented, who, played by a copious number of choristers and extras, crowded and animated the stage even too much. Above all with gimmicks and pantomimes such as that of Our Lady of Sorrows or the Crucifix or, again, of the tree in the last act (it was not understood it was an olive, almond, chestnut…) absolutely inflated about the “Sicilian” more vulgar and obvious, together with the cumbersome presence of the large cannon that fires and the tank, modern bogeys that should have aroused “wonder” in the viewer.
The costumes, always of the of Hannah the military ones were shiny, steeled by endless sprays of spray cans; caps on the men's heads and kilometers of rigorously black fabric that the women wore, for the people. A sentence of rebellion then springs up here spontaneously from the writer: the flat cap doesn't make the Sicilian! Study de Ana a bit’ of history and a “so much” of cultural anthropology. Then, perhaps, you will talk about the setting in Palermo again.
Wishing to continue in this anthology, “inside” this unpleasant, obscure (lights by Vinicio Cheli), inconsistent, out of time and place, etc. etc. “scenic container” a large crowd of confused choristers moved, sometimes even musically out of time, some unfortunate supporting actors and four figurines that seemed to be cut out of paper by a child for the playhouse: the protagonists, without any depth, either vocally or scenically.
Expressionless on the face, standing constantly at attention, Marina Rebeka – Elena he spared his voice by fluting all the way up to the rondo, which he knew well having studied and performed it in concert and with which he felt “At home” (his own words); the rest of the work? Side…
The willing Matthew Lippi – Arrigo, who replaced the indisposed Piero Pretti, would have certainly benefited from singing by straightening the cervical vertebrae, raising the head and using the whole mask, not just the jaw and the lower lip: one sings opening the whole mouth and the problems of sound coverage they are resolved differently, also improving the projection.
Luke Micheletti – Guy of Monforte vainly hid under make-up and scenic art an age still in need of maturation for a baritone who wants to be defined “verdian”: rumor that, at least at the moment, is too much “slight” for the role and that, for the first time in his life, he made the writer listen to a baritone that goes in falsetto in the piano.
Oriental Simon Lim – John of Procida, also a voice far from the Verdi bass that would be needed for the part, sang “O you Palermo, adored land” wearing sunglasses, sitting on a coffin in the shadow of the tank and he seemed to be everywhere except Palermo.
Of the Chorus it has already been mentioned and we prefer to gloss over; of the secondary characters, all good, in truth, for once one can only say good.
In the hole the Maestro Fabio Luisi he had his work cut out with a Verdi tome like Vespers and a cast like that, right from the symphony. Agogic trend a bit’ mixed at moments, dynamics miraculously rescued, spasmodic support for the performers.
Audience applauding but not wholly and partly perplexed; whoever writes, on the other hand, constantly thinking of the edition, with the dances, of the 1989-90 Season (the last at La Scala to date) to hurry to go and review and listen again…
Natalia Dantas ©
Photos Brescia and Amisano