Beyond the obviously crowd pleasing
by Phill Ward
Tutino: Le Bel Indifferent
Poulenc: Les Mamelles de Tirésias
Verdi: Don Carlo
Macerata Festival 2005
With its iconic Roman Arena, it's easy to assume that Verona is the
soul provider of operatic fare in the Italian summer. But the facts
are an altogether different story - up and down this sun-baked
peninsula, alfresco artistry abounds. The closest challenge to
Veronan supremacy is the season held in the Sferesterio in the
tranquil hill town of Marcerata in Le Marche.
Unlike the predictably unchallenging repertoire of the
tourist-dominated city of Romeo and Juliet, Macerata at least makes
an attempt to look at the art form beyond the obviously crowd
pleasing. The season opener this summer was a quite
unconventional double bill given in the delightfully intimate confines
of the city's Teatro Lauro Rossi. This project paired the world
premiere of Marco Tutino's monodrama Le Bel Indifferent with
Poulenc's surrealist high comedy Les Mamelles de Tirésias.
Tutino's dramatic source is a 1940's stage scenario that Jean
Couteau penned for Edith Piaf. A woman paces her elegant
apartment awaiting the return of her evidently errant lover. When
he does show up he's entirely indifferent to her protestations;
stripping, bathing, smoking and eventually leaving to, doubtless,
pursue yet another conquest. In the Piaf role here was the
outstanding Monica Bacelli, whose every movement galvanised
attention while her performance of such a demanding role - the
composer leaving his female protagonist nowhere to hide - left no
emotion unturned. In the mime role of the lover, Danilo Fernandez
was suitably homme fatale. Tutino's score, pleasingly sophisticated
on the ear, occupies a somewhat conventional musical landscape,
but his writing showed acute sensitivity to the neuroses of the twists
and turns of his character's agonies. Le Bel Indifferent would make a
perfect companion piece to Poulenc's La Voix Humaine or Menotti's
The Telephone.
Pierre Luigi Pizzi provided a coolly minimalist interior for his
production with white, midnight blue and mirror surfaces. These
served the Tutino rather better than the Poulenc which really calls
for a rather more earthy setting - still Pizzi made the most of some
witty Tricolour costuming, including red balloons standing in for the
eponymous breasts. Pizzi worked the energetic and well-balanced
cast hard, but in spite of their witty delivery and the generally crazy
tone of this humour-laden piece, the audience seldom stirred into
audible mirth - perhaps performing it in the original French was not
such a good idea?

These productions marked the beginning of a co-production
relationship with the State Opera of Prague. The visiting Czech
orchestra played with rather more enthusiasm than technical finesse
under the spirited guidance of conductor Guillame Tourniaire.
Meanwhile the main focus of the festival is the huge space of the
Sferisterio (a thoroughly intimate one compared with the vast
expanse of Verona), an eccentric early 19th century building
consisting of tiered loggia that sweep around a semi-circle enclosed
on the other side by a huge blank wall. This was once home to a
local variety of polo, but the redoubtable match played out on this
occasion was the sparring of liberty versus oppression in the shape
of Verdi's Don Carlo. Musically the performance was in the highly
experienced hands of Gustav Kuhn. Rising to the challenges of
creating dramatic atmosphere in such an enormous chamber, that
nevertheless possesses an agreeably focused acoustic, Kuhn
inspired the players of the Orchestre Filharmonica Marchigiana to
give an interpretation that balanced the blazing passages of the
Auto da Fe with the intimacies of the doomed love of Elisabetta and
Carlo. Likewise his well-chosen cast ensured this was a fine
performance - in other circumstances Andrea Silvestrelli's imposingly
sung King Philip could make a major impact, as it was here his huge
vocal presence lacked sufficient focus. With some directorial input
David Sotgui in the title part might have physically relaxed and
stiffness might not have crept into what was a promising
performance. Tiziano Carraro worked hard to project a fiery Eboli,
but Michela Sburlati's Elisabetta failed to register much impact. It
was left to Vladimir Stoyanov's virile and heroic Rodrigo to fully
engage with role and staging - though I suspect his natural stage
presence took over when directorial imagination was all but absent.
Dramatically the production was in the rather less confident hands of
Lorenzo Fonda who also designed the sets. Two vast sculptural
torsos acted as bookends for some impressively arty structures,
some suggesting the collage imagery of Kurt Schwitters. A wobbly
pyramid of stained glass let off an unconvincing puff of smoke to
undermine a thoroughly feeble Auto da Fe. With such a huge space
to fill, maybe there was little time left for thinking out any actual
direction. The cast wandered about in an aimless fashion with
physical expression closer to semaphoring than acting - for instance
it was several seconds before Elisabetta reacted to Carlos fainting in
the crucial first scene. The chorus arrived and departed enblock, and
fortunately there was no stage furniture to negotiate. Costumes
looked like stock and very ill chosen at that - the sight of Philip II
in
a yellow bathrobe was a sight to be cast into the dustbin of memory.
Another case of a gifted designer failing to get to grips with the
crucial requirements of character motivation.
Maybe all this was because the original publicity included the citation
based on an idea by Katia Riccarelli (Macerata's Artistic Director).
Well, not a very strong one it would appear.