BOV Opera Festival - Opera buffa, but where was the fun?

One thing that struck me while watching Rossini's Cenerentola on the opening night of the BOV Opera Festival was the rather cold atmosphere typified by the lack of rapport that existed between the production and the audience. In truth there was the usual round of applause and the solitary voice shouting bravo at the end of a long evening (the first act of this two-act opera lasted about two hours), but by that time the theatre had already lost quite a substantial number of patrons who left during the interval and never returned to their seats (a pity as the second act fared much better than the first when in many instances the singers were quite often unheard and completely overpowered especially in the ensembles).

Much as I like Rossini's music I have to admit that Cenerentola is not one of his best, with many mediocre arias for baritone and bass. However, the usual joie de vivre associated with Pesaro's own son (Rossini was to disown citizenship as he claimed that he was not well treated by his town-folks!) can be found in the arias written for the mezzo and the tenor. In fact, both Giuliana Castelletti, the mezzo in the part of Angelina, detta Cenerentola, and Alejandro Escobar, as Prince Ramiro, did quite well, both vocally as well as histrionically. They hardly ever missed a note of the many runs and trills that exemplify Rossini's music. Rossini and his librettist Jacopo Ferretti had intended to make a parody of this story that goes back further in time than when Charles Perrault included it in his Mother Goose stories ‒ our own Nicolò Isouard had composed an opéra comique on the subject which was the toast of Paris and the rest of Europe years before Rossini tackled the story and it was his version that did away with anything magical substituting the fairy godmother by Alidoro, the Prince's mentor and the glass slippers by a diamond bracelet (much worthier of a prince). In both Isouard's and Rossini's operas there are no pumpkins, no mice and rats that turn into footmen and coachmen, no clock that solemnly strikes midnight. But it is still a fairytale, crowning the poor girl abused by her family by proclaiming her at the end of the proceedings as the princess of the land. And to continue in this positive outlook, Cenerentola decides not to take revenge on her father and her two horrible step-sisters, but to forgive them and to ask only to be recognised as a daughter of the family.

To illustrate this storybook concept, director Giovanni Dispenza presented us with a storybook complete with pop-ups, reminding us of books for the very young. This opened into the home of Don Magnifico (Gianluca Breda, bass) and his domineering daughters, Tisbe (Simona Forni, soprano) and Clorinda (Francesca Bruni, soprano).

The many doors leading to the kitchen served as entrances and exits through which appeared or disappeared the members of the family. Others had their own entrance and exit points. And talking of entrances, there were two very effective ones featuring Don Magnifico (spoiled by the pair of feet of whoever was pushing the bed on which the Don was resting - an eye for details needed here) and Dandini's (Davide Rocca, baritone) entrance masquerading as the Prince when he was only the valet. These two characters together with the outrageous step-sisters were to provide the funny elements of the opera. However, they were quite inconsistent and the lack of a continuous effective performance on their part led to an uneven production.

The long waits between the scenes did not help either and the end result was a very lukewarm reception. The all-male choir was well-trained musically but it looked awkward and unrehearsed. Its members even found it difficult to "ride" their horses in tempo and in fact one of the main reasons for the production's failure was its lack of cohesion, giving the impression that the whole thing was under-rehearsed. Naif does not mean lack of professionalism as any artist will tell you, as any comic actor would vouch. Timing in comedy, be it sung or acted, is of the essence. Unfortunately this went haywire and so did the production.

If this was opera buffa, where was the laughter, where was the fun? But to end on a more positive note, let me say that the final sextet Questo è un nodo avviluppato was pleasing both vocally and dramatically. So was Cenerentola's parting aria Non più mesta accanto al fuoco.

Cenerentola was produced by Teatro Giuseppe Borgatti di Cento while the National Orchestra was led by Michael Laus.