Bel Canto Perfection!!!
After three Rossini Opera Festival releases were marred by questionable staging, it is a huge delight to have one of Rossini's last Neapolitan opera seria available in an exciting, more traditional staging. And sung to near perfection, as well! In fact, not one member of this cast did less than a five star job on some extremely demanding music.
Osborne ("The Bel Canto Operas")refers to the plot as "senseless and complicated", which it is, truth to tell. But the music, gentle reader is sublime, in the main, but demands a first rate cast to realize the beauty and complexities of the score.
Juan Diego Florez is a favorite at our home; whether on CD or (preferably) DVD, JFD has the range, skills and intelligence to bring life to roles that have been abandoned for decades, in part, because there was no one who could handle the tessatura and coloratura demands they present. Tenors who sing Verdi, Puccini and the later great Italian composers simply cannot navigate in...
Perfect Cast .. a Rossini delight
One of my most favorite operas and having seen several version going back to the very early quite bizarre Pesaro production with a young Florez - this one is a delight to watch. There are no poor performers in the cast - both in voice and acting. The staging is the recycled double helix stairs set from several prior Pesaro productions but this version moves with more confidence and slickness. Florez is in commanding style and being that much older - more believable in his role, but the Neapolitan poet role of Isidoro is very well handled as is Matilde and Edgardo.
People say the story is odd - but not really. It's essentially a reverse Taming of the Shrew but also a parody of characters with exaggerated personality aspects. The 3 CD Decca recording of 2006 if superior musically as some of the music on this DVD is a wee bit muted and less energetic, possibly a result of the live recording pick-up.
There are English subtitles but speaking Italian I enjoyed watching with...
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