Program booklet »Il barbiere di Siviglia«

GIOACHINO ROSSINI

IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA

CONTENTS

P.

4

SYNOPSIS P.

8

“WHAT ON EARTH WAS THAT?” INTERVIEW WITH HERBERT FRITSCH P.

18

PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION MICHELE MARIOTTI

P.

22

ROSSINI AND THE OPERA BUFFA ARNOLD JACOBSHAGEN P.

34

IT’S MY TURN TO SPEAK GELTRUDE RIGHETTI-GIORGI P.

42

IMPRINT

GIOACHINO ROSSINI

IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA COMMEDIA in two acts Libretto CESARE STERBINI Source Le Barbier de Séville ou La Précaution inutile (1775)

by Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais

ORCHESTRA

2 flutes (also piccolo) 2 oboes / 2 clarinets 2 bassoons / 2 horns / 2 trumpets percussion (bass drum, cymbals, glockenspiel) guitar / strings / pianoforte

AUTOGRAPH Library of the Conservatorio di Musica Giovan Battista Martini Bologna WORLD PREMIÈRE as Almaviva o sia L’inutile precauzione

20 FEBRUARY 1816 Teatro Argentino, Rome FIRST PERFORMANCE 3 APRIL 1876 Vienna Court Opera DURATION

3 H 15 M INCL. 1 INTERMISSION

IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA

SYNOPSIS ACT 1 Outside Doctor Bartolo’s house Beneath the balcony of an unknown lady whom he has admired from afar for weeks, Count Almaviva sings a serenade, accompanied by musicians engaged by his servant Fiorello.

The barber Figaro appears. He is a former servant of the Count and knows the object of the Count’s affections: her name is Rosina. As the barber of her guardian, Doctor Bartolo, he has access to his house.

Rosina appears on the balcony and drops a letter before Doctor Bartolo can intervene. In the letter, she asks her admirer to explain his intentions and shares her strong desire to “burst her chains.” Through a song, the Count introduces himself to Rosina as Lindoro, a penniless but honest man – he wants the young woman to choose him out of love and not because of his social standing.

Figaro explains that Doctor Bartolo plans to marry Rosina to obtain her dowry. He suggests that the Count should disguise himself as a soldier with orders to be billeted in Bartolo’s house.

To seem harmless he should also pretend to be drunk.

Inside Doctor Bartolo’s house Rosina is determined to employ all her ingenuity and wilfulness to win Lindoro, despite Bartolo’s opposition. Doctor Bartolo suspects that Rosina and Figaro are hatching a plot. He first questions Rosina, then the housekeeper Berta and the servant Ambrogio, but he is unable to glean any information.

Rosina’s music teacher Don Basilio tells Doctor Bartolo that Rosina’s secret admirer, Count Almaviva, has been seen in the city. Doctor Bartolo resolves to marry Rosina the very next day. Don Basilio proposes to discredit the Count by spreading rumours about him.

Figaro has been listening to the two of them and tells Rosina about Bartolo’s plans. Rosina is interested above all in Lindoro, whom she has seen with Figaro. Figaro claims that Lindoro is his cousin and is very much in love with Rosina. Figaro asks her to write a letter to Lindoro – but it transpires that Rosina has already written one.

Previous pages: RUTH BRAUER-KVAM as AMBROGIO AURORA MARTHENS as BERTA

4

SYNOPSIS

Bartolo finds out about Rosina’s secret correspondence and declares that she will be guarded even more closely.

Disguised as a drunken soldier, the Count enters Bartolo’s house. His attempt to slip Rosina a note leads to an uproar that attracts the attention of the Officer of the Watch. He arrests the alleged soldier as a troublemaker. However, when Almaviva covertly identifies himself as a count, to the astonish­ment of all present the officer immediately retracts his order.

ACT 2 Inside Doctor Bartolo’s house The Count reappears. He is now disguised as a music teacher, Don Alonso, and explains that he is standing in for Don Basilio, who has been taken ill. He tells the suspicious Bartolo that he was lodging at the same inn as Count Almaviva.

He shows him Rosina’s note, saying he found it at the inn. He says he plans to use it to persuade Rosina that she has been duped. Bartolo consents and calls Rosina for her singing lesson. Rosina recognises Don Alonso as her admirer Lindoro. Figaro arrives to shave Doctor Bartolo. Taking a hint from Rosina, he manages to steal the key to the balcony door.

The sudden appearance of Don Basilio threatens to expose the Count. He surreptitiously slips Don Basilio some money, and all join forces to usher the music teacher out of the house.

Figaro tries to divert Doctor Bartolo’s attention away from the two lovers, but the doctor hears a careless word spoken by the Count and sees through the deception. The Count and Figaro take to their heels.

Don Basilio tells Bartolo of his suspicion that Don Alonso was sent by Count Almaviva. Doctor Bartolo now wants to expedite his marriage to Rosina even more urgently and sends Don Basilio to fetch the notary.

Bartolo shows Rosina her note as proof that Don Alonso and Figaro were planning to foist her off on Count Almaviva. Rosina, stunned by this revelation, declares that she is ready to marry Bartolo. She also reveals that Figaro and her admirer were planning to enter the house at midnight to kidnap her.

When Figaro and the Count arrive, Rosina rejects the supposed matchmaker Lindoro, whose deception she has seen through.

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SYNOPSIS

When Lindoro identifies himself as Count Almaviva and confirms the seriousness of his intentions, Rosina is overjoyed.

Don Basilio appears with the notary. Figaro explains that those present are his niece and Count Almaviva, whose wedding the notary is to conduct that very evening in Figaro’s house. The notary has brought the marriage contract with him. The Count gives the protesting Don Basilio a choice between a precious ring or two bullets in his head. Don Basilio chooses the ring and signs the marriage contract as a witness. Doctor Bartolo has fetched several soldiers and demands that they arrest the burglars. When Count Almaviva reveals his true identity to them, shows them the signed marriage contract and gives Bartolo Rosina’s dowry, Bartolo finally accepts defeat.

