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Thursday, October 30, 2014

Teatro Grattacielo's Twentieth Anniversary Benefit Concert


[Click for full size]

Truly, you may never hear these rare masterpieces again, sung live and with the accompaniment of a full symphonic orchestra. Works by Italo Montemezzi, Franco Alfano, Pietro Mascagni, Riccardo Zandonai, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, Umberto Giordano. Ottorino Respighi, and Licinio Refice.

Some of the music is from operas that we have presented over the previous twenty years, and some is from operas that we plan to program in their entirety in the near future.

Part I - Looking back: 1994 - 2014

Italo Montemezzi:
L'amore dei Tre Re, Act I, scene 1
Flaminio - Wesley Morgan
Archibaldo - Ashraf Sewailam
Franco Alfano: Risurrezione, Act IV
Un voce lontana - Megan Monaghan
Simonson - Sephen Gaertner
Katiusha - Kerri Marcinko
Vera - Anna Tonna
Kritzloff - Damian Savarino
L'Ufficiale - Roderick Gomez
Dimitri - Raúl Melo
Il Cosacco - Stefanos Koroneos
Pietro Mascagni: Guglielmo Ratcliff - Intermezzo, Il Sogno

Riccardo Zandonai: I Cavalieri di Ekebù, Act I
Giosta Berling's aria, "La chiesetta triste"
Giosta - Raúl Melo
Ruggero Leoncavallo: Zazà - Act III
"Lei dunque è la Signora Dunoyer!..."
Marco - John Tiranno
Natalia - Megan Monaghan
Zazà - Aprile Millo
Totò - Amberdawn Scarborough
Intermission

Part II - Looking forward, 2015 & Beyond

Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari: La Dama Boba, Overture
Umberto Giordano: Siberia, Act II
Duet: "La polootapa della Steppa d'Omsk?"
Stephana - Tiffany Abban
Il Cosacco - Roderick Gomez
Il Capitano - Stefanos Koroneos
Vassili - Raúl Melo
Ottorino Respighi: Belfagor, Act I
Ipsilonne's aria, "Alichino, lo vedi"
Ipsilonne - Stefanos Koroneos
Licinio Refice: Cecilia, Episodo III, Scene 2
Cecilia's Death, "Grazie, sorelle"
Cecilia - Aprile Millo
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, Il Campiello, Act III
Finale - "Biondi, Venezia cara"
Gasparina - Megan Monaghan

Monday, July 28, 2014

The Special Sauce that is Verismo

We mourn the passing of tenor Carlo Bergonzi this week, an enormously talented singer who began his career as a baritone, then changed to the more heroic register, not only because the parts lay better in his range, but the parts were better in the operas. We can only agree with that, and are thankful that he did change, as his warm, emotional singing enriched the world of opera for many years. And what role did Bergonzi sing in his tenor debut? Not Rhadamès, not Alfredo, (although he was superb in both those roles later on), but the lead in Giordano's  Andrea Chenier, a tremendously demanding role that is one of the glories of verismo, and one of the only operas of that composer still regularly  staged. 


And while Bergonzi was not considered a terrific actor--in fact, everyone including him seemed to agree on his lack of thespian ability, the role of Chenier is not particularly suited to histrionics. As a poet, Chenier is more intellectual in his expressions, and as such is a tenor role that can live well in the scene as long as the singer has sufficient expression, which Bergonzi had in spades.

And yet there are numerous examples of how downright visceral verismo operatic acting could be. Perhaps the roles of Turridu and Alfio from Cavalleria Rusticana are exemplars of that scene-chewing, breast-beating flavor of "the Grand Manner" which either thrills the audience or causes them to roll their eyes and bite their handkerchiefs in derision, if poorly done.

In this example from 1928, when Mascagni still had almost 20 years to live, we can see what a performance of the ending of Cavalleria might have looked and sounded like, this starring Beniamino Gigli, whom the composer favored, and whom he directed in a famous recording some years later.