Teatro di San Carlo - Roméo et Juliette - 02/23/24

Composer: Charles Gounod 

Librettist: Jules Barbier and Michel Carré 

Conductor: Sesto Quatrini 

Producer/Director: Giorgia Guerra 

Javier Camarena: Roméo 

Nadine Sierra: Juliette 

Gianluca Buratto: Frère Laurent 

Alessio Arduini: Mercutio 

Marco Ciaponi: Tybalt 

Caterina Piva: Stefano 

Annunziata Vestri: Gertrude 

There are quite a few musicians and singers who are on my short list of priorities when it comes to live performances, but who, despite my best efforts, have proven challenging to nail down, especially now that I no longer live in the more or less obligatory stop in an artist’s career that is New York City. 

Mexican tenor Javier Camarena is one of them. I became acquainted with his stupendous vocal talent when he starred in Bellini’s I Puritani at the Metropolitan Opera several years ago, but we regretfully never crossed paths again. I therefore was ecstatically happy when I saw his name on the Teatro di San Carlo’s 2024-2025 season in Charles Gounod’s Roméo and Juliette, even if I was not sure he was quite the right fit for the ill-fated dashing adolescent, being now middle-aged and all. But then, I also noticed that meteorically rising American soprano Nadine Sierra had been tapped to be his Juliette, at the semi-tender opera age of 37, and I signed up. 

So last Sunday, after a fantastic trip to Eastern Sicily that had been planned around the opera’s performance schedule (Priorities, priorities) and a quick stop at the San Carlo’s cafe for a mercilessly strong cappuccino and a divine slice of freshly baked caprese al limone, my Naples opera buddy Vittorio and I settled in our ideally located box, from where we could enjoy a premium view of the stage and the audience, including a young woman who showed up in snakeskin shorts and jackets, stiletto heels, and not much else. You gotta love Naples. 

The only performance of Roméo et Juliette I had attended previously featured Diane Damrau and Vittorio Grigolo, in which she was refreshingly the older half, at the Met several years ago. While I had found it lovely (How can you go wrong with those two?), I probably would not have bothered seeing it again without such exciting leads as Camarena and Sierra. On the other hand, it had just been too long since I had experienced the magic of live opera and I was more than ready to take it all in, especially once I had shut up the chatty Spanish tourists we were sharing our tight space with. 

Roméo may come first in the title, but on Sunday, it was hands-down Juliette who stole the show via a star-making turn by a terrific Nadine Sierra, who owed the part in every possible way and then some. From her first irresistibly endearing appearance as a carefree young girl to her poignant death scene that would seal the tragedy, she had full control of her character’s complex emotional journey and consistently expressed it with utmost precision, nuance and, maybe most important of all, heart. 

The evening’s highlight displayed the full range of her coloratura virtuosity when, in Act 4, she fiercely belted out the unforgivingly taxing poison aria “Amour, ranime mon courage” as a rapidly growing young woman suddenly taking charge of her destiny with steel determination. This show-stopping moment of gripping intensity was rightfully rewarded by a thunderous and seemingly endless ovation, which in turn was rewarded by… another thrilling rendition of it! 

Not to be outdone, Javier Camarena was an unmistakenly ardent, if slightly more measured, Roméo. Besides the splendidly ringing high register that has been his calling card, he too made good use of his full vocal range to convey not only the romantic hero’s impetuosity, but also his dreaminess and elegance. Camarena’s unabated youthful energy and ageless cherubic face (How on earth does he do it?) combined with the solid experience that comes from a long career have obviously given him the technical, emotional and physical tools he needed to come up with an effortlessly relatable Roméo. Add to that plenty of palpable chemistry with his leading lady, and we had a winning couple. 

It must have been hard to keep up with the fired-up duo, but the rest of the cast managed to make very good impressions as well, starting with Gianluca Buratto as a brilliantly multi-faceted Frère Laurent, Marco Ciaponi and Alessio Arduini as highly effective Tybalt et Mercutio respectively, Caterina Piva as a charming Stephano, Annunziata Vestri as an remarkable Gertrude, and Mark Kurmanbayev as an dignified Capulet père. The chorus came through with assertiveness and subtlety, efficiently contributing to the excellent quality of the musical performance. 