6

RUTH BRAUER-KVAM as AMBROGIO AURORA MARTHENS as BERTA

STAGE DIRECTOR HERBERT FRITSCH IN AN INTERVIEW WITH NIKOLAUS STENITZER

“WHAT ON EARTH WAS THAT?” ns

At the start of one of the rehearsals for Barbiere di Sivi­ glia you said: “Before every day of rehearsal we must consult the oracle.” Does this statement describe the core of your directing work? hf To a certain extent, yes. Many directors start rehearsals already knowing exactly what they want to achieve.

Naturally I respect their approach, but my own is different. My approach and my goal is not to have understood the work completely when rehearsals start.

I position the material in situations that you would probably never have thought of. Perhaps everyone has to do a headstand first, and then our task is to come up with a plausible explanation for why they are doing headstands. In other words: the way I rehearse with my ensemble is to question the text such that it can give us answers. About the musicality, the sound, the rhythm. Not just the full stop, comma and meaning.

The interesting thing is that texts offer multiple perspectives. There is an infinite number of ways to understand it. And by maltreating the text to a cer-

tain extent and posing questions of it, we provoke answers from it. So I constantly ask questions of the text in rehearsal by pursuing all sorts of strange processes.

And at the earliest at the première, the piece, the text, the melody, and the music will tell me what it is about. ns That means that by the end of rehearsals we have come up not with the meaning of the work, but a perspective of it. hf And finally, we still have the oracle. And that remains a mystery. We never really get to the bottom of it. But we arrive at a view that tells us something. Not the usual formulations that tell us what is political and what we should think about something. But that we say first: for now, I know nothing.

We have formulations and lines of argument that we use time and again. I want to break up these repetitions. It may be that we don’t succeed, that people think we are doing something unusual, and then in the end we achieve the same result as always. But that can also be the result when you study the piece more closely, without intending to impose anything on it. Turning something

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“ W H AT ON E A RT H WA S T H AT ? ”

around, distorting it – at some point it will speak to us. ns Does that also apply to music? hf Yes, music is a kind of literature.

It needs to be read, just like a text in words, which it is naturally associated with. The decisive point for me is that we are always dealing with things that are recorded. And everything that is recorded is always questionable. Questionable. Able to be questioned. That is precisely how I want to work. Naturally for singers and actors it can be alarming when I say at the beginning of rehearsals: “guys – I truly don’t know what this is about. I simply want to see how you handle a text or a passage without thinking about whether it fits in the sequence of events in order to tell a certain story.” The thing that I have always loved about working in the theatre, and this happens time and again, is that over the course of time you discover something that you never thought of before.

That happened in our work on Barbiere. ns Specifically working in rehearsal: you don’t present a finished concept, but go searching together with the soloists. How do you envision getting started on this work? hf At the start of rehearsals, I watch people. For example, in rehearsal when we sing the passage that we plan to work on first with the piano. I hear them, I see them, how they move, what they do. The people who will put this work on the stage as the concept. I see certain things in them, how they act, how they sing. Then I try to respond to what I have seen and heard. Perhaps I play something to them, but then I draw on what I see in them. I know from my experience as an actor that there are certain things you do not see in yourself.

I show them what I like in what they are doing, what interests me, what catches my eye. What the actors or singers show me is always something that I couldn’t imagine before and that leads me to answers to the story, to the material, that I want to provoke. ns So it is about secrets being aired and regarding each other as accom­plices in our approach to the story. hf Exactly. The singers at rehearsal are my partners in crime. ns At Volksbühne Berlin and also at many other theatres, you have had a well-practised troupe at your disposal for many productions, and actors whom you know well.

How do you get a singer to become your partner in crime at the first rehearsal? hf It is always difficult to communicate with someone you have just met.

When you have fallen in love with someone, for example, and you talk to each other and everything seems to fit well because you simply like each other, until after two, three or four years you notice that many things no longer fit.

That’s when the communication starts.

Naturally in rehearsal it doesn’t have to happen that you understand each other immediately, and that can often be a struggle. Perhaps a singer doesn’t immediately have confidence if he doesn’t know how I work. Then I have to make it clear in the course of rehearsals. I have something in mind. And when we both understand that we have a project together, often we achieve something that neither of us had thought of before.

Those are the best moments in rehearsal, when you suddenly say: “how did we come up with that?”

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HERBERT FRITSCH IN AN INTERVIEW

ns

In the Barbiere rehearsals, you could often see the singers’ scepticism turns into a certain fascination. Above all when you show them something, or play something for them. Is it important for your way to direct that you are a trained actor? hf Acting is the best way for me to express myself. I don’t do it to show my actors exactly what they have to do.

Rather, it’s all about communicating with your body. The voice comes from the entire body. Musical instruments are based on the same principle: working with the resonating body. ns So it is also interesting to you how the work with the body affects the voice. hf Exactly. You can hear how someone moves. If you try to see the singing separately from the acting, it’s like a jelly­fish in the sea: the voice is at the top, a few threads hang down from it and that is the body. I wouldn’t want to see it like that. ns Your theatre always stood for physicality in the acting and a musicality of the bodies.

For singers at the opera, it is never­t heless often unusual to be moving so much. What is your experience at the opera? Can the musicality of the performance be conveyed as a unit with the singing? hf To understand my work, it is important to know that for me there is no difference between straight theatre and opera. The term musical theatre is a pleonasm to me. Theatre without music is unthink­able for me. I always think in terms of music. So in my productions the same applies to an actor as to a singer.

What happens on the stage is singing and dancing. Always. Even if we’re talking about a monologue from Hamlet.

It is always about rhythm and melody.

