‘Mezzo-sopvano Marilyn Horne as Arsace in Semicamide The New York Times ESSENTIAL LIBRARY A Critic’s Guide to the 100 Most Important Works and the Best Recordings ANTHONY TOMMASINI TIMES BOOKS Henry Holt and Company New Yorkfestival of Russian works at the Metropolitan Opera in Dol imasinativeprncton of Keck by Das Gentakon og the highlight. The staging was a playful but sensitive modern drese conception that humanized the story: a prophet bird that briefly appears to guide Fevroniya to the invisible city was portrayed as 4 ‘wizened Russian peasant woman lighting a cigarette end leaning out of window, meant tobe Fevronija’s portal tothe hesvens. aa e opera received its 1907 premiere at the Marinsky Theatre i St.Petersburg and the Marinsky company’s 1994 lve recording isthe fone to have. The conductor Valery Gergiev adores this score and it comes through in his luminous, tllingly paced, and intccately tex. tured performance. The soprano Galina Gorchakova as Fevroniya and the tenor Yuri Marusin as Prince Vsevolod head an impressive «ast of singers who bring complete stylistic authority to their work, Every roleis strongly sung, right down to minor ones, like Alkonos, a Prophet bird, here the dusky-toned mezzo-soprano Larasa Diadkova, Philips ehrce CDs) 462 225.2 Valery Gergien (conductor), Chorus and Orchestra ofthe Kiroe Opera, Marin sky These, St Petersburg: Gorchakous, Marusin, Gauci, Patiln, Oboinikow & vs \ u 62. GIOACGHINO ROSSINI Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) Cesare Sterbini, librettist, after a met play by Pierre-Augustin Ceron de First performance: Rome, perf ‘Rome, Teatro Argentina, February 20, 1816 Rossini’s determination to write write an opera based on Beaumarchais' play Le Barbier de Séville, the first in a tilogy of revolutionary French comedies, provoked a public outcry in Italy. The esteemed composer Giovanni Paisiello had already written a hugely popular operatic adaptation, I! Barbiere di Siviglia, introduced in 1782, x6 Cour years before the premiere of Mozart’s Nozze di Figaro, based on the second play in the trilogy. How dare Rossini, this upstart composer in his early twenties, write another? Bue Rossini persisted and his Barbiere opened in Rome in 1816. The premiere was disrupted by a noisy contingent of Paisiello parti- sans, Still, Rossin’s new approach ro comedy and his brilliant score with its “abundance of genuine musical ideas,” as Verdi would later comment, soon won out, Today Paisiello’s charming litele opera is a fooote and Rossini’s Barber of Seville an enduring staple of the repertory. From all reports, Rossini composed the opera in less than two weeks, though surely ideas must have been tossing around in his head for a long while. The overture, which jaday seems so brilliantly comic and appropriate, was actuallecyeled rom an earlier work, a serious opera, Aureliano in Palmira, How is that possible? Te long thought a key to Rossi's genius was his understanding that there is not that large a divide berween the comic and the seri- ‘ous, Both in theater and in music, just a slightly different inflection, attitude, or pacing will turn a somber gesture into a silly one. You can understand how Rossini thought that this overture—for example, the grim minor-mode section when a nervous tune in the violins is accompanied by short, steady repeated chords in the orchestra— if conducted with the right nuance, would seem suspenseful in a comic way. eos In this work Rossini created full-fleshed and complex characters. We identify with their foibles, plucky swagger, and exasperating dilemmas. The opera is rich with hilarious comic bits, though for a performance to work the singers must rake themselves seriously. In the first scene, for example, young Count Almaviva, who is dis- guised as a poor nobody, has hired a band of musicians to accom- pany him in a serenade beneath the balcony of a pretty git he has seen from afar, After some hapless mess-ups as the musicians assemble and tune their instruments, Almaviva begins to sing his wistful and clegantly lyrical serenade, Suddenly the comedy seems tenderly eal Like innumerable young men before him, the loverstruck count has been touched by a woman he doesn't even know, who turns out to be 184 Gioacchino Rossii Gioacchino Rossini 185Rosina, the young ward of the overprotective Dr. Bartolo, who intends to marry her. But there is an earnest intention behind the counts ploy: sp} ans tbe loved for himself not his positon “Figaro famous "Largo aT TackoTuny” is fi garo's