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By ANDREW POWELL BOLOGNA \u2014 Two years ago all was bleak in music circles here. Orchestra Mozart had folded. Claudio Abbado died. Teatro Comunale<\/a> lumbered toward a fiscal guillotine mandated by the government. Now, the sun is back, much of it radiating from the reorganized opera house where Nicola Sani<\/a> holds sway as sovrintendente<\/em>. Certain theater functions have been outsourced, yet Sani retains his unions\u2019 visible cooperation. The nation, the region and the comune<\/em> (900 years old this year) underwrite his artistic program, as do private firms, starting with Bologna-born Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A., which parks a silver specimen in the foyer (called Foyer Respighi after the native composer, not Foyer Lamborghini). House income and expenses are perusable online. Tickets are affordable. An intermission glass of water (in a glass) costs 50 euro cents, the fresh torta di mele<\/em> two euros. Not surprisingly Teatro Comunale is constantly full, its cheerful buzz spilling out onto Piazza Verdi<\/a> and into the adjacent student-frequented caf\u00e9s; any student can attend, and everyone knows it. Opera crowds, young and old, dress with a kind of sloppy elegance, as if perfect colors and fabrics chose themselves, but the listening is attentive \u2014 which is just as well because Sani offers two aces: direttore musicale<\/em> Michele Mariotti<\/a>, probably the most \u201ccomplete\u201d young Italian conductor around, and maestro del coro<\/em> Andrea Faidutti<\/a>, builder of an outstanding, musically alert team. For this season\u2019s Attila<\/em> (heard and seen Jan. 30 and 31) and Beethoven\u2019s Ninth Symphony (Feb. 7) both were busy.<\/p>\n Newly staged by Daniele Abbado<\/a> and co-produced with Teatro Massimo di Palermo<\/a> and Teatro La Fenice di Venezia<\/a>, the Verdi unfolded amid gloomy gray panels depicting nothing much, its action scheme stand-and-sing. Two quartets of principal singers enabled seven performances here in nine days, the first one (Jan. 23) televised by RAI<\/a>. On Jan. 30, Stefanna Kybalova<\/a> sang an agile, powerful Odabella; Giuseppe Gipali<\/a> phrased Foresto\u2019s music handsomely, though his voice went to the sides, not forward; and Gezim Myshketa<\/a> intoned incisively as Ezio. Riccardo Zanellato<\/a>\u2019s obsessive invader sounded remarkably smooth and warm, with plenty of capacity; acting is not his strong suit. The next night the cast of the prima<\/em> returned, except that Ildebrando d\u2019Arcangelo<\/a>\u2019s dramatically vivid, but in the long lines unsteady, Attila did not make it past the Prologue. Jumping in, Zanellato this time moved and sang a little more wildly in his portrayal, without loss of vocal opulence. Maria Jos\u00e9 Siri<\/a>\u2019s Odabella had expressive power and a degree of magnetism, while Fabio Sartori<\/a>\u2019s awkward, rotund Foresto dealt only in f<\/em>, ff<\/em> and fff<\/em>. The Jan. 31 Ezio proved especially fine, singing with imagination and reserves of power; Simone Piazzola<\/a> is the name. Mariotti presided over a somewhat undersized string section, so that the score\u2019s cantabile<\/em> qualities were impaired. (Attila<\/em> is at least his fourth Verdi opera, after Simon Boccanegra<\/em>, Rigoletto<\/em> and Nabucco<\/em>, and this month he adds I due Foscari<\/em> in Milan.) But his reading had conviction and sweep, and on both evenings he and the orchestra \u2014 more than any cast member \u2014 drew the loudest, longest applause.<\/p>\n If anything, Mariotti had more to say about Beethoven\u2019s symphony. Conducting with a concern for lyricism that never softened the rhetoric, he drew virtuosic work from the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale<\/a> strings and, as in Schubert and Mendelssohn last year<\/a>, picked out just the right details to create a beautiful and cogent interpretation. Upshot: rhythmic applause, foot-stomping, smiles all round. At 68 minutes with brief pauses, Mariotti\u2019s Nona<\/em> was neither fast nor slow but merely the sum of apparently artlessly judged tempos. The first movement\u2019s turbulent exchanges emerged in plain relief despite intermittent problems in the winds. The conductor sprang the Scherzo\u2019s rhythms emphatically, playing up contrasts and accentuating colors. He ennobled the third movement on pastoral, not grandiose, terms, drawing attention to collateral ideas. Through the last movement, he kept a steady momentum without slighting the episodic drama or exaggerating one dimension at the expense of another. Faidutti\u2019s choristers<\/a> projected forcefully into the comfortable 1,034-seat house, but their work also had precision and plenty of shading, in discernible German. Vocal soloists Carmela Remigio<\/a>, Veronica Simeoni<\/a>, Michael Schade<\/a> and Michele Pertusi<\/a> neatly complemented their colleagues.<\/p>\n Photos \u00a9 Rocco Casaluci (Attila), Michele Lapini (Beethoven concert), Teatro Comunale di Bologna (Piazza Verdi)<\/p>\n Related posts:
Published: March 25, 2016<\/span><\/p>\n
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