Not punctuation. Naturally many singers are not accustomed to the kind of acting that I envision. That does not mean that they are not accustomed to acting. There is a lot of acting on stages today, but for the most part it is along the lines of apparent reality. Where the feeling is conveyed that it is really quite natural for people to run around and sing, while drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette. But reality is far more complicated than that. Our notion of reality is very one-dimensional. In the theatre we have the opportunity of breaking out of that. But that is only possible if we come up with clear forms. A reality then emerges from this form – but one that stems from what we are used to seeing as reality and that seems artificial. But the form is rhythm, is music. Initially it is often difficult to convey that for me the body is not another concept for the head, something that one should if at all possible disregard. The body is an important part. My task as director is to convey that. And ultimately I always have the experience that suddenly the body is there, the voice is there, and the singers tell me things that amaze me.

When the singers let the body in, they suddenly radiate something that I cannot explain. This is what makes theatre so wonderful. That things happen that you cannot explain in writing. Something resonates in the voice that cannot be explained in writing. And it only affects the person singing at that moment. ns The artificiality of the situation in which a performer sings what they have to say demands artistic processing.

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KS JUAN DIEGO FLÓREZ as ALMAVIVA

HERBERT FRITSCH IN AN INTERVIEW

hf The theatre is a medium. When you step onto a stage, a certain electricity takes hold of you that does something with you. Kons­tantin Stanis­­lavski, who essentially developed the theory for actors of naturalism in the­atre, describes the first lesson with his students. The first task he gives them is to walk across the stage. Most of them then walk, making big ges­tures and think up something special. Then Stanislavski says: “what you will learn here from me is that you can walk quite normally across the stage.” In my opinion that is the misunderstanding. This suppresses the special effect of the medium of theatre. The excitement on the stage that in the final analysis has something to do with tradition of a theatre as an institution.

When performances have been given on a stage for a hundred years, the things that have been acted, that have happened, are captured in the walls. As with instruments, with an old Stradivarius – the same applies to the­atre. ns As an actor in Frank Castorf’s productions, you were asked to cultivate a certain nonchalance, as director you have come out in favour of the principle of strict form. The actors themselves evolve, but once they have found the form, it is essential to maintain it. hf Exactly. That is artistry. And that has to be coached. The quality of Frank Castorf was that he worked from a certain naturalness. You tended to outline things. Revival rehearsals took no time at all. I absolutely do not want to denigrate that, but I have found: I had that now, and now I want to do the exact opposite. And I have found that answers my needs better. It has nothing to do with forcing people to do something.

You encourage them to find their own procedures that you can coach. That can be bewildering. People suddenly have eyes and notice when someone ap­ proaches them. Because they develop intuition for each other. Like trapeze artists. I will jump so that he will catch me. ns Coming back to our opera. We asked our oracle about Bar­ biere di Siviglia and discovered a few things that could be interesting. Can you tell us something about that? hf No. The wonderful thing is the unpredictable, the unforeseeable. So I don’t want to give away anything. I don’t want to antici­pate, predict what the opera will have told me by the première.

Or beyond that. In Zürich, I directed Dürrenmatt’s The Physicists. At the première I liked what the actors had done, it was all good. Then I saw one of the final performances – and the actors completely astounded me. I thought I was seeing things. And I gained a completely different view of the play. The way it works is you plant something during rehearsal that may grow in various different ways. In opera, that can of course happen with cast changes. But you have to realise: a play is something living – a piece of eternal life. My dream is to create an eternal show with my troupe, one that can be rehearsed time and again, and performed time and again. Where at some point the actors age. Then someone dies, and their successor comes in. So that it keeps on going, from generation to generation, but is always a piece that keeps evolving. To do this, I would have to form a special troupe, ideally with actors and singers. ns Perhaps repertory theatre is coming close to this idea.

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“ W H AT ON E A RT H WA S T H AT ? ”

We are curren­t ly rehearsing at a major institution rich in tradition. At rehearsals reference is often made to Commedia dell’arte, Italian improvisation dating back to the 16th and 17th century that produced characters such as Harlequin. What is the connection? hf In my work I have referred to this system many times because the approach taken in Commedia dell’arte fascinates me. The actor chooses a character and keeps refining and developing it, into old age. Just like the Marx Brothers. Harpo Marx enters the scene, and you know that the act with the harp or the piano is up next. Or Groucho Marx enters running in long strides; you know what it is, but you still want to see it again. Or clowns like Charlie Rivel, whose famous exclamation is “Akrobat schööön” around which he builds his entire career. Working with singers caters to this interest. They often bring a whole repertoire of gestures and temperaments, and I can work with these. This is where the connection to Commedia dell’arte comes in: working with a repertoire of gestures that is developed, honed, refined, and performed time and again, such that the surprises come from the variation. The reference should not be overtaxed, other references are also important to me – playing with exagger­ ation, as we know it from silent films.

Exaggeration that is above all a celebration of expression. ns Gioachino Rossini’s music with its famous crescendi and in general its masterful use of rhythm as a theatrical effect seems to fit very well with your directing work. What is

your relationship to this composer? hf I delved into Rossini intensively for the first time while preparing for Barbiere di Siviglia. I quickly noticed that his style of composing matches exactly what is essential to the core of my work. He sings to me as it were from the heart. I don’t like to use the word “modern” because that has recently become overblown. What matters to me is that Rossini writes music that reveals that a new era has begun. In this respect, one might put Barbiere di Siviglia on a level with Bizet’s Carmen and Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer. It applies to all these three works: a new way of thinking, a new way of moving. Rossini pushes this movement to the extreme, and in this extreme a new, accelerated era is heralded. Nietzsche, who philosophises on how everything will be completely different, the completely different virtuosity of Charlie Chaplin or Duke Ellington: it is all primed in Rossini. ns To some extent your theatre seems to operate at the interface between the two major poles of Italian theatre tradition, which ultimately produced Barbiere di Siviglia.

