Newsgroup: it.arti.musica.classica.mod
Titolo: THE TIMES-Gloom with a view

MONDAY DECEMBER 11 2000
Opera
Gloom with a view
Verdi traditionalists weren't pleased by Il trovatore at La Scala, but
that's no bad thing, says John Allison
The gala opening at La Scala on Thursday night signalled more than the
start of another Milan season: the performance of Il trovatore also
marked the beginning of the Verdi centenary. No significant opera
house anywhere will ignore Verdi in 2001, but in the coming year Milan
will be even more of a Mecca than usual. 
La Scala, just down the road from the hotel where the composer died in
January 1901, is dedicating its season to him, and the city has
mounted a magnificent and comprehensive Verdi exhibition in the
Palazzo Reale. 
The annual December 7 opening has long been sacrosanct in the Milanese
calendar, tied as it is to the name day of St Ambrose, the city's
patron saint. At La Scala the ritual invariably includes fashionable
society being mobbed by the paparazzi, and heavily protected police
manning barricades in case of trouble - at least this is a place where
passion can still be inflamed by opera. This time rain helped to
prevent a full-scale riot, but the low-key demonstrations were matched
by barracking in the theatre, and the singers, appreciating the safety
of numbers, took all their bows together. 
But at the end of Act III, after the tenor had walked the operatic
plank with Di quella pira, a shouting match broke out as the noisy
loggionisti heckled music director Riccardo Muti for not allowing the
singer his interpolated top notes of "tradition". Muti's retort, "Do
not turn the Verdi year into a circus", reflected his long-standing
mission at La Scala to break bad habits and restore what Verdi wrote,
indeed to reveal the composer as a great musical dramatist, and this
Trovatore is clearly a continuation of that campaign. 
Muti has brought this central work back to a theatre where it was last
heard 22 years ago, following his success in restoring the rest of the
"popular trilogy", Rigoletto and La traviata, after similar absences.
The conductor has mellowed a little, allowing applause between numbers
and showing less tendency towards hard-driven tempos, but he has lost
nothing of his grip on the music. He got a rich, sculpted sound from
the players, who responded splendidly to his intense, high-octane
approach: it remains Britain's loss that Muti appears in this country
so infrequently. Musically, this was on a level we seldom hear. 
For all its big tunes, Il trovatore has become something of a rarity -
though, coincidentally, within 24 hours of this performance both the
Met and Madrid opened productions of it - because of its casting
challenges. 
La Scala met them well, fielding as Manrico the latest contender for
the vacant tenorial throne, Salvatore Licitra. He is worthy of the
great Italian tradition and projects his dark-toned voice powerfully,
yet never forgets that as the troubadour of the title some sweetness
is called for too. Barbara Frittoli follows in the lyrical tradition
of Leonoras, with a deeply musical performance that was not spoilt by
a faltering high C in her Act IV aria. Violetta Urmana gives a dusky,
no-holds-barred performance as Azucena, and Leo Nucci is a reliable Di
Luna. 
Hugo De Ana's staging is lavish, and his trademark sets slide in and
out to reveal craggy cliffs and looming columns. Characteristically
staid, he freezes the stage picture in big arias, yet this makes a
change from the jugglers-and-remote-controlled-mice school of
production found elsewhere. The staging may be gloomy, but it is never
unfaithful to this darksome work.



 so infrequently. Musically, this was on a level we seldom hear.
Questo e' un complimento bellissimo, uno dei pochi che contano, sia perche'
proviene da un Paese culturalmente piu' evoluto del nostro sia perche' gli
Inglesi sono sempre stati un po' nazionalisti, anche nell'arte e nella
cultura, e questi riconoscimenti sono quindi assai rari.
Teseo