Of course, it was all the easiest for us to focus on the superior singing as the visual production was not much to look at. The stage was essentially occupied by huge gray brutalist walls and a square tower that would be used for various purposes, the main one being as backdrops for video projections that were mostly abstract and did not amount to much, except for the large white drawings of Byzantine windows that were probably meant to evoke Renaissance-era Verona. At least this hopelessly dreary look made the sumptuous costumes deservedly stand out, and the fight scene was well-choreographed and cleverly pointed out the sheer insanity of extreme polarization (You don’t say). 

The versatile tower became transparent during the night-time balcony scene — which, by the way, did not feature an actual balcony — and allowed us to see Juliette getting ready for bed with her nurse. At that point, the contrast of the warm candlelight from the indoor scene with the blue light bathing the stage created a simple yet beautifully atmospheric tableau. However, when that same tower slowly descended upon the lovers’ death bed in what had to be an effort to symbolize how the oppressive climate of hatred had won, the move felt claustrophobic, which was not necessarily a bad thing, and gratuitous, which was definitely not a good thing. 

While the score may not be an undisputed masterpiece of the opera repertoire, it is still attractive enough to keep the audience engaged in the story, even if everybody probably knows about the unhappy ending. On Sunday, under Roman maestro Sesto Quatrini’s muscular conducting, the ever-reliable orchestra may have occasionally played with a hot-bloodedness that was more Italian than French, but the pace was good and the sound compact, and everybody kept up. There were a lot of moving parts in this busy production, and Quatrini kept everything under relatively tight control all the way to the narratively and visually dreadful conclusion. Thank God for the music.

The Hagen Quartet - Schumann & Schubert - 01/29/25

Robert Schumann: String Quartet, Op. 41, No. 3 

Franz Schubert: String Quintet in C Major (D. 956, Op. 163) 

 Enrico Bronzi: Cello 

Who said January was quiet in Rome? Well, I may have, but I was quickly proved wrong lately with not only a terrific performance by the orchestra and chorus of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia a couple of weeks ago, but also by the endlessly globe-trotting Austrian Hagen Quartet last Wednesday night at the same Parco della Musica Ennio Morricone, whose close proximity to my apartment was particularly appreciated for the latter since the concert was scheduled to start at the ungodly hour of 8:30 PM. 

But how could right-minded music afficionados resist a double bill featuring Schumann and Schubert? Turned out not many did, as I found out a week or so before the concert, when I was informed by email that it had been moved from the small Sala Sinopoli to the medium-sized Sala Petrassi. The heart-warming change was not without its challenges though, as many audience members apparently had not realized that a different venue meant a different seat, or had not checked the message at all. But thanks to the ever-patient ushers, everybody eventually found their seat and the performance finally got underway. 

Schumann’s String Quartet, Op. 41, No. 3 has probably one of the dreamiest openings of the entire chamber music repertoire, and as expertly played by the as-tight-as-ever Hagen Quartet (Practice does make perfect, and they’ve had over four decades of it), it certainly had a wonderfully calming effect on the audience who just a few minutes before was still in the throes of utter confusion. And it only got better from there. 

Although Schumann dedicated his Op. 41 to his friend Felix Mendelssohn, the influence of the usual suspects that are Mozart and Beethoven were clearly felt as well, and in the best possible way, of course. The work’s infinite complexity and its wide variety of ideas, as well as its inherent attractiveness, makes it a joy to hear it over and over again, and Wednesday’s glowing performance was no exception. 

Since Schumann’s half of the program was only about 30 minutes, it felt like the intermission came a bit early, but then again, it was needed for audience and musicians since the Schubert’s half would clock in at about 50 minutes. And what 50 minutes! I think that neophytes and connoisseurs would all agree that only one listen to the String Quintet in C Major explains why it has been called “epic” and “extraordinary”, among many other superlatives. Moreover, the fact that it was written shortly before Schubert’s untimely death, and neglected for 25 years, makes you wonder how many other classical music masterpieces lie somewhere in undeserved obscurity, but let’s not get side-tracked.

Back to the Sala Petrassi on Wednesday evening, the sense of awe routinely produced by a live interpretation of the work quickly filled the concert hall as the Hagen Quartet and their special guest cellist Enrico Bronzi confidently delivered a technically flawless, emotionally gripping and, maybe even more important in this case, seamlessly unified, performance of Schubert’s masterpiece. I mean, it cannot be an easy task for an Italian musician to fit in so well into such a highly Germanic affair, but Bronzi nailed it. 

