Lucrezia Borgia was the inaugural production at the 2007 Bergamo
Music Festival, which used to be called the Festival Donizetti.
Like the production of Roberto Devereux the previous
year see review,
it has made it onto DVD, under the Naxos label, courtesy of a
licence from the Italian company Dynamic. WE get a brief essay
on Donizetti’s life and a track-related synopsis each given only
in English. The dual-layered disc has a very generous number of
tracks, each with listed timings and details of the characters
involved.
Lucrezia Borgia
opened the Carnival Season at La Scala on 26 December 1833.
The libretto by Romani, the foremost librettist of the day, was
based the plot of Victor Hugo’s Lucrèce Borgia. The play
had been premiered in Paris earlier in the year where it had proved
a great success. It was an obvious basis for an opera. In Milan
Donizetti’s opera found favour with audiences, if less so with
critics, and was soon being produced elsewhere in Italy and abroad.
The action of the
story takes place in Venice and Ferrara in the early sixteenth
century. Lucrezia’s interest in the youth Gennaro is misunderstood
by her husband, Duke Alfonso, who suspects an affair. In reality,
Gennaro is Lucrezia’s son, his identity known only to her. Alfonso
orders the arrest of Gennaro on a charge of having insulted the
Borgia family by defacing their family crest on the wall of the
palace. Lucrezia arranges his escape. Later, at a banquet Lucrezia
poisons a number of her enemies and is devastated to find that
Gennaro is among their number. Gennaro refuses the antidote because
the amount is not sufficient for all his companions. He is horrified
when Lucrezia confesses she is his mother. Gennaro dies and the
distraught Lucrezia follows suit.
This new production,
in the revision by Roger Parker from manuscript sources, was in
collaboration with Teatro Verdi di Sassari and Teatro Regio di
Torino where it seemed to share the plague which afflicted the
other 2007 Italian Opera festivals when leading scheduled singers
withdrew. That Bergamo escaped this plague was perhaps due to
careful casting with the formidable Dimitra Theodossiou scheduled
for the eponymous role and ably supported by good but not international
singers. In fact it was Theodossiou who came to the rescue when
Fiorenza Cedolins pulled out in Turin. As I noted in my review
of the Roberto Devereux from the 2006 Festival referred
to above, whilst Theodossiou cannot claim the vocal elegance and
floated pianissimos of Montserrat Caballé, and must be tired of
comparisons with Callas, she brings committed acting on a par
with her Greek compatriot.
In her own right Theodossiou
is justifiably considered the Norma de nos jours (see review)
and features widely in Italy and elsewhere in the bel canto
repertoire. Her virtues include a clear open tone, without
Callas’s often-occluded notes, allied to good diction alongside
her convincing qualities as an actress. These qualities are shown
in this performance to best effect in Lucrezia’s dramatic confrontation
with Don Alfonso, her husband, who has tricked her into demanding
the death of Gennaro, unbeknown to him, her son. After taking
him full on to the extent of reminding him that she has seen off
three husbands, she ends up pleading desperately for Gennaro’s
life (CHs.21-22). Her husband, still convinced they are lovers,
only offers her the choice of poison or the sword for the boy.
Theodossiou’s skills as a dramatic vocal actress are consummate
in this scene. Her wide variety of tonal depth, colour and expression
are also heard in the final moving cabaletta Era desso il figlio
mio that Donizetti added for a revival at La Scala in 1840
(CH.39). In the contrasting lovely Tranquilla ei posa …
Come’ e bello!…Mentre geme of the prologue,
as Lucrezia arrives in Venice and espies the sleeping Gennaro,
her pianissimos at the start could have been steadier (CHs.5-7).
That said, the overall expressive portrayal is wholly credible.
The only other female
voice is that of Maffio Orsini, young companion of Gennaro. A
trousers role, it is sung by the mezzo Nidia Palacios, whose zany
hairstyle, over-feminine appearance, and some lack of convincing
lower notes detracts from her portrayal (CHs.3 and 34). Such matters
are better portrayed in the appearance, singing and acting of
Roberto De Biasio as Gennaro. I recently admired his vocal prowess
in Maria Stuarda from the 2007 Sferisterio Opera Festival
(see review)
and also as Edgardo in the 2006 Bergamo performance of Lucia
di Lammermoor (see review).
His willingness to sing mezza voce as well as his ardent
open-toned lyric tenor singing impresses me in this arduous role.
The strong dark-toned bass Enrico Giuseppe Iori sings with a good
variety of colour to complement his vocal depth in both his confrontation
with his wife and the setting of the plot for his revenge on Gennaro
(CHs.13-15).
The simple brick-faced
structure of Angelo Sala’s set doubles with minimum additions
for Venice and Ferrara and, like the dark costumes, are wholly
realistic for the period. The bright colours of the dancers in
the party scene highlight the contrast of mood (CH.31). The overall
atmosphere is dark as befits the story. Director Francesco Belloto
reveals the detail of the evolving story with conviction and without
gimmicks. This is evident not least in the managing of the impressive
chorus and the atmosphere created as the coffins are set (CHs.35-39)
in the scene that so offended the censors for the original production.
The darkness of the scenes is matched by the male voices in the
supporting cast, all of whom sing and act with conviction. Conductor
Tiziano Severini paces Donizetti’s drama and supports his singers
in masterly bel canto fashion.
Despite two audio
recordings featuring Caballé (1966 RCA NLA) and Sutherland (1977
Decca 4214972) in the eponymous role, Lucrezia Borgia languished
in near obscurity for nearly a century. Only since the 1960s has
it begun to take its place among staged performances of Donizetti’s
serious operas from this period in his compositional life. It
is scheduled to open the 2009 Buxton Festival (see preview)
and also features in the schedule of a major house in the USA
for the coming season. This DVD serves as an excellent introduction
to the work for potential operagoers who are perhaps not wholly
conversant with the composer’s powerful dramatic creations from
this period between Anna Bolena (1830), his first international
success, and Lucia di Lamermoor, his most melodic and famous
work (1835).
Robert J Farr
Lucrezia Borgia
- Dimitra Theodossiou (soprano); Gennaro - Roberto De Biasio
(tenor); Don Alfonso, Duke of Ferraro – Enrico Giuseppe Iori (bass);
Mafio Orsini, a young nobleman - Nidia Palacios (mezzo); Astolfo
- Mario Corna (bass); Gubetta - Giuseppe Di Paola (bass); Rustighello
- Luigi Albani (tenor) 
[138.11]