Carlo Gozzi tried to conserve Commedia dell’arte as theatre with stock figures in masks, Carlo Goldoni wanted plays set down in writing and elimination of the masks to achieve clearer characterization. hf And in Germany the actress Caroline Neuber publicly burned the buffoon Hanswurst as a symbol of educational theatre. The consequences can still be seen in audiences today: when something becomes comedic or buffoonish, people get angry. Or they are

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HERBERT FRITSCH IN AN INTERVIEW

embarrassed because they laughed. This physical impudence that the Nazis also opposed is precisely what I find interesting. That also means annoying the audience, driving them crazy, confusing them – but these are not acts of aggression, they are modes of entertainment.

And they also take hold in your head.

There is a passage in Nietzsche in Zara­ thustra: “for as long as there have been people, people have rejoiced too little: that alone, my brothers, is our original sin.” I can only agree with this. I do not want people to leave the theatre feeling guilty and with the feeling that they are stupid. I want people to leave the theatre asking themselves: what on earth was that? What just happened here? Sometimes people have criticised the plays that I have developed for being senseless. I believe that senselessness is where life actually begins. ns Perhaps your stage events should better be described as productions of the senses.

You once described this technique with a scene. When a performer stands there completely neutrally and inconspicuously, but their counterpart acts as if he is terribly afraid of him, then a change of implications is set in motion that has nothing to do with what the first performer perhaps should have or wanted to show. The meaning of what he does is recreated from the reaction of his surroundings. In other words: when the second actor behaves as if there were something uncanny about the first, then everyone else will at some point come to the same

conclusion. Other actors, the audience. For me, that has always meant: don’t be too sure of your reality. In truth it is socio-critical theatre. hf That is not my intention. But I think that theatre that goes looking for scandal with allegedly emphatic means – blood by the litre, sex on the stage, however awkwardly – is simply no longer possi­ble. I believe that the provoca­­tive can only be the form, if anything at all.

That you are doing something where people will say: I can’t believe it. I am not expecting it, after all I am not looking to create a scandal. But I notice that people sometimes become aggressive in response to what I am doing. ns What we often see in your work, and something that also plays a role in your work on Barbiere, is the classic clown conflict. The difficulty of overcoming an obstacle, the pitfalls of something.

There is something tragic in that that we learn from the great comedians you often refer to. You mentioned Charlie Rivel, the Marx Brothers... hf ...Grock, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy...

But also the amazing comic silent films from the era of the October Revolution.

And Max Linder, the elegant comic, from whom Chaplin borrowed material... ns In other words, just as happened with these artists, in comedy there is also often an underlying tragedy? hf Humour is always multidimensional, has many sources, and the tragedy behind it is a part of it. And I think no great intellec­tual accomplishment is needed to let the confusion in and allow

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it to penetrate fully. Accomplishment is a dreadful word in this context. What is needed is perhaps mental energy, which is available to everyone. Everyone has the ability to enjoy mental vibrancy, but in theatre so often what is communi­ cated is that they are all stupid. And that they need an intellectual to tell them what is going on. However, theatre is precisely the place where people come together and show each other that they are on the same level. Sometimes I like to turn the situation around and with my ensemble show that the stage is really the place where everyone is completely nuts. I have often said to my performers: “portraying idiocy is truly a great mental achievement.” And some­ one who in our eyes is an idiot can often say things that no one else can say. People who are supposedly idiots are ultimately those kissed by God. ns One more question about your stage areas: in all your productions, you have designed the stage area yourself. They are almost always abstract spaces that are sometimes reminiscent of places we have seen in dreams. How do you come up with them? hf By association. With Pfusch at the Volksbühne the technical director

asked me in the hallway what we were doing with the stage. I thought about it.

A large pipe that can be rolled along. A swimming pool, with water in it. With a diving board that can break at some point. And up front eleven pianos that no longer work properly. At the first rehearsal on set, we decided that there would be no water in the pool, but a trampoline. And that was what we did.

I have simulated some sets on the computer. For Ohne Titel No. 1 which was performed at the Vienna Festival, a coincidence played into my hands. I had modelled the sofa myself, but then given the workshop some dimensions or other that seemed right to me. When it was finished, it was way oversized. They showed it to me, calmed me down and told me not to flip out. I saw it and knew: that’s it. It’s fantastic. By chance there was room for all the performers side by side. These things happen a lot. Some error of judgement that leads to the result. ns Did you consider at any point t hat Barbiere di Siviglia should be colourful, move around, be transparent? hf No. I thought: I would like to create a set like that. The play must then fit in the space. This is also part of questioning the work.

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Next pages: ÉTIENNE DUPUIS

as FIGARO

LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN / REMARKS ON COLOURS

WHEN ASKED WHAT THE WORDS ‘RED’, ‘BLUE’, BLACK’, ‘WHITE’ MEAN, WE CAN OF COURSE POINT TO OBJECTS THAT ARE THAT COLOUR – BUT THAT IS WHERE OUR ABILITY TO EXPLAIN THE MEANING OF THESE WORDS STOPS!

MICHELE MARIOTTI

PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION PREMIÈRE CONDUCTOR MICHELE MARIOTTI TALKS ABOUT IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA Strictly speaking, my career started with Rossini’s Barbiere. I gave my début conducting this opera in 2005 in Salerno, and in the last decade and a half I have conducted eleven new productions of it.

So you might say it is a work that I know more than just well. And yet: every time I start looking at the score before another production, it is a new journey, a new experience, I find things I had not seen before, discover details and facets I had never noticed before. Because of this, I always start from scratch studying the opera – and constantly wonder when I stumble on something new: “How can it be that I have overlooked this every time until now?”

Above all, in this production I have once again come to understand the most important thing about Barbiere: there is not just one interpretation of it, a socalled “right” way, or a sort of royal road to Rossini, but a great many different roads. Simply put: different journeys, different routes. This is precisely what makes Barbiere a masterpiece. It is so diverse and has such enormous potential. This opera can appeal in so many

ways, you can glean so much about it from the music. And here I am not even talking about collaboration with different stage directors, singers and orchestras which also always gives you a different view of the work.

