Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (live stream), 16/04/2021

 Gala del Belcanto - Donizetti, Bellini

Lisette Oropesa, soprano

Xabier Anduaga, tenor

Chorus and Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

Antonio Pappano

I'm not actually a huge fan of the belcanto repertory, I find it easiest to digest in small doses.  As a result, this concert format was pretty much ideal, and it certainly lived up to its billing, a festival of beautiful singing, focused on Donizetti and Bellini.  

It also pointed up the differences between the two composers, which was particularly interesting.  Bellini died young, it's impossible to guess where he might have gone had he had a full, creative life and career.  What is left, however, is intensely emotional in a way that Donizetti never quite achieves.  Donizetti, on the other hand, did have a reasonably lengthy and very prolific career.  His dramatic operas are theatrically more substantial than Bellini's tend to be, and there are the comedies, a domain into which Bellini never strayed, but Bellini at his best plucks at the heartstrings infallibly in a way that Donizetti rarely approaches. 

The works chosen tonight also had to suit the soloists respective vocal types.  Hence, there was nothing for soprano from Donizetti's more dramatic oeuvre - the Tudor queens trilogy, for example.  Xabier Anduaga sang an aria from Lucrezia Borgia, but it was a little too similar to the more famous "Una furtiva lagrima" from L'elisir d'amore, with which he had commenced the second half of the concert, to really stand out, and Lucrezia, like the Tudor Queens, would not suit Lisette Oropesa's ethereal soprano.  

The concert began with a good part of the beginning of Lucia di Lammermoor, the Prelude, opening chorus, and the duet between Lucia and Edgardo.  This immediately set up a nice play of contrasts, the brooding prelude giving way to a robust, hunting-type chorus, and the comprimario roles necessary when presenting scenes like this, such as Normanno and Alisa in Lucia, were taken very capably by members of the chorus.  As one of the radio commentators to the concert mentioned, this music is in the DNA of the nation, and the orchestra reflected this at every turn, with thrilling playing even in the most apparently banal accompanying passages.  Watching them, you could see a kind of special vibration in the players in response to the music; during "Una furtiva lagrima", the violinist mainly visible behind Anduaga was not simply plucking his strings in accompaniment, he was caressing them, to get the warmest, tenderest sound from them. The wind section distinguished itself throughout with eloquent playing, but Pappano drew the best from the orchestra as a whole.  In a repertory where the focus is very much on the solo singers, he never forgot to provide a luxury setting for them.  The chorus was similarly engaged in its contributions, only the third act chorus from Don Pasquale a little ragged round the edges.

Anduaga is just 26, and a major international career clearly lied ahead of him.  He has one peculiarity at the moment, an oddity of pronunciation, the 'a' vowel sound, when it occurs in the middle of a syllable, sort of squeezed and not fully opened out as Italian tends to require.  It was a bit surprising, and a little off-putting in places, and I hope that it's just a passing foible.  The infamous nine high C's of "Ah, mes amis" (La fille du régiment) were tossed off with almost nonchalant ease, as were the high D's in the duet from I puritani, which was truly impressive.  As mentioned, the aria from Lucrezia Borgia was a bit too similar to that from L'elisir, and they were too close together in the programme, and also, he sometimes seemed just a little underpowered in the Bellini, but there's little doubt that he is going to be worth keeping an eye on.

Oropesa, however, was on sterling form, and went from strength to strength throughout the concert.  She inhabited her characters wholeheartedly, and negotiated changes of mood, from tragic or pathetic to joyous and exalted, effortlessly and convincingly.  The voice was luminously beautiful, silken yet strong, and culminated in an absolutely heart-breaking mad scene from I puritani, her Elvira a desperate, lost soul longing for consolation in a plaintive, aching thread of perfect melody.  This was the most persuasive argument for the art of belcanto that could possibly be made, expressivity and beauty of tone in perfect harmony, a jewel of the first water in an ideal setting.