Antonino Fogliani

Ugo, conte di Parigi is widely regarded as Gaetano Donizetti's most obscure opera, having closed after only four performances in 1832. Its first modern revival was not given until a concert performance held in London in 1977, on which occasion it was recorded and issued as the first in Opera Rara's survey of Donizetti's complete operatic output, garnering considerable acclaim. In more recent times the Italian label Dynamic has instituted its own Donizetti series and has now gotten around to Ugo, conte di Parigi. For its recording, Dynamic has utilized a live performance from Teatro Donizetti in Bergamo held in October 2003 and featuring exciting young Romanian soprano Doina Dimitriu.

In a time when operas are often set to different contexts from the ones they were intended for, a philological production has its merits, representing both a rediscovery and a provocation. This Barbiere di Siviglia, which at first sight might appear old-fashioned, restores, in fact, to perfection the setting of an early 19th-centrury Italian theatre. It was a time when the glorious tradition of popular comedy, a direct descendant of the 16th-century “commedia dell’arte”, was very much alive, and the singers entertained the audience with humor that was direct and catchy.

Performed for the first time in its original uncut version, this production of Guillaume Tell was the jewel in the crown of the 25-year history of the ‘Rossini in Wildbad’ opera festival. Rossini’s final, great, operatic masterpiece is a story of liberation, the oppressed Swiss attaining their ideal of emancipation by hounding the tyrannical Habsburgs out of their country. Although it was composed for the complex demands of the Paris Opéra, numerous dances, choruses and arias were dropped for reasons of practicality. These are restored in the present recording which also includes the stunning finale of the shorter 1831 version of the opera.

Bianca e Falliero was commissioned by La Scala, Milan, for its prestigious Carnival season of 1819–20, enjoying a run of no fewer than 39 performances. Rossini responded with a score the virtuosity and expressivity of which outdid even his Neapolitan works. Prevailing tastes at La Scala meant that ensembles predominated over arias but behind the conventional dictates Rossini lavished the utmost care on his work, fashioning an opera full of dramatic coloratura and powerful theatrical craft and notable for its rich and often surprising use of harmony.

In July 1835 Donizetti was to have staged the first of the three new operas for which he had signed a contract with the management of the San Carlo theatre; but things, as so often happens in the world of opera, did not work out as the composer had intended. The subject - Walter Scott’s The Bride of Lammermoor - had long since been chosen but the direction had not provided for having the libretto written so that it could be read and approved by the censor by the beginning of March, four months before the scheduled date of the première, as the contract stipulated. At the end of May, at the composer’s urgent bidding, the writing of the libretto was entrusted to Salvatore Cammarano, destined to become one of the composer’s favourite working partners: yet the date of the première, inevitably, had to be postponed. After many problems, Lucia di Lammermoor was at last staged on the evening of 26th September 1835.

A musically strong and visually spectacular production…In a very traditional staging, Lee brings an enormous amount of visual detail to the opera…Aida and Amneris lead with superb performances, extracting every ounce of the psychological drama of the later acts…The orchestra, under Fogliani’s direction, play with a brilliant palette of colours. (MusicWeb International)

Following his triumphant visit to Vienna in 1822, when several of his operas were extremely well-received, international success beckoned for Rossini. First performed at La Fenice, Venice in 1823, Semiramide was Rossini’s last Italian opera, written at the height of his creative powers. Its subject is Greek tragedy for which librettist Gaetano Rossi drew on an adaptation by Voltaire. Instrumentally sophisticated and classically structured, the opera remains one of the most remarkable examples of Rossini’s cultivation of bel canto.

A highly regarded composer in his day and considered the equal of Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti, Saverio Mercadante pioneered the transformation of bel canto opera into real music drama. He wrote the operatic tragedy I Briganti (The Brigands) not only to prove himself to the Parisian public but as a direct challenge to Bellini’s I puritani, premièred the previous year. Mercadante’s individual style of canto fiorito and distinctive theatricality demonstrate that opera need not be a mere succession of virtuoso vocal arias, and it paved the way for Verdi’s later dramas. Prepared from a new critical edition, this production was described as ‘outstanding’ by The New York Times.

The great writer Stendhal wrote of Il viaggio a Reims that “this opera is a feast”. The plot is a contemporary farce tailor-made for a particular occasion—the coronation festivities of Charles X—though Rossini valued the music so highly that he reused at great part of the score three years later in the opera Le Comte Ory. With a cast of ten principal and eight smaller rôles, this sparkling work is heard complete for the first time and in accordance with the critical edition prepared by the Fondazione Rossini and Casa Ricordi.

Numerous myths surround the supposed failure of Ermione, and while Rossini himself feared the subject might be ‘overly tragic’, he was clearly fond of the work, keeping its manuscript until his death. Ermione is set in the aftermath of the Trojan War, with the Greek princess Ermione consumed with jealousy because Pirro has forsaken her and fallen in love with Andromaca, the widow of Hector. This complex web of emotional turmoil explores the calamitous consequences of passion between larger-than-life characters, with Rossini’s captivating lyrical expressiveness and spectacular vocal acrobatics superbly performed in this acclaimed Rossini in Wildbad production.