Saldi

Bologna July 19, 2009

Vent de contestation sur Bologne

Apparently, opera directors around the world can't run anything without some kind of conflicts. Conflicts that can only escalate to dramatic levels in countries such as France and Italy. How long has the revolution been under way in Bologna?
Forever, it seems.

Respect pour le public! Le gouvernement coupe le budget des théâtres de 200 millions d'euros: un char d'assaut en moins. Respect for the public! Governement is cutting the budget for theaters off 200 million euros: the cost of a tank.

"Vous n'avez pas été faits pour vivre comme des brutes." Dante, Inferno L'Art aussi est un bien !!! "You were not made to live like brutes." Art is a good too!!!

NB. Marco Tutino covrintendente e direttore artistico del Teatro Comunale di Bologna Tutino mène le théâtre à la faillite! Sauvons le théâtre! Tutino is running the theater to bankrupcy. Let's save the theater! 

 

Un vrai pays de barbares n'est pas un pays qui n'a jamais connu l'Art mais un pays qui ne sait ni apprécier, ni conserver ses innombrables chefs d'oeuvre. A real barbarian state is not a state where Art never existed but one that doesn't know how to love and preserve its countless masterpieces. 

Teatro comunale, Bologna July 19, 2009

Reliability

Of course people can argue all they want about the recent production of Gluck's Orphée et Eurydice by the Alagna brothers.
Both in Bologna and in Montpellier, the staging was a key issue. Too modern, too provocative, too Eurotrash (I've never actually read that word on the several papers/forums I've been through but it seems to be appropriate).
It doesn't strike me as awful (pictures here) and as a matter of fact, I'm rather intrigued.

The other thing people went nuts about in Bologna was Roberto Alagna's singing. I've heard the broadcast of one perfomance there and it was indeed dreadful.
And I was having second thoughts about that ticket I bought for this summer's Faust in Orange (with Alagna).

A few weeks passed.
And came the Montpellier performances. This time, everybody praised him for his singing.
Jean-Louis Validire for Le Figaro had empathic words about his diction and his energy. Even these guys, who make a habit of trashing everything, were almost kind to him (not to each others though).

This is just why Roberto Alagna bothers me so much.
He is so unreliable.

YouTube extracts:

- interview (in italian, Roberto first then brother David) and extract of "J'ai perdu mon Eurydice" from Bologna (Rai Tre)

Rude awakening

Ouch! What happened to Roberto Alagna during the Christmas Holiday? After all the good reviews he got for his Ramadès in Aïda and his Roméo in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette (MET), the premiere in Bologna of Gluck's Orphée et Eurydice (version de Paris, aka in French) was a disaster. And I'm not talking about the mess his brother David did directing this production, that's hardly a surprise if you know a little about the guy. I'm talking about the singing of Roberto. Out of balance, weak, hardly right, hardly in rythm, hardly anything, really (and it seems I'm definitely not the only one sharing that view, see Parsifal's and OperaChic). The performance was broadcast by Rai Radio Tre and recordings can be found here and there. This production will travel to Montpellier (Jan.29 and Feb.3) where the bookings start tomorrow. Cast: Orphée - Roberto Alagna Eurydice - Laura Giordano in Montpellier (Serena Gamberoni in Bologna) L'amour - Marc Barrard Conductor - Marco Guidarini in Montpellier (Giampaolo Bisanti in Bologna) More on the matter: - "Orphée et Eurydice" con Alagna e Osborn tenori (in Italian) - Orfeo a Bologna: facciamo una retata! (in Italian) - Fratelli flop, Corriere della Sera (in Italian) - ANSA: " Orphée et Eurydice, presentato in un provocatorio riadattamento della partitura di D. Alagna, ha diviso il pubblico di Bologna. Alagna ha reinventato l'opera approntando un prologo per far vedere il matrimonio tra Orfeo e Euridice e la morte di lei dopo un incidente d'auto, ha tagliato e spostato pezzi dell'opera e cambiato il finale: Euridice non ritorna in vita, ma muore per sempre. Tutto questo col consenso del direttore d'orchestra, G. Bisanti." Let's hope Alagna will be in better shape this summer for Orange's Faust...