This is an absolute
joy, from beginning to end; a marvellous
piece of theatre conjured up by a kind
of collaboration outside time between
three Italian comic geniuses – Goldoni,
Rossini and Dario Fo.
La Gazzetta
(or, Il matrimonio per concorso)
was premiered at the Teatro de’ Fiorentini
in Naples, on 26 (28 in some accounts)
September 1816. The libretto is by Giuseppe
Palomba, based on a play - not a novel
as the booklet to this DVD suggests
– by the great Italian dramatist Carlo
Goldoni, written in the 1760s, Il
matrimonio per concorso. It was
the only opera buffa that
Rossini wrote for Naples. The first
performance had to be delayed, perhaps
because Rossini was exceedingly busy
both musically – he was, after all,
responsible for twenty-seven operas
between 1812 and 1819 – and socially,
being in the throes of involvement with
his future wife Isabella Colbran. Perhaps
in part because of the pressures of
time, Rossini incorporated a number
of pieces – generally revised and reshaped
a little – from earlier works, and drew
on the assistance of at least one collaborator.
Philip Gossett summarises matters in
his essay (‘Compositional Methods’)
in The Cambridge Companion to Rossini,
ed. E. Senici, 2004:
"It consists of
a Sinfonia and sixteen musical numbers,
joined together by secco recitative.
All the recitative and two musical numbers
were prepared by a collaborator … Four
numbers (and much of the Act I Finale)
are entirely new. Five are taken in
their entirety from earlier operas (four
from Il Turco in Italia, one
from La pietra del paragone).
Major sections of three others (including
the introduzione and the Act
I Finale) are derived from earlier operas
(Sigismundo and Torvaldo e
Dorliska), while a few melodies
in the two remaining pieces, and the
Sinfonia, are borrowed".
Fuller details can
be found in the edition of the opera
by Fabrizio Scipioni and Philip Gossett
(2002). For La Gazzetta to receive
its first modern production, in 1960,
what the booklet of this DVD describes
as "archaeology and surgery in
order to complete its score and libretto"
were needed. In turn, Dario Fo’s version
takes a good many liberties – with the
details, though not, I think, the spirit
– of the ‘original’, so what we are
dealing with here is a complicated kind
of palimpsest. But as a good man of
the theatre I have no doubts that Rossini
would have understood the necessity
for a theatre text to grow and change
and would have approved of Fo’s work.
I suspect, indeed, that Rossini would
have loved this production!
Fo, winner of the Nobel
Prize for Literature in 1997, is not
only a dramatist and an actor-mime,
but also a designer and director, who
has also written theatre-music on occasion.
His sense of the theatre is profoundly
steeped in the traditions of medieval
and later farce, in commedia dell’arte,
in the innovative use of the inherited
comic tradition, most often used for
purposes of political satire. He is
a master of what one might call intellectual
farce. He has previously directed productions
of Il barbiere di Siviglia and
L’Italiana in Algeri.
La Gazzetta’s
splendidly absurd plot centres on the
consequences of the Neapolitan Don Pomponio’s
decision to advertise, in a newspaper,
the fact that he wants to find a husband
for his daughter, whose attractions
are described in his advertisement.
But that daughter, Lisetta, is already
in love with Filippo, landlord of the
hotel in which they are staying and
described in the libretto as "astuto
e bizzarro". Complications involving
a number of other young men and women,
and working towards the discomfiture
of Don Pomponio and other parents unwilling
to let their daughters have their heads,
inevitably ensue and, as in any good
love comedy, the young get their way
- but not before many cross purposes
and confusions.
Fo’s production was
originally undertaken for the Rossini
Opera Festival in Pesaro, later transferring,
with a largely different cast, to Barcelona.
Fo sets the action in Paris early in
the twentieth century, in a fashionable
world in which Don Pomponio is quite
out of place, his Neapolitan mannerisms
the very opposite of Parisian chic.
Fo’s production exploits the basic plot
device as part of a sustained – but
never heavy-handed – satire on the power
of publicity and advertising, of the
media in the broadest sense, in the
modern world. The whole production is
an absolute Catherine wheel of ideas;
the stage is never empty, never still,
peopled with marionettes and dancing
nuns, flags and colourful motor cars,
fashion models and dancers, marionettes
and newspaper-reading men and women,
advertising hoardings and acrobatic
movement, and much, much else. There
are visual jokes galore – some indebted
to the silent movies, some to the traditions
of Italian mime with which Fo is so
well acquainted - and the result is
a delightful visual equivalent to the
aural sparkle of Rossini’s music. There
is a self-referential quality to the
production, with parodies of the death
scenes of opera seria and assertions
that this is ‘only’ a comic opera.
Fo is well served by
a young, handsome and sexy cast, in
which everyone looks the part in a beautifully
dressed production. One has no difficulty
in understanding why there is so much
love and desire in the air! Cinzia Forte
is a delightful, flirtatious, strong-willed
Lisetta, and she sings impressively,
especially at the top of her register;
Marisa Martins is a charming Doralice
and Agata Bienkowska characterises Madama
la Rosa with wit and vocal assurance.
Amongst the young men, Charles Workman’s
bel-canto manner as Alberto makes a
very favourable impression, and Pietro
Spagnoli acts and sings delightfully
as Filippo. Bruno Praticò is
not a singer of the very highest quality,
but in this buffo role his whole manner
and presence are very well calculated,
while seeming entirely natural. The
ensemble numbers – such as the Quartet
in Act I and, especially, the Finale
of Act I, the Trio in Act II – are ravishingly
done, both musically and visually. The
orchestral playing throughout serves
its purposes pretty well, though there
are one or two points at which one might
wish for it to be just a bit more dynamic.
But this is a mere quibble in the face
of a quite splendid achievement. This
is the first recording on DVD of La
Gazzetta. It will surely be a long
time before it is succeeded by a better
one.
Glyn Pursglove
see also review
by Robert Farr
Intermezzo Choir 