A key question for me is the matter of how to classify this opera. And also its relationship to Commedia dell’arte.

What is Commedia dell’arte? A big box in which numerous moods, situations, colours, and different theatrical circumstances coexist, humorous, serious, funny, bleak. A true opera buffa by contrast contains only uniform material. Let us look for example at a perfect opera buffa, Rossini’s L’italiana in Algeri.

There we see that all the characters behave like mad puppets, from beginning to end. They do not evolve at all in the course of the action. As I said: completely uniform.

Barbiere on the other hand is different. The work is opera buffa, but not just opera buffa. An example is the Act 1 finale, where the performers are singing sotto voce and the orchestra adds a mechanical element – it always reminds

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PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION

me of Charlie Chaplin fighting the machine in Modern Times. It has many common elements with Italiana in Algeri, but there are also other, darker colours.

That is very obvious in Basilio’s aria “La calunnia.” Here we have a dark moment in the opera that has – wrongly – been clipped down to jocular. In the famous crescendo in this area, the strings play sul ponticello, in other words extremely close to the bridge, which produces a metallic, hard sound.

That makes the music anything but cheerful! Incidentally, Rossini used precisely this music in his Otello as well, namely at the moment when Otello murders Desdemona. You can feel the pain, the jealousy, the suffering. People were outraged at the première of Otello.

How can that be? How can a buffa element feature in a tragedy? But for Rossini, it was not a comic element, it was dark music. The way the character of Don Bartolo is drawn also goes well beyond purely buffoonish. He is not a stupid, stereotypical old man, but a respected middle-class citizen, a man with an education, a doctor. His exceptional social position is clear from the fact that he has an official exemption excusing him from the requirement to provide lodging for soldiers in his home. It is not his character that is funny, it is the situations in which he finds himself. These are what make us laugh.

So we can see that Barbiere is a mix, is stylistically varied. I like to compare it to an exhibition with magnificent, priceless but very varied pictures. Each scene has its own, very particular character, a special colour, a style. You walk through this exhibition and see a series of paintings, you encounter moods, atmospheres, states of mind, portrayals.

A painter painted them, but the style

and message do not indicate a single direction.

The authors carry this complexity through to character definition too.

Look for example at the Count at the beginning of the opera. In his cavatina “Ecco ridente in cielo” that he sings for Rosina, he uses very poetic, cultured language, or so-called stile aulico, “refined style.” But immediately after this serenade, his style of expression changes and never reverts to stile aulico.

He becomes an average person who uses commonplace vocabulary. These are then two layers in the same character; we see a multi-dimensionality and adaptability; we are presented with a very differentiated view of the character with depth of focus.

Rosina too is not just a reproduced character model, her depth of character hints at the future countess in The Mar­ riage of Figaro. Something we must pay attention to in the music is maintaining a lightness in her famous “Una voce poco fa” and not burden the character with misplaced weight in the first orchestral chords. After all, Rosina is a young woman, not a ruler. We see exciting facets of her personality for example in the small, but important accents in this same aria; these are unfortunately frequently ignored (such as in “Ma se mi toccano – dovʼè il mio debole, Sarò una vipera – e cento trappole”).

Along the lines of: I am kind, but don’t annoy me, or you will be surprised!

This is a case where Rossini has drawn the character very precisely and far beyond what have experienced in the past and still experience today: a Rosina who is merely defensive. No, she knows exactly what she wants and how she can get it. You can tell this in the way she asks precisely about the rank, status,

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PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION

and finances of the Count (or Lindoro).

Rosina wants to know who she is dealing with before she bestows her affections on him.

We can also see how precisely the music can describe concrete situations and circumstances in the scene when the Count, disguised as a soldier, pretends to be drunk. With a slowing in the orchestral accompaniment, Rossini paints a picture in sound of indecision.

A small detail – but with a significant effect! The military nature of this music is retained, but it is painted in another colour and adapted to the actual action.

Let us stay with the Count, who is without doubt musically the main role, even if the title of the première was later changed from Almaviva, o sia L’inutile precauzione to Il barbiere di Siviglia. This is the case purely in terms of numbers – he has more musical entrances than any other character in the opera, but it is also true when we look at the story­ line. In this connection, it is important to fully understand the relationship between the Count and Figaro. Figaro is the intelligent one, while the Count is a little slow on the uptake, which almost drives the barber mad.

Figaro thinks that thanks to his ingenuity he possesses the secret key that opens all locked doors. It is quite another story when his ideas do not turn out all that well, or even turn out to be disastrous. Simply put, what we have here is a smart individual and an ignorant one. But how are these complex situations resolved? Ultimately through power, influence, and the Count’s money.

Financial and political capital bring about a happy ending.

One last word on interpretation: I believe it is pointless to compare singers, conductors or orchestras from different generations. The world is changing, the situation and requirements are different. But we can state without a doubt that a Rossini revolution took place around 50 years ago.

The composer was literally rediscovered, and a field was opened up that had become overgrown with traditions. And a new sound was developed, a lighter, more translucent sound that was closer to Mozart and even Schubert. Suddenly the relationship between them and Rossini was understood, and in a sound that – as was the case with Mozart – allowed no room for variation and tricks. An Alberto Zedda, a Claudio Abbado, they cleansed music of misattributions, of the burden of tradition, and changed the way all of us saw Rossini. They made it light again, but not superficial, they made it translucent but profound.

Today once again we have a different world. It is no longer sufficient to sing perfectly, you have to master everything that the stage requires: today’s singers know how to move, how to act, how to portray characters in their entirety. And they can switch between individual repertoires that in the past were strictly separated by fixed boundaries. A singer who sings Rossini today is equally a home with Mozart, Handel and Verdi.

Whereas in the past there were specialists for individual disciplines and areas, today’s artists are specialists in every­ thing!

