Rossini’s Cinderella
Performers: Gran Teatre Orchestra, Madrigal Choir. Musical direction: Paolo Sagripanti. Stage direction: Emma Dante. Production of the Rome Opera. Place and date: Liceu (V/18 and 19/2024)
Rossinian magic captured the Liceu with an entertaining production, a double cast of undeniable vocal appeal and an Italian baton in the tradition of the great bel canto repertoire.
On the day of the premiere, with the main cast, the morbid singing of Javier Camarena triumphed again in his eighth opera at the Liceu and his first Rossini in Barcelona. The Mexican showed technical efficiency in coloraturas, and if his recognized ease in the high register now seems less fluid, his emission, honeyed color and personal charm ended up convincing him for a role of great difficulty that he still dominates. with sufficiency.
In her high school debut, the Russian mezzo Maria Kataeva was liked as an Angelina with a lustrous instrument in harmonics, flexible and of great correctness. Perhaps her Rossinian technique is not the best of her weapons, tight treble spoils her timbre, and her aristocratic bearing makes her acting a very selfie-like Cinderella, but she is a singer in her full potential. undoubted quality.
Dominating in extension and power, perhaps too much for a buffo role, the Dandini of the baritone Florian Sempey, who recalls a young Ludovic Tézier in the wake of the great baritones of the French school. The Uruguayan Erwin Schrott showed off his skills and charisma as Alidoro, with an always complicated aria that drew one of the ovations of the evening. Empathetic and impeccable is the Don Magnifico of the Italian baritone Paolo Bordogna, supported by the two pizpiretas daughters, Clorinda, the Catalan soprano Isabella Gaudí, and the Tisbe of the Belarusian mezzo Marina Pinchuk.
In the alternative cast, the voices of Carol García and Carles Pachón shone, two Catalans who demonstrated the good form of the km 0 talent. García’s cenerentola, of ideal style and technique, fell in love with the warmth of the phrasing and the emotionality of a song of graceful coloratura. The baritone Pachón offered a Dandini of effervescent vocality, compact tessitura and sonorous highs, with recognition from the audience in an emotional ovation.
He missed the performance of the debuting South African tenor Sunnyboy Dladla as a Ramiro with a light tone but technically problematic, especially in the high register. Solid and forceful is the Alidoro of the Croatian bass Marko Mimica along with the fun high school debut as Don Magnifico of the Huelva baritone Pablo Ruiz, a name to follow.
Sagripanti’s baton agreed with some imbalances in the ensemble numbers and some tempi with a tendency to frenzy that did not always help the soloists. The orchestra accompanied with fluid style and outstanding work by the woodwinds, demanding of Rossini. Great work by the Cor Madrigal that must gain in the theatricality of the accents to sound less oratorial.
Emma Dante’s production is fun, friendly. In pastel tones and a very American cartoon aesthetic, her criticism of the underlying bitingness of Perrault’s story, with the macabre mechanics of the extras-dancers, manages to hold its own against the overwhelming music of the explosive Rosssini.