lamous “LATO aT FACTOTURY™ Ts funny, yes, because of its explosive energy and passages of Italian patter But it’s also an exuber- ant manifesto from a young man who loves his fe. Figaro, formerly a servant to the count, isnot just a barber. He's an arranger, a facilitator You need a date, a spouse for your daughter, a message conveyed, a compromising situation untangled, an entrée into a home? Figaro is your man, he ells the audience directly. Everyone calls him, everyone needs him, Figaro here, Figaro there. What a din! But he thrives on being essential. When a strapping baritone with a strong-Vok€ and 00d diction tosses off the aria, Figaro should command the stage. ‘The really broad moments of comedy are almost always based on musical humor, for example, the scene in act 2 when Almaviva and Figaro have rescued Rosina from her imprisonment in Dr. Bartolo’s hhouse and are trying to make a quick getaway. Figaro can't get the eager young couple to hurry up because they keep taking time to deliver lyrical expressions oftheir devotion, decorated with elaborate coloratura roulades. Tove the moment in act 2, during Rosina’s music lesson, when Dr. Bartolo, who does not like the new trends in music, sits at the forte- piano and plays a little (@-manner RE-favors, a gentle ttle rococo-styled air in iting Suddenly Rossini lets fou see another side to Dr. Bartolo, who is an old softie fr tried-and- rue music, He really is not a bad guy. Why shouldn’t he want to marty his ward? He thinks she'll have a nice life with him. Besides, it tums out that he was right to he suspicious of the count. In the next part of the Beaumarchais trilogy, The Marriage of Figaro, some years have gone by and the count has grown tired of the countess, Rosina and started philandering. : Rosina was conceived as a role for a lustrous mezzo-soprano, not a perky lyric soprano. Yet for generations the role was appropriated by sopranos who simply had Rosina’s music transposed to higher keys. During the late nineteenth and early ewentieth centuries the entire opera was routinely tampered with and altered. In 1972 the insightful conductor Claudio Abbado made an important contribu- sion to opera by recording Il Barbiere with a splendid cast using the ‘most scholarly critical sources available. That Deutsche Gram- mophon recording remains a classic. “The mezgqsopsano Teresa Berganza isa richvoiced, vechnically agile, and completely beguiling Rosina, a vulnerable portrayal of a plucky yet poignantly trusting young woman. The fine tenor Luigi ‘Alva makes a sweet-toned and vibrant Almaviva. The baritone Her- mann Prey as Figaro may not have the most nimble coloratura te nique, but his suave, clever, and robustly sung portrayal offers ample Towards, Abbado conducts with palpable tespect for the score, ec ing plenty of madcap energy from the cast and the London Sym phony Orchestra, but leaving room for the music to breathe and the comic subtleties to register. ‘The other essential recording is EMI's 1958 accounyagich Maria Callas as Rosina. In earlier years Callas, like many aera Gy fad sung the role with the music transposed highet. But for this ‘recording she adhered to almost all of the original mezzo-soprano keys. She gives a remarkable performance, tossing off the coloratura swith aplomb and dipping easily into the dusky Tower range of her Noice, This Rosina knows that she is smarter than any of the men she “encounters, but being a woman she must rely on ploys and manip, tion to get her way. “There is a renowned moment in Callas’s account of Rosina’s intro- ductory aria, “Una voce poco fa.” Explaining that, yes, of course she ‘can be docile and obedient when need be, Callas prolongs the final tote of the melodic line and slides up to end the phrase o# a single ‘lipped word, “ma,” the Italian for “but.” But, she says, when she is frond she can be a viper. The way Callas exudes innocence, then turns it all around on that one word, “ma,” and continues with ke determination you don't want to mess with, was such a brilliay interpretive stroke that countless Rosinas since have stolen the ide Lig Alva is again Almaviva, captured here when younger and bis voice was fresher than in the Abbado recording, Tito Gobbi makes a blustery and idiomaticaly Italian Figaro. Alceo Galliera conducts a sprightly and lithe performance. I'd be hard-pressed to pick one of these recordings over the other. But perhaps I'd give the edge to ‘Abbado’s informed and authoritative account. 186 Gioacchino Rossini Gioacchino Rossini 187