Newsgroup: it.arti.musica.classica.mod
Titolo: FINANCIAL TIMES-Opera: Il trovatore By Andrew Clark

FINANCIAL TIMES
Opera: Il trovatore By Andrew Clark
Published: December 10 2000
At the opening of La Scala's new season on Thursday, words were
exchanged between Riccardo Muti and the loggionisti, the partisan
opera fans who occupy the standing places at Milan's great lyric
theatre. The altercation took place at the end of the third act of Il
trovatore, when it became clear not all the audience were happy with
the way Manrico's warlike "Di quella pira" had been treated. It went
something like this. 
Loud voice from the gods: "It's time someone told us who's giving the
directions here." Second voice, amid audience commotion: "Bravo
maestro!" Applause. Muti, turning from the conductor's podium, and
purposefully taking off his spectacles: "Don't turn the Verdi year
into a circus." 
It's not unusual for the loggionisti to vent their spleen on
performers at La Scala, but it's unheard of for a conductor to address
a section of the audience in this way. Muti's gentle admonishment
underlined where his priorities lay - with the composer. The
loggionisti were duly cowed, and the performance continued without
further interruption. 
Decoded, the incident reflects dissatisfaction on two counts. First,
the loggionisti are engaged in a long-running battle with La Scala's
management over the curtailment of their rights: the number of
standing places is being steadily reduced, apparently to stop the
organised barracking of performers. Second, many loggionisti object to
Muti's ban on interpolated top notes, with which singers traditionally
show off at the end of arias and cabalettas. You won't find these
notes in the score. Muti's argument is that if Verdi had wanted the
tenor to sing a high C at the end of "Di quella pira", he would have
indicated it. 
In case you hadn't noticed, they take their Verdi seriously in the
home of Italian opera. The opening night at La Scala - traditionally
December 7, the day of Milan's patron saint, St Ambrose - is far from
typical, in that the audience is dominated by Italy's political,
financial and social elite. But if last Thursday was any judge, a
"stuffed-shirt" audience in Milan is far better informed than its
equivalent in London or New York. The Milanese know when not to
applaud, and they show ready disapproval when mobile phones go off. 
Security outside the building is so tight that there are no longer any
of the protests that used to turn opening night into a bunfight. Even
inside the building, the atmosphere is not as charged as it used to
be: the Scala season now runs throughout the year, so there's not the
same build-up to December 7. Thursday's performance began precisely at
6.00pm, and there was just one modest interval. La Scala has come a
long way from the 1980s, when late starts were the norm, and intervals
sometimes lasted longer than the preceding act. 
The Verdi year to which Muti referred is 2001, the centenary of the
composer's death. La Scala has programmed 10 of his operas, beginning
with this new production of Il trovatore. With its singalong choruses,
emblematic arias and melodramatic plot, Il trovatore is often thought
of as the archetypal Italian grand opera- but it has become
increasingly difficult to cast, and it hadn't been heard in Milan for
22 years. Now it's suddenly sprouting up everywhere, with productions
this month in Madrid, New York and Helsinki, followed by London and
several other cities next year. 
I doubt if any will match the standard and spirit of musical execution
in Milan. The soft drum-rolls and clarion figuration of the opening
bars demonstrated what Muti has achieved at La Scala - a richness,
focus and discipline that lifted the dramatic temperature at every
turn of this performance. Speeds were fast-but never inflexible, as
they often used to be with Muti. It's as if age has mellowed him,
allowing him to phrase and shape Verdi's melodic lines with all his
old dynamism but with an added sense of lyrical freedom. Thanks to his
hand-in-glove tapering of orchestral sound to vocal demands, Il
trovatore emerged as Verdi's swansong to bel canto. 
More than any other conductor alive today, Muti tells us that the true
emotional heat of Verdian drama lies in the score: "prima la musica".
The music is the drama, and the stage action is meant to support it,
not the other way round. It's a conservative creed, but you can't
argue with the results. This kind of bristling Verdi performance is
simply not available elsewhere - which helps explain why Muti has
invested so much time and energy in Milan, and looks like continuing
to do so. The world's other great opera houses are poorer for being
denied a slice of his temperament. 
The price Milan pays for Muti's principles is a dull staging by Hugo
de Ana. It's sombre, stilted and shrouded in sets of medieval
monumentalism, the only variety coming in the shape of mobile pillars
and a series of quaint painterly backdrops. There's enough fake armour
to fill a museum; and judging by the ladies' robes, the costume budget
alone could probably fund an entire season in some theatres. De Ana
adheres to the traffic-cop school of stage direction, his only novelty
being a phoney kind of slow-motion chorus choreography. The principals
stand and deliver, with a vocabulary of semaphore gestures that
speaks, in time-served Italian style, of supplication, distress,
defiance and romantic longing. Of dramatic realism or symbolism,
there's not a glimpse. 
The singers are there to sing-which most of them do rather well.
Salvatore Licitra's Manrico is a welcome discovery. His voice, dark
but sweet, has a gentle ring, in the refined tradition of Italian
tenors last represented by Veriano Luchetti. He's no actor, but he's
not clumsy. He has all the notes, and knows how to phrase them.
Barbara Frittoli is a lightweight Leonora by La Scala's standards, but
she's supremely musical, and she brought out the Mozartian qualities
in Verdi's soprano writing. Violeta Urmana's Azucena added a welcome
dose of temperament, which would have been shown to greater effect in
a more intelligent staging. As Luna, Leo Nucci gave his standard
performance-loud, boring, but reliable. Mixed results, then, but on
balance a positive start to La Scala's Verdi year. 



 balance a positive start to La Scala's Verdi year. 
Oh Lord, Licitra looks like Luchetti! MI sembra comunque posato il critico dell'Albione anche se non trovo "fair" il giudizio di noia sul buon Nucci.
Certo che con quel che si sente in Inghilterra trovar noioso Nucci....
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 in Milan.
Ne dubito anch'io, e' tra le piu' belle mai realizzate. Spero anzi che venga
commercializzata.
Teseo