Rossini: Zelmira.(Sound Recording Review)

Futral, Custer; Ford, Siragusa, Palazzi, M. Vinco; Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Chorus, Benini. Text and translation. Opera Rata ORC 27

Zelmira was the last of nine operas that Rossini composed for the Court Theatre of Naples; the title role was created by Isabella Colbran (1785-1845), whose vocal decline, beginning while she was just in her thirties, was well-documented. She apparently still possessed considerable vocal agility even at this late stage of her career (1822), which was to endure just two years after the Zelmira premiere. Andrea Leone Tottola's libretto, about power and intrigues in the city of Lesbos, immediately plunges the audience unprepared into the middle of the action and incorporates several contrived (and incredible) narrative developments. But Rossini has set this confusing story to an excellent score. The clean, masculine thrust of many passages looks ahead to the youthful energy of early Verdi, with bright, well-balanced wind chording making for an unusually brilliant sonority. The ensembles are intricate and finely wrought. Best of all, the composer, with just a few bars of music, immediately establishes the distinctive mood of each scene, with brief; segmented musical motifs evoking the undercurrent of conflict.

Opera Rara's production, recorded in concert at the 2003 Edinburgh International Festival, benefits from the company's customary scholarly preparation, stylistic acumen and intelligent casting. At the podium, Maurizio Benini's crisp vigor yields to a pliant, expressive flexibility in the quieter passages. The choral work is clear, well blended and rhythmically alert--note the precise execution of short pickup notes in "Diluce sfavillante" and "Si fausto momento" in Act I--although the brash, congested sound of the chorus-and-orchestra tuttis is the one blemish on the otherwise exemplary engineering. And it's been a while since I've head abel canto opera so consistently well sung--an astounding achievement from a single performance.

Elizabeth Futral brings an even, easily produced voice to the title role. Her creamy, attractive middle voice ascends to a bright, spinning upper range, and the florid writing poses few problems for her. She begins her final cabaletta--part of her only solo set-piece--with incisive authority, then melts into a gentler tone as the mood changes; in the embellished repeat, she takes the vaulting leaps accurately and in stride. Just occasionally, a lack of real "cut" in the recitatives ...