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PAOLO BORDOGNA as BARTOLO

ARNOLD JACOBSHAGEN

ROSSINI

AND THE OPERA BUFFA As was the case with most Italian composers of his day, Rossini’s stage career began in the field of comic opera. The first of his stage works to be performed was the one-act farce La cambiale di matrimonio (1810), which was followed by his two-act dramma giocoso Lʼequi­ voco stravagante (1811). In parallel with his next four one-act works, he wrote a two-act opera buffa La pietra del para­ gone (1812) before turning his attention to his first two major works in the comic opera genre: Lʼitaliana in Algeri (1813) and Il turco in Italia (1814).

Before he turned 24, Il barbiere di Siviglia was premièred in Rome on 20 February 1816. That same year, he followed it up with La gazzetta, then La cenerentola in 1817, and finally in 1818 Adina, o Il califfo di Bagdad (première in 1826 in Lisbon). At the age of 26, Rossini had composed a dozen opera buffa works and farces, thereby completing his entire oeuvre for Italy in this category.

The only work still to follow was the coronation opera Il viaggio a Reims, written in 1825 for Paris.

In summary, his works for opera can be assigned to three periods. Early Rossini works were primarily of the comic Italian opera genre, in his middle period he wrote mainly opere serie, and in his “late” period French opera. This simplified schematic (in which the farce and semi-serious operas can readily by classified with opera buffa) reveals a development pattern that corresponds in the first two “phases” with hierarchy and in all three with the socio-economic traits of the genres. In this connection it bears mentioning that in his first “phase” Rossini composed and mounted at least three operas each year, in the second phase two operas and in the third phase at most just one opera a year.

This rough division into phases with different foci must however also be looked at from the perspective of style. As Friedrich Lippmann correctly emphasised, as the first Italian composer of the 19th century Rossini had an extremely distinctive personal style, and “an essential characteristic of this style is the radical adoption of buffa features into opera seria.”

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In historical terms, opera buffa is a genre almost without a specific genre theory. In particular in Italy, genre theory in opera was rooted primarily in literature, such that its genres were judged mainly based on contentrelated, stylistic or dramaturgy criteria. While in opera seria the protagonists are typically idealised heroic figures from classical and mediaeval history or from classic mythology, in opera buffa we generally find characters from broader social strata and from current everyday life. The equivalent in music of these opposites is expressed in the theory of stylistic level, according to which in the first case the “higher stylistic level”, in the last case a “lower stylistic level” is appropriate.

However, just because such differences exist does not mean that we can infer the existence of different musical idioms for both genres, even if some contemporary theoretical texts suggest distinct musical differences. In his seminal music dictionary dating from 1826, Pietro Lichtenthal stresses that in opera buffa “greater freedom in the selection of melodies exists” and “harmonies are less complicated than in opera.” According to Lichtenthal, the orchestration in opera buffa should be as “scintillating” as possible, the melodies “simple, folksy, clear, fast and cheerful.”

He also distinguishes three levels of comedy as “buffo nobile”, “buffo di mezzo carattere” and “buffo caricato.” It is never­theless almost self-evident that corresponding musical forms and means of expression can by all means be used in different genres. The practice of borrowing from one’s own compositions typical for Rossini and his contempo­ raries did not adhere to any strict genres boundaries. Rossini’s overtures – which

were mostly not associated with the plot and composed at the last minute – could easily be used for operas in different genres. (The famous overture to Barbiere di Siviglia was originally borrowed from the opera seria Aureliano in Palmira, from where it was used initially in the opera seria Elisabetta regina dʼInghilterra.)

Vocal numbers too could be exchanged or adapted from works of different genres.

The question of how Rossini’s comic and serious operas differ in terms of style and music is anything but trivial.

This topic led to lively discussions amongst his contemporaries. For example, Louis Spohr complained that “you could easily mistake the music of his comic operas for his serious music, because without knowing the plot it is difficult to tell whether happy or sad events are taking place; also whether a king or a peasant, a lord or a servant is speaking.” Johann Simon Mayr expressed a similar sentiment. He believed that “he could once entertain a full theatre with just a few notes and the simplest, most natural expressions of emotion,” whereas “these days even an opera buffa would require splendour and profusion as well as the musical riches of an opera seria.” Mayr clarified what he meant by “these days” in the next but one sentence where the topic was Rossi­ ni’s achievements. The musical enrichment and stylistic elevation of opera buffa by Rossini was generally noticed and appreciated during his life-time.

Wolfgang Osthoff offered a pointed interpretation of the difference be­tween 18th century opera seria and opera buffa as one between “straight theatre with music” and “specifically musical the­ atre”: while opera seria focuses on solo singing and adheres to the requirements for spoken tragedy, opera buffa is based

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ARNOLD JACOBSHAGEN

on the principle of ensembles and therefore on polyphony; accordingly, it alone offers specifically musical theatre. The titles of the works alone generally referred not to the individual, but to the ensemble, and the subtitle usually offered a brief summary of the plot.

The significance of the ensemble is also evident from the closing sen­tences which addressed the audience directly.

“The ensemble that sustains opera buffa calls upon the group that it faces, the audience. The two groups together see to the moral application of the play.”

While the situation was similar in terms of the social division of roles in the early part of the century, it cannot be denied that in opera seria since the end of the 18th century and in particular in Rossini the allocation of opera elements had shifted clearly away from recitative and towards large ensembles.

In the early 19th century, the genre of the one-act farce flourished on several rival stages in Venice, and it was here that Rossini rose to become Italy’s leading opera composer. At the time, farces were performed at traditional buffa theatres. A significant reason for their introduction was financial difficulties that forced theatre directors to offer less expensive produc­tions. Farces could be performed by just a few performers and a small orchestra; choruses and elaborate sets were not required.

Often works of this genre were closely modelled on French boulevard comedies or opéras comiques; the librettists who stood out here were above all Giuseppe Maria Foppa and Gaetano Rossi. Finally, we should mention the occasional Venetian performances of “Farse alla francese”, in other words musical one-acts with spoken dialogue instead of recitatives.

