Rossini/Niedermeyer: Robert Bruce.(Sound Recording Review)

[] Tamar, Balabanova; Rivenq, Edwards, Cicchetti, Chiarolla, Chikviladze, Naviglio; Bratislava Chamber Choir, Orchestra Internazionale d'Italia, Arrivabeni. Text and translation. Dynamic 421/1-2 (Qualiton, dist.)

In 1844, at the age of fifty-two, and with more than three dozen major stage works to his name, Rossini had been out of the business of composing opera for nearly fifteen years. When approached by Leon Pillet, then director of the Paris Opera, for a new work, Rossini deftly suggested a French version of his masterpiece La Donna del Lago. Pillet was not to be put off so easily. In the end, a compromise of sorts was reached by creating a pastiche on the heroic subject of the legendary Scots hero Robert Bruce; Louis Niedermeyer (1802-61), an accomplished composer, librettist and educator, set music from several of Rossini's existing operas to a libretto by Alphonse Royer and Gustave Vaez. The senior composer, who had been acquainted with Niedermeyer since his school days in Italy, gave his approval, and the premiere took place in 1846. The Festival Martina Franca, which has been presenting such rarities since 1984, produced a new edition of Robert Bruce in the summer of 2002. This live recording is the fruit of those performances.

Robert Bruce is a fascinating, well-conceived quilt of an opera, with its biggest patches cut from the cloth of the originally suggested La Donna del Lago. The story, one of warfare and love divided by national boundaries, calls for brooding arias and heroic choral moments. The use of melancholic cavatinas works particularly well, especially in the case of Marie's beautiful "Calme et pensive plage" in Act I (originally Elena's "O mattutini albori" from La Donna) and Bruce's opening sequence in Act III (Polidoro's cavatina from Zelmira). The other best fits are the wonderful Act II trio for Arthur, Marie and Bruce, "Dieu te punisse" (borrowed from La Donna), and the marvelous quartet toward the end of the opera for the two tenors and two ...