One of the most striking characteristics of Schubert’s stunning composition, besides its unusual length and the bold addition of a cello, is the seemingly bottomless well of ideas the tireless composer drew inspiration from. As it was coming to life in front of us on Wednesday night, the quintet’s expansive range of moods, from exquisite Viennese gemütlichkeit to irrepressible death-related terror to infectious folk-music exuberance, not to mention its sheer beauty, made it an exciting ride as well as a poignant swan song. And a priceless gift to us.

Orchestra e Coro dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia - Schubert & Rossini - 01/18/25

Franz Schubert: Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D. 759 (The Unfinished) 

Gioachino Rossini: Stabat Mater 

Conductor: Myung-Whun Chung 

Bass: Adolfo Corrado 

Mezzo-soprano: Teresa Iervolino 

Soprano: Chiara Isotton 

Tenor: Levy Sekgapane 

After some wonderfully laid-back holidays and a quiet first half of January – Apparently most of the hordes expected for Rome’s 2025 Jubilee are charitably holding back for now – things perked up a little bit last weekend when the brilliant Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and its equally brilliant chorus went to work on an exciting program featuring Schubert’s perennially popular Unfinished symphony and Rossini’s less well-known but definitely worth-knowing Stabat Mater at the nearby Parco della Musica Ennio Morricone. 

The link between the German and the Italian composers may not have been obvious at first, at least to me, except that anything having survived from their respective œuvres would probably satisfy even the pickiest music lover. But then our listening guide Stefano Catucci helpfully pointed out in his introduction that both artists, while fully aware of the Zeitgeist they lived in, were also wistfully looking back into the recent past in which the ubiquitous melody reigned supreme and, having learned their lesson, eventually used it as not just a significant ingredient, but the core, of their compositions. Et voilà.

So last Saturday, after the rain stopped and the sky cleared up, it was in this enlightened state of mind that I sat down in the packed Sala Santa Cecilia to become reacquainted with an old Schubertian friend and make the acquaintance of what was about to become a new Rossinian favorite. 

For some reason that I have never been able to explain, I was not really won over by Schubert’s Unfinished when I first heard it many years ago. But I have inevitably come to my senses since then as it has slowly grown on me, and I am now one of its biggest fans. And seriously, what’s not to love about an ambitious tour de force that offers the best of both worlds, the intense lyricism of the budding Romantic movement and the rigorous structure of the late Classical era? It is not by chance that it is routinely considered the first Romantic symphony. It is just too bad that Schubert never got around to, well, finishing it. 

But finished or not, Schubert’s eighth symphony is still a glorious experience for anyone undertaking it, as Korean maestro Myung-Whun Chung and the orchestra proved last Saturday in a very satisfying performance that felt both grand and intimate, and did not leave any detail to chance. Conductor and musicians indeed made sure that the abrupt shifts of mood of the highly contrasted first movement were vigorously conveyed but not off-putting, before giving us priceless opportunities to indulge in a bit of high-quality Weltschmerz in the quieter second movement. And then it was over before we knew it. 

After intermission, we stayed in the early 19th century but jumped from Germany to Italy for the Stabat Mater that Rossini was commissioned to write several years after retiring from opera composition. Fact is, the Latin medieval hymn describing the Virgin Mary’s suffering as her son Jesus Christ was being crucified has been adapted plenty of times throughout the centuries, but after being totally carried away by its dazzling power last Saturday, I would err to guess that Rossini’s flamboyant take on it is probably the most terrifically entertaining version of them all. 

Besides the orchestra, which effortlessly transitioned between the two wildly different genres, the superb chorus of the Accademia Nazionale of Santa Cecilia impeccably came through as well. Among the four soloists saddled with mercilessly challenging parts, the fearless ladies, mezzo-soprano Teresa Iervolino and soprano Chiara Isotton, fared better, but tenor Levy Sekgapane and bass Adolfo Corrado got the job done efficiently too. In the end, this Stabat Mater may have sounded a bit colorful and down-to-earth – in a word, a bit “secular” – for such elevated liturgical text, but it also was seriously uplifting, which is after all not a bad way to kick off the New Year. Onward and forward.