Rossini - Matilde di Shabran [Frizza, Florez]

Classical | 3 CD | EAC | APE+CUE, no LOG | Covers LQ | 799 MB | RS | TT 185'

Released: September 2006 | Label: DECCA

Chiara Chialli,Carlo Lepore,Gregory Bonfatti,Lubomir Moravec,Bruno Taddia,

Juan Diego Flórez, Annick Massis,Marco Vinco,Hadar Halevy, Bruno De Simone,

Prague Chamber Chorus, Galicia Symphony Orchestra, Riccardo Frizza (conductor)

"Here is treasure indeed: a memorable recording of Rossini's grand, exhilarating, yet down the years too little noticed Matilde di Shabran." (Gramophone)

Complete GRAMOPHONE Review:Here is treasure indeed: a memorable recording of Rossini’s grand, exhilarating, yet down the years too little noticed Matilde di Shabran. A comic-heroic romp written for the 1821 Roman carnival but substantial revised for Naples later that same year, the opera is an important staging-post between Rossini’s two earlier Roman entertainments, Il barbiere di Siviglia and La Cenerentola, and their Parisian successors Il viaggio a Reims and Le Comte Ory, to which Matilde bequeathed a couple of movements. What is new here is the extent to which the comedy is driven by a spirit of parody. Parody had long been a weapon in Rossini’s comic armoury. Now, at the end of a decade during which he had single-handedly revolutionised Italian opera in both its comic and serious forms, he is man enough to start sending up himself.

The opera soon dropped from the repertory, dogged by travellers’ tales of a bizarre plot (a raving misogynist, a mad poet, damsels being thrown off cliffs) and an impossible-to-sing leading role. It re-emerged from the shadows at the 1996 Pesaro Rossini Opera Festival. Bruce Ford was cast as Corradino. When he withdrew, the 23-year-old Juan Diego Flórez stepped in, to sensational effect. This 2004 Pesaro production, based on Jürgen Selk’s new Critical Edition, catches Flórez at the peak of his powers. The plot, by Cenerentola librettist Giacomo Ferretti, is less complicated than its genesis might suggest. Corradino, a parody tyrant said to loathe women, poets, and all other affronts to his masculinity, resides in a Spanish castle whose welcome notices include such gems as ‘He who enters here will have his neck broken’. In Act 1, he is trapped into loving. With the tyrant tyrannised, Act 2 finds him in a series of even bigger fixes, from which he is eventually rescued by the poet he once threatened to liquidate and the woman he has loathed, loved, and tried to kill.

Spectacular as the role of Corradino is, there are no solo arias. This is ensemble opera par excellence. His spectacular entry - pure Errol Flynn - turns into a quartet. His first meeting with Matilde takes place in the latter half of the Act 1 Quintet. Later, despite Corradino’s best efforts to silence young Edoardo, their Act 2 duet remains just that: a duet. The joke fails, of course, if the singer playing Corradino lacks the wherewithal to drive a coach and horses through Rossini’s cunningly contrived maze. Flórez is terrific, literally so at times.

Matilde is sister to Isabella and Rosina, albeit a soprano brandishing high C sharps and the occasional top F. Unlike Corradino, she does have a solo aria, the opera’s showpiece finale, vividly thrown off by Annick Massis, who is well matched to Flórez histrionically and vocally. The two other leading players are Isidoro, a down-at-heel poet who ends up running the show, and the androgynously charming Edoardo, captive son of Corradino’s arch-enemy Don Raimondo. Rossini conceived the roles for the Neapolitan buffo Antonio Parlamagni and his daughter, Annetta, then refined them in the rewrite. In Naples, Isidoro was played (as here, in Neapolitan dialect) by the legendary buffo Carlo Casaccia. Decca’s Bruno de Simone is the gamest of Isidoros, Hadar Halevy a mellifluous-sounding Edoardo.

Isidoro bears the brunt of the stretches of secco recitative: eight minutes before the Act 1 finale, a further stretch as the plot thickens midway through Act 2. None of this hangs heavy. This being a distillation of five live theatre performances, the entire cast and fortepiano player Rosetta Cucchi are fully engaged with the drama.

Riccardo Frizza’s conducting is fierce and sharp-edged in the modern style. Occasionally I miss that Gui-like turn of the wrist which distinguishes the musician from the martinet but Frizza’s marshalling of the all-important ensembles is rarely less than masterly. The recording has the voices well forward, the orchestra a little too much to the rear. If the stereo placings are to be believed, Flórez was always centre-stage: understandable but oddly wearisome.

