After three decades the Met have unpacked the sets and costumes and revived this lavish production of Riccardo Zandonai's most well known work.
Not that Zandonai is that well known at all, but listening to this outstanding performance we may be given to wonder why he is not more often performed. It seems conceivable that it may have reached a larger number of people in this one global broadcast than have ever seen it before.
The music occupies a sound world somewhere between Richard Strauss, Puccini and Wagner (if that makes any sense) and is very opulent, with rich strings, warm wind playing and a prominent part for harp, which was beautifully played. Marco Armiliato directed the Met orchestra in a sumptuous reading of the score.
Set designs for this '80s production were by Ezio Frigerio and it is hard to fault the concept. There is a solidity to every scene and tremendous attention to detail. Clever use of a central raised platform, which remains in place in every act, creates a focus in this piece that has a grand scale but revolves around an intimate relationship between three brothers and one wife.
Francesca believes that her arranged marriage is to be to the suave, handsome Paolo, and the first act in which she meets him ends in wordless bliss. During the first interval, it seems, the first act of treachery has taken place and she is now trapped in a loveless marriage with Paolo's elder brother Gianciotto, but still carries a torch for Paolo. Enter Malatestino, the yet more duplicitous younger brother, who also loves Francesca in vain. In act three he takes his revenge for being rebuffed by Francesca by telling Gianciotto of the love between his wife and his brother and the pair set up a trap to catch them together. In the final act Gianciotto, in attempting to stab Paolo, kills Francesca by mistake and he then kills Paolo too.
The tale is interwoven with those of Tristan and Isolde and of Lancelot and Guinivere, which provide a vehicle both for setting up the various scenes of passion and for a good deal of vocal and choral singing. A battle scene in act two also points toward the darker things to come and gives an opportunity for some dramatic scoring.
There are very few set pieces in this work, it being more of a continuous sweep of sound and texture, but there is some splendid solo and ensemble writing and a particularly lovely duet for Francesca and Paolo. First performed in 1914, after Puccini's Tosca and Butterfly and at around the time Strauss was revising Ariadne auf Naxos, Francesca da Rimini is opulently scored and lavish in scale, despite the small number of characters. It has an odd way of looking backward and forward at the same time and was taking some risks in its day. Its relative obscurity probably lies in the shortage of music that could be extracted as concert pieces to promote it. Bleeding chunks from Francesca would be hard to pull off, but the music is of excellent quality and it would be worth the effort of constructing a cohesive concert suite.
Franca Squarciapino's original costumes have been lovingly restored, altered and in some cases reconstructed and the detail in the Italian embroidery is astonishing. The colour palette changes from pastel pinks at the opening through flame reds and to much darker tones as the work progresses, following the emotional temperature of the plot.
For once the three male principals were perfectly believable as brothers. Mark Delavan's dark voice was perfect for the menacing Gianciotto, Robert Brubaker played the scheming Malatestino with considerable relish and Marcello Giordani had the perfect heroic voice for Paolo, although I needed to squint a little to get the young and handsome angle from him. It was the statuesque Eva Maria Westbroek, though, who stole almost all the limelight with her passionate and committed performance of the ill-fated Francesca. She has a huge voice and a range to match. Seeing her draped on the couch reading the tale of Lancelot and Guinivere with Paolo was like looking at an Alma Tadema painting.
Although relatively ignored, this is a work worth reviving for the opulence of it's score and as a vehicle for a great dramatic soprano.
The three long intervals afforded opportunities for the Live in HD audience to see some interesting interviews with the cast and backstage crew, including the costume and scenic supervisors and to watch the carpenters moving some of the immense scenery. Eva Maria Westbroek observed that the story is not as far fetched as it may seem, as even today we hear of women entering into arranged marriages agains their will and being killed as a result of fighting against it.
No comments:
Post a Comment