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Bellini, Il pirata: (New Production)  Stephen Metcalf director. Soloists, chorus and orchestra of Opéra de Marseille, Fabrizio Maria Carminati conductor. Marseille, France. 17.2.2009. (MM)

It has been some 150 years since Il pirata took the stage behind the 220 year old facade of Marseille's opera house. Its hall and stage were last rebuilt in 1924 in a fine proto-fascist style, and today it is one of the best buildings for opera in France. The superb acoustic of the hall gave Marseille's fine Il pirata cast the opportunity to really wow the opening night audience, and makes a strong case for more bel canto revivals in the Phoenician city.

France's second city is not an opera town, hosting only a small, six opera season, four or five performances of each piece. This season is unrelentingly interesting, and always includes an obscure opera that is usually more a curiosity than a work of art and in some parts of the world Bellini's Il pirata might have been an ideally appropriate candidate for just such a spot. But in Marseille 'obscure' means truly obscure opera: this season it was Salammbô (Flaubert's novel) by Marseille born Ernest Reyer (whose best known opera is Sigurd).

Too often in the last 220 years, all credit for an opera has been attributed to its composer - reversing the trend of the previous 150 years when most credit was given to the librettist. Il pirata is a famous exception, as critics, and Bellini himself, like to credit the elegant verses of Felice Romani as muse for the soaring musical lines which Bellini imposed on the flashy Rossini model. This new style has come to define Italian musical romanticism - in fact Il pirata is perhaps the first Italian Romantic opera, boasting the first of Romanticism's many mad scenes to boot.

Elegant verse aside, the stories for Neapolitan opera had been degenerating for some time. The precious verse of Rococo librettist Metastasio belonged to rigid Baroque tragedy, but as this genre became psychologically richer, its narratives became correspondingly unwieldy, resulting in a confusion of political tragedy with domestic comedy. Romani's Il pirata transforms its English theatrical antecedents into this kind of bizarre operatic tapestry, a situation ripe for Bellini's arching lines.

Coping with the story of Il pirata is an imposing challenge for the metteur en scène. For Marseille's new production it was English director Stephen Metcalf who navigated the narrative as best he could, and in fact he got us through the maze by superimposing a number of powerful images which flowed above the drama, giving a larger emotional underpinning to Romani's musically ripe if dramatically contrived situations.

Metcalf updated the action of the original source of this story (Byron's poem The Corsair) from the early moments of the nineteenth century to the fascistic flowering of the early twentieth century, making Ernesto a Mussolini-like leader and instilling a sense of the sinister. His wife Imogene is some sort of volunteer nurse in some sort of war effort, so is by definition sympathetic. Gualtiero (il pirata), a political activist/idealist who just happens to be a rival in love, has made it to shore in a Zodiac [a pontooned lifeboat] during a storm.

Ernesto was sung by baritone Fabio Maria Capitanucci, well bodied for buffo, and well versed in the buffo gestures that he grandly used to caricature Mussolini. In the second act he gamely lay dead in an on-stage coffin for forty five minutes or so, before rolling out of it onto the floor, still dead, over whom Imogene sang her fifteen minute mad scene. A special directorial touch was keeping Ernesto and Imogene's son on stage for all their big scenes, the son the absolute spit and image of his father. Imogene sang her big recognition duet with Gualtiero dressed in slacks and a blouse even though we all know that in opera guys wear pants and women wear dresses. No gentleman at all, Gualtiero slapped Imogene when he learned she had a son by Ernesto.

The elegance of Romani's verse be damned. Metcalf seemed unable to decide if the opera were a tragedy or comedy, so he simply went for the guts of the story, thus betraying the purity of the music that Bellini had infused into his melodic spheres.

Costumes were designed by Katia Duflot, omnipresent as the costumer of opera productions along the lower Rhone, and as usual the designs were haute couture, the courtiers all in black, each costume with its own design and its individual decoration. Rain slickers and back brimmed rain hats were constructed of a fabric or substance that hung beautifully, and reflected light prettily, Gualtiero's henchmen were in handsome, beautifully hanging great (infantry) coats. And Imogene's above mentioned well tailored gray slacks and loose silk blouse did indeed shock our sensibilities. Mme. Duflot's costumes were in a world of their own, more importantly beautiful than theatrical.

Marseille is known for solid singing. Il pirata lived handsomely up to this reputation with a right-on performance by Spanish soprano Angeles Blancas Gulìn, happy even to deliver a few soaring Bellini lines lying flat on her back. Her bright tone is subtly reminiscent of the young Callas, her technique is unfaltering, and her diva presence and histrionics were convincing within the context of this production. Imogene's lady in waiting Adele was beautifully sung by Marseille born Murielle Oger-Tomao. Mr. Capitanucci ably delivered a too young Ernesto, solidly enacting the production's concept if not igniting bel canto fires. Giuseppe Gipali, the Gualtiero/il pirata, is an exciting singer, a true bel canto tenor, and a cold performer (was that really him at the end, hanging upside down, dead, twenty feet above the stage?). Tenor Bruno Comparetti was the stylish Itulbo, and bass Ugo Guagliardo added more Italianate vocalism to the performance. Conductor Fabrizio Maria Carminati was sympathetic to the singers, understanding both the Rossininian fire that underlies early Bellini, and the delicate morbidity of emotions that inspire his floating melodies.

Michael Milenski

Picture © Christian Dresse, Opéra de Marseille

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