Matilde has made two previous appearances on record: the more recent a somewhat hit-and-miss live affair from the 1998 Rossini in Wildbad festival (Bongiovanni, 8/00, nla). The new set is vastly superior, the version to have as long as Decca chooses to keep it in print. (Richard Osborne, GRAMOPHONE)

Tracklist:CD1

1. Matilde di Shabran - Sinfonia 9:02

2. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Zitti: nessun qui v'è" 4:28

3. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Chi vi guida a queste mura?" 6:00

4. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Se viene il Cerbero" 2:54

5. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Vanno via come il vento!" 0:46

6. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Intanto Armenia 'nfra l'ombrose piante" 4:22

7. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Ma mo sto castellano" 2:13

8. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Ah! chitarella mia! dolce lusinga dell'appetito mio" 3:00

9. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Alma rea! Perché t'involi?" 6:11

10. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Bella è l'ira in mezzo al campo" 3:00

11. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Dottor, guarda che ceffo?" 1:07

12. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Di te no, non mi fido" 3:44

13. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Prence, Matilde, giovanetta figlia" 1:21

14. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Eccomi, e ognor lo stesso" 2:08

15. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Piange il mio ciglio, è vero" 3:20

16. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "D'un tenero padre" 3:30

17. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Se fra i paterni amplessi" 1:57

18. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Di capricci, di smorfiette" 5:59

19. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Ah! di veder già parmi" 3:11

CD2

1. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Si, vezzosa Matilde, a voi confido" 2:40

2. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Questa è la Dea? Che aria!" 4:07

3. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Che strepito è mai questo?" 3:37

4. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Dallo stupore oppresso" 5:43

5. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Signor, me n'vado o resto?" 1:17

6. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Ch'io fugga ha già timore" 4:59

7. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Alla Contessa d'Arco un tale oltraggio!" 8:25

8. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Ah! Capisco: non parlate" 4:52

9. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Cara, quel tuo sembiante" 3:17

10. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Piacere ugual gli dei" 2:20

11. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Qual fragor? - Signor!" 1:13

12. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Smarrito, dubbioso, al suono di guerra sospiro" 1:58

13. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Altezza guardate - Venir io lasciate" Annick Massis 1:38

14. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - "Oh come mai quest'anima sfavilla in un momento!" 2:20

15. Matilde di Shabran / Act 1 - Vanne, pugna: trionfante ritorna" 4:22

CD3

1. Matilde di Shabran / Act 2 - "Basta nfi a cà: ho scritto meza gloria delle mie guapparie" 1:38

2. Matilde di Shabran / Act 2 - "Di Corradino il nome per ogni suoi rimbomba" 4:23

3. Matilde di Shabran / Act 2 - "Le penne de i poeti so spade assai diverse" 2:25

4. Matilde di Shabran / Act 2 - "Dove, o misero padre, e quando speri più il tuo figlio abbracciar?" 1:05

5. Matilde di Shabran / Act 2 - "Sazia tu fossi alfine revolubil Fortuna!" 1:42

6. Matilde di Shabran / Act 2 - "Ah! perché, perché la morte non ascolta i pianti miei?" 5:05

7. Matilde di Shabran / Act 2 - "Ah! Se ancora un'altra volla el ritorna al dolce amplesso" 3:40

8. Matilde di Shabran / Act 2 - "Pur ti ragiunsi al fin...-Cosa pretendi? - Teco battermi ancor" 7:13

9. Matilde di Shabran / Act 2 - "E palese il tradimento - Mente il foglio, o ad arte è scritto" 4:39

10. Matilde di Shabran / Act 2 - "Perfida invan tu piangi: è finto quell'affanno" 2:21

11. Matilde di Shabran / Act 2 - "Fra quattro armigeri immantimente" 4:08

12. Matilde di Shabran / Act 2 - "Pietà! Mi parli invano. Vendicato sarò"0:46

13. Matilde di Shabran / Act 2 - "Mandare a morte quella meschina? Che crudelta!" 2:38

14. Matilde di Shabran / Act 2 - "Andate a'vostri alberghi" 3:24

15. Matilde di Shabran / Act 2 - "Da cento smanie, e cento sento straziarmi il cor" 3:31

16. Matilde di Shabran / Act 2 - "Sedotto dall'inganno" 2:02

17. Matilde di Shabran / Act 2 - "O ciel! chi può resistere" 2:08

18. Matilde di Shabran / Act 2 - "Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita" 3:13

19. Matilde di Shabran / Act 2 - "Matilde, Ebben?" 1:22

20. Matilde di Shabran / Act 2 - "Ami alfine? E chi non ama?" 3:42

21. Matilde di Shabran / Act 2 - "Non è vero?" 1:10

22. Matilde di Shabran / Act 2 - "Tace la tromba altera" 5:07

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