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.
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