In his research on comedy in Rossini, Paolo Gallarati identified two different traditions in Italian comic opera which he linked to “everyday realism” in musical comedy on the one hand and the “grotesque realism” of opera buffa on the other. While the former culminated in Mozart, the latter reached its peak in Rossini. The teleological component of this comparison is emphasised by the fact that both Mozart and Rossini are represented by trilogies in Gallarati’s interpretation. Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte are compared to Lʼitaliana in Algeri, Il barbiere di Sivi­ glia and La cenerentola.

“Just as Mozart and Da Ponte’s trilogy represents the pinnacle of musical comedy, Rossini’s three major works brought opera buffa to its heyday in the tradition of grotesque realism. At the same time Rossini took a different path, and his greatest success in that direction was Il turco in Italia. But it was not until he composed L’italiana in Algeri, Il bar­ biere di Siviglia and La ceneren­tola that he truly created something entirely new, not just in terms of musical style, but with his overall dramaturgical concept.

These three operas are linked by a common narrative structure. In each case, one character (Lindoro, Rosina, Cene­ rentola) is in the power of another (Mustafà, Don Bartolo, Don Basilio) who exercised control over them, but they are freed by a third party (Isabella, Figaro, Dandini) by a prank at the cost of their adversary.”

This antagonism in opera buffa in Mozart and Rossini is revealed not least by the different way masquerade is used.

While Mozart’s masks are romantic in nature and not associated with anything positive and cheerful, but have a moral function in determining guilt (the

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Count’s betrayal, the murder committed

by Don Giovanni, and Dorabella and Fiordiligi’s infidelity), the main function of masquerade in Rossini is in the carnivalesque “theatre within theatre” and the presentation of the grotesque.

Unlike in Mozart, it is not the psychological development of the characters that is the important factor, but the “sublimation of comic situations with the music playing a key role in bringing it to the fore.” This contradiction is also evident from the different time structures in the progression of the action.

The autonomy of the music is clear in Rossini from the big concertato movements found for example in the central finali of Barbiere di Siviglia and Ceneren­ tola. Since Naples was out of the question as a performance venue for Rossi­ ni’s opera buffa, Rome seemed the obvious choice for new comic and semi-serious operas. (Rossini rejected the practice introduced in Naples under the French regimen of replacing secco recitative with spoken dialogue.)

His two most successful operas to date Il barbiere di Siviglia (1816) and La cenerentola (1817) were premièred here. Il barbiere di Siviglia is the only 19th century opera buffa that has never disappeared from the schedule since its première. This statement may surprise readers, given the low ranking assigned to the author Cesare Sterbini (1784–1831) in Italian literary history.

Sterbini was an occasional writer who wrote some dozen other opera libretti besides Barbiere; none of them achieved lasting success. His main occupation was as a high official of the Vatican who could write Greek, Latin, French and German fluently. His career is by no means atypical for playwrights of the day in Italy.

It was also typical at that time for playwrights to revise French dramas for the opera, in this case Pierre Augustin Beaumarchaisʼ Le Barbier de Seville, premièred in 1775 in Paris at the Comédie-Française. Unlike his later character comedy Le Mariage de Figaro (1784), Beaumarchaisʼ Barbier de Seville (1775) is an intrigue that follows the corresponding dramaturgical rules. This is also true of Rossini’s opera compared to Lorenzo Da Ponte’s and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro (Vienna 1786) and was a key factor in the differing reception of the two operas.

In his lectures on dramatic art and literature (1808), August Wilhelm Schlegel had addressed the subtypes of comedy, comparing the intrigue and the character comedy.

In the intrigue, “characters are only roughly sketched (...), just as much as is necessary to establish the actions of the characters in one case and the other”, with “events occurring so fast that they leave little room for character development“ and “complications are carried to such extremely that the merry disarray of misunderstandings and dilemmas seems it must be resolved at any moment, and yet the knot is repeatedly tied.”

When considering the suitability of Beaumarchais’ comedy Le Barbier de Seville (1775) for opera, we should not overlook that this play was originally conceived as a musical stage work and was intended for the Opéra-Comique Theatre, but was never accepted for performance there. The final version for the Comédie-Française still included musical numbers orchestrated by the the­ atre’s orchestral director Antoine Laurent Baudron and was published separately.

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ARNOLD JACOBSHAGEN

It is thanks to this situation that the first opera adaptation of the play by Giovanni Paisiello (St. Petersburg 1782) was based merely on a translation without any significant modifications to the dramatic structure. Sterbini also adopted many of the situations in the original already with music added, including Lindoro’s canzone in Act 1, Rosina and Bartolo’s arias in Act 2, and the storm music which in Beaumarchais served as entr’acte music.

Otherwise Sterbini’s dramatic structure was completely in line with the conventions for opera libretti of his day.

If we compare Beaumarchais’ drama with Paisiello’s version and those of Sterbini and Rossini, we find noticeable differences in terms of content. The basic model for the plot is a standard for comedy literature. A young couple (Almaviva and Rosina) have met, but an old man (Bartolo) mars their plans to wed, since he intends to marry the young woman himself. With the choice of the title, the barber gains greater importance than he might have based only on the drama.

It is significant that the title character is not part of the basic constellation of the drama. Incidentally, in this the piece differs from the sequel, Le Mariage de Figaro, and the opera by Mozart based on it (1786). It is only in the next part of the story that Figaro (the Barber) as Susanna’s bridegroom is also the lover, while the Count, already married to Rosina, is the envious rival.

In Rossini’s opera, by contrast, Almaviva is the central character in the plot, while the barber is only his companion and helper; traditionally he would therefore only rank as a “confidente.” However, he achieves importance in the drama as engineer of the intrigue; after all, it is his

surprising intervention that time and again sets the comedy in motion. In the exposition, numerous genuine comedy elements and music drama opera conventions are interlaced to great effect. The latter group includes the chorus introduction (“Piano, pianissimo”) with the Count’s integrated cavatina (entrance aria: “Ecco, ridente in cielo”).

