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Rigoletto in Pisa


Rigoletto in Pisa

Giuseppe Verdi: RIGOLETTO, Teatro Verdi.

 Rigoletto - Sadovnikova and chorus, fotos Massimo d´Amato


Rigoletto – Ekaterina Sadovnikova and chorus, fotos Massimo d´Amato

Review: Fabio Bardelli. Fotos: Massimo d´Amato

PISA/ITALY: The Opera Season of the Teatro Verdi in Pisa opened with one the most performed operas by Verdi, Rigoletto
. For a regional House such as Teatro Verdi in Pisa to stage a Rigoletto is a real challenge, and in fact far more prestigious Houses have sometimes stumbled on unreliable editions.

Gianna Fratta

Overall this edition had some interest, mostly the reliable and on safe conducting approach of Gianna Fratta (curious and quite rare, at least for us Italian, to see a woman on the podium), who followed a traditional view of the splendid Verdi’s masterpiece. Sudden ignitions but without exaggeration alternated to oasis of color research (which sometimes could also be more marked, so much refined is the music writing in Rigoletto), and Ms. Fratta accompanied the singers with a decent appropriateness apart from some avoidable inaccuracies. However a great sense of theater and a pressing narrative have to be acknowledged to the young conductor.

Elia Fabbian

Rigoletto. Fabbian. photo: Massimo d´Amato. Firenze

Rigoletto. Elia Fabbian in the titelrole. photo: Massimo d´Amato
. Firenze

The main character, Rigoletto, was baritone Elia Fabian, who displayed a certain security both scenic both vocal in defining his character even if with a certain vagueness as an interpreter.

Perhaps some excessive emphasis caused in the baritone a certain weariness which led to abrupt voice drop in “Veglia o donna”, but he later got on the right track by outlining with a certain craft the father-buffoon character.

Ekaterina Sadovnikova

Soprano Ekaterina Sadovnikova was a “light” Gilda following the tradition, with a good technique that allows to extricate herself in not exactly easy vocal lines that the composer entrusts to Rigoletto’s daughter. The voice is pleasant and runs well through the house even if without a large volume, maybe the soprano wasn’t very expressive in singing but overall she got a positive performance.

Roberto Iuliano

Rigoletto, Iuliano Foto: Massimo d´Amato

Rigoletto, Iuliano as Il Duce di Mantova. Foto: Massimo d´Amato

Tenor Roberto Iuliano was technically less trained, but has a voice characterized by a certain thickness and with a remarkable generosity in singing, although he gets to the end of the opera with some effort.

Antonio di Matteo

The considerable voice of the young bass Antonio di Matteo as Sparafucile was a pleasant surprise, however he should improve his technique and interpretative intentions.

Rigoletto, Fabbian and Marino

Rigoletto, Fabbian and Marino

The rest of the vocal cast was of an average acceptable level.

The Orchestra Filarmonia Veneta and Coro Live trained by Flavia Bernardi gave a decent performance.

Federico Bertolani

The staging by Federico Bertolani had as its fundamental aspect in lugubrious black color, both in scenes both in costumes, although with some rare coloristic lighting. A Rigoletto with no particular ideas, cold and algid, set in modern but not too well specified times, with rather anonimous costumes, whose story takes place on a stage where panels are moved to delimit one or an other environment. Really bad was the first scene of the first act where the almost orgiastic feast looked like a gloomy funeral, and generally the acting of the characters and especially of the choir was too schematic, but that aside in the complex there wasn’t almost nothing of particularly regrettable.

The success was very warm for everyone from the crowded audience that filled out the Teatro Verdi.

Production:

Direttore, Gianna Fratta
Regia, Federico Bertolani
Scene, Giulio Magnetto
Costumi, Mirella Magagnini

Orchestra Filarmonia Veneta

Coro Live
Maestro del coro, Flavia Bernardi

Rigoletto, Elia Fabbian
Gilda, Ekaterina Sadovnikova
Duca di Mantova, Roberto Iuliano
Maddalena, Sofia Janelidze
Sparafucile, Antonio di Matteo
Conte di Monterone, Ivan Marino
Giovanna, Elena Rosolin
Contessa di Ceprano / Un paggio,
 Simonetta Baldin
Borsa, Luca Favaron
Marullo, Romano Franci
Il Conte di Ceprano, Paolo Bergo
Usciere di corte, Riccardo Ambrosi

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