From around the world: Pesaro.(International--Rossini Opera Festival )(Opera Review)

This year's Rossini Opera Festival focused on two of the composer's greatest works--Semiramide and Le Comte Ory--in new productions that revealed little understanding of their theatrical potential (the directors were roundly booed on the opening nights) but offered considerable musical pleasure. The former work (seen Aug. 8) drew strength from the same soprano-mezzo tandem that triumphed here in Tancredi in 1999. This time it was Bulgarian soprano Darina Takova who took the title role, dominating the large stage of the Palafestival despite her diminutive stature and bewitching the audience with her seductive middle register and psychologically nuanced coloratura. She does not have much of a chest voice, and her extensive upper range does not always respond with the brilliance she seems to expect of it, but she made a real human being of the guilt-ridden Assyrian queen and brought a constant play of light and shade to her duets with Daniela Barcellona (Arsace). The mezzo is a less sophisticated performer--indeed it is her air of emotional candor that makes her so effective in pre-Romantic trouser roles. She also possesses that rare combination: a powerful voice and a natural ease in coloratura. She made expressive use of both in her two big arias. Ildar Abdrazakov is a likable singer with a warm bass voice, but he failed to make much of Assur, and too often he substituted hammy bluster for concentrated legato. Mario Spotti's Oroe proved more successful, thanks in part to exemplary diction, while tenor Gregory Kunde, though not lacking in the necessary style and range for Idreno, is now too dry of voice to be convincing as a young lover.

William Orlandi's single set, beautifully lit, was inspired by the war room in Dr. Strangelove--a bizarre source of inspiration, but effective enough in suggesting the timelessness of a plot dealing with power politics on a grand scale. Unfortunately, the action devised by Swiss director Dieter Kaegi tended to undermine and even trivialize the emotions of the principal characters, making it difficult to believe in what was happening ...