This week gives Rossini’s frothy Il Viaggio à Reims with a giant forged that features Marina Rebeka, Michael Spyres, and Sergey Romanovsky. Additionally, in response to Niel Rishoi’s current Norma recording assessment that attracted a lot dialogue, I’m together with a broadcast of final 12 months’s Parisien Donizetti-Bellini-Rossini live performance by Rebeka and her CD Adalgisa Karine Deshayes, in addition to a short style of Rebeka as Cherubini’s Médée.
At present’s Rossini pirate paperwork the second (!) forged of La Scala’s 2009 Viaggio revival in Luca Ronconi’s traditional manufacturing. The premiere forged was televised and featured, amongst others, Patrizia Ciofi as Corinna.
It’s too unhealthy that Viaggio has by no means actually caught on within the US, although it’s a difficult endeavor to deliver collectively the bravura forged it requires. The Rossini Competition in Pesaro sometimes makes use of a line-up of younger singers as an alternative of massive stars.
In 1999, New York Metropolis Opera mounted the native stage premiere of Viaggio. (It had been performed in live performance a dozen years earlier.) I loved one of many performances because the last-minute date of opera director John Copley. (Lengthy story.) I discovered that he had initially been requested to provide the Rossini however his plans proved too bold/costly and he as an alternative mounted Handel’s Ariodante for the corporate round that point.
For many who discovered the Prima Norma studio-bound and poorly recorded, the reside French live performance contains necessary bits of Norma, in addition to alternatives from Anna Bolena and Maria Stuarda, the pair of Donizetti “Tudor queens” that Rebeka has carried out. Deshayes gives a few of her Rossini Elisabetta, an opera she carried out in Pesaro in 2021.
I used to be very fortunate to catch Rebeka final 12 months in a staging of the Cherubini opera in Berlin. The work was carried out there in French accompanied by a period-instrument ensemble and reunited her with the tenor and conductor of her wonderful La Vestale recording.
At present’s clip comes from an in-house recording from the Berlin run made obtainable by a parterre reader (whose identify I’ve misplaced). I didn’t need to submit all the opera with out specific permission.
Rebeka’s subsequent performances of Médée at La Scala, with a modern-instrument orchestra, by which she had changed Sonya Yoncheva, had been tormented by sickness. She canceled a number of reveals, and was solely capable of carry out the primary act the night the Cherubini was livestreamed.
Rossini: Il Viaggio à Riems
Madama Cortese: Teresa Romano
Corinna: Christina Obregon
Marchesa Melibea: Maite Beaumont
Contessa di Folleville: Marina Rebeka
Cavalier Belfiore: Michael Spyres
Conte di Libenskof: Sergey Romanovsky
Lord Sidney: Roberto Tagliavini
Don Profondo: Simón Orfila
Barone di Trombonok: José Carbó
Don Alvaro: Simone del Savio
Conductor: Ottavio Dantone
Teatro alla Scala
19 April 2009
In-house recording
Bel Canto Live performance
Arias and Duets from Donizetti: Maria Stuarda & Anna Bolena; Rossini: Semiramide & Elisabetta, Regina d’Inghilterra; Bellini: Norma and Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro (encore)
Marina Rebeka
Karine Deshayes
Paris Chamber Orchestra
Conductor: Speranza Scappucci
Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris
21 March 2023
Broadcast
Cherubini: Médée (excerpt)
Marina Rebeka
Stanislas de Barbeyrac
Les Talens Lyriques
Conductor: Christophe Rousset
Berlin Staatsoper
24 November 2023
In-house recording
Every of the Rebeka recordings could be downloaded by clicking on the icon of a cloud with an arrow pointing downward on the audio participant above and the ensuing mp3 file will seem in your obtain listing.
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