Pesaro. (International).(Le Nozze di Teti, e di Peleo, La Donna del Lago, La Gazzetta)(Review)

The opening production of this year's Rossini Opera Festival was not an opera at all but a staged concert -- entitled Le Nozze di Teti, e di Peleo -- constructed around the cantata of that name composed for the Bourbons in Naples in 1816, with additional music from other cantatas (Giunone, La Riconoscenza) and a series of operas (Armida, Cenerentola, Barbiere). The setting was the newly built open-air theater on the grounds of the historic Villa Caprile, and on the opening night (Aug. 10), the white neo-classical set created a truly magical effect against the rising columns of cypress trees in the background. The production by Pier Luigi Pizzi tended toward parody, poking fun at the confusion generated by the composer's self-borrowings, the tics of the singers in the cast (who paraded along a catwalk around the orchestra), and the director's own visual cliches: the perfect symmetry of the ballet from Armida -- neatly performed by the Balletto del Sud -- came to a slippery end when the dancers were drenched with water.

Vocally, the interest was focused less on Teti and Peleo (dull roles dutifully performed by Cinzia Forte and Juan Jose Lopera) than on the star turns by Ewa Podles (Giunone), Rockwell Blake (Giove) and Patrizia Ciofi (Cerere). The climax of the evening was the performance -- brilliantly accompanied by Bologna's Teatro Comunale Orchestra led by Giuliano Carella -- of Almaviva's "Cessa di piu resistere" and its subsequent adaptations: Cerere's "Ah, non potrian resistere" and Cenerentola's "Non piu mesta." In Cerere's aria, written for soprano Isabella Colbran, Ciofi offered moments of dense legato and refined dynamics in the style of the Romantic heroines she usually plays, while, as Angelina, Podles flaunted camped-up mimicry and spectacular leaps across the octaves. In Blake's performance of the aria from Barbiere, on the other hand, the parody seemed more involuntary than deliberate, for his well-oiled voice is no longer sustained by acceptable tone.

Podles confirmed her comic talent in a recital at the Teatro Sperimentale (Aug. 14), where she sang a brilliant "Cruda sorte" from ...