Subsequently, the barber also has the opportunity to introduce himself as a jack of all trades in his rousing entrance monologue (aria “Largo al factotum”). The protagonist has to make his first entrance from behind the scenes. His “Laran la lera / Laran la la” is heard as he approaches from a distance, announcing the flamboyant intrusiveness and omnipresent personage of Figaro as well as the complications the audience will be confronted with in the next two hours. Figaro’s cavatina is a classic example of Rossini’s subversive treatment of conventions, because the “Largo al factotum” as a traditional entrance aria progresses into absurdity by disregarding its form and surpassing the normal boundaries.

With its tonal and rhythmic conciseness stemming from a nuanced orchestral setting and complex sequence of multiple musical motifs, the dynamic shaping of this extremely virtuosic buffo aria is without a direct model in opera history.

The letter scene is another music dramaturgical theme in the exposition, the characteristics of which are rooted in the tradition of Venetian farce.

Recourse to a letter as prop with a dramatic function has been used since time immemorial in intrigue comedies as one of the principal means of changing the course of the plot, in this case initiation of the connection between Lindoro and Rosina. When Rosina sings her big aria

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“Una voce poco fa” as she remembers hearing Lindoro singing his canzone “Se il mio nome saper voi bramate” outside, the music reaches its first emotional climax. In the finale of Act 1, which as a classic “finale centrale” by tradition forms the heart and the most extensive musical number of a two-act opera, events start moving thick and fast.

This sophisticated complex in the style of the traditional chain finale with more and more characters added and which forms the climax of the opera is divided musically into five sections.

(1) the martial entrance of the “drunk soldiers” (2) the entrance of Figaro (which suspends the preceding turmoil) (3) the appearance of the “real” soldiers (4) the “colpo di scena” triggered by Almaviva’s announcement of his true identity to an officer and general amazement, and (5) the furious final escalation in the “stretta.” It fits with the historical context of a Roman carnival opera that Count Almaviva appears in disguise and in a variety of roles. He introduces himself to Rosina as the penniless student Lindoro and shortly thereafter transforms himself into a dead-drunk soldier – undoubtedly a particularly blatant violation of standards for the aristocracy – before he appears in Act 2 as a music teacher. It is part of this game of pretence that Almaviva’s arias in Act 1 take the form of interludes: serenata (“Ecco ridente in cielo”) and canzone (“Se il mio nome saper voi bramate”) – to a certain extent “intradiegetic” music, without being a direct expression of musical affect or an individual character.

Now as the Count, he only appears for the denouement with the highly virtuosic final aria (“Cessa di più resis­ tere”), a piece that not least because of

its extreme demands of the singer’s technique has been cut in countless productions. It is well known that at the 1816 première in Rome according to the première libretto the opera was put on under the title Almaviva o sia lʼinutile precauzione. Less well known is the reason for this remarkable title change, which Saverio Lamacchia revealed in 2008 in a pivotal dissertation on Rossi­ ni’s opera. For some time, people tried to explain the alternative title with the fact that the new opera needed to be differentiated from Giovanni Paisiello’s setting, which was more than thirty years older.

Rossini himself foresaw this perception and added the note in the foreword to his printed libretto, stating that the title had been changed “to completely convince audiences of the respect and honour that the composer of the current opera feels for the famous Paisiello, who had composed a work using the original title.” To be sure, Rossini’s characteristic irony comes through in this note, because the “rivalry” with Paisiello was probably a further incentive to him. The real reason for changing the title can be seen in the performance conditions and in the hierarchy of the singers.

In Sterbini, Count Almaviva is declared to be the true protagonist alongside if not in place of the barber. This shift follows the rules of the day for opera performances. In fact, in Italian opera the roles identified in the title were generally those sung by the most prestigious singers who accordingly – with a hierarchical ranking of the star singers, following a clear marketing logic – were also allocated the most demanding vocal roles and naturally the highest fees. For this and for no other reason the title role in the various set-

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tings of Pietro Metastasio’s Alessandro nellʼIndie (1729) was sometimes called Alessandro, sometimes Poro (as in Handel’s setting, who wrote the role in 1731 for Senesino), sometimes Cleofide (for example in Hasse’s setting, who that same year wrote a role for his wife Faustina Bordoni).

Performance conditions in the present case were the deciding factor in the title of the opera. The singer performing the title role in Almaviva o sia lʼinutile precauzione was the famous tenor Manuel García. He received 1,200 scudi for a season in Rome, nearly twice as much as Luigi Zamboni (Figaro, 700 scudi), four times as much as Bartolomeo Botticelli (Bartolo, 340 scudi), eighteen times as much as Zenobio Vitarelli (Basilio, 66 scudi) and a hundred times as much as Paolo Biagelli (Fiorello, 2 scudi). The fee paid to the prima donna Geltrude Righetti-Giorgi (Rosina, 500 scudi) was far from comparable with García’s. Similar rules applied to Rossini’s fee, who as previously mentioned was paid only 400 scudi. The fees are reflected in the distribution of numbers, of which Almaviva sings nine (three arias, two duets, one trio, a quartet, two finali), Rosina and Figaro each sing seven, Bartolo five, Basilio three and Fiorello one. Rossini’s Barber also marks a turning point in the history of the vocal fach in comic opera. The role of Almaviva allocates the main role to a tenor, which until then was highly unusual in opera buffa.

While the aesthetic of the tenor voice in early 19th century opera was characterised by the contrast between a high, light tenor contraltino/con­tralto tenor) and a deeper, more dramatic tenore baritonale (baritone tenor), the role of the Count falls into the second cate-

gory. In Rossini, it is much more common to find the contralto or “Zwischenfach” tenor, such as Giocondo in La pietra del paragone, Lindoro in Italiana in Algeri or Narciso in Turco in Italia.

As a mezzo soprano, the protagonist Rosina also does not fit into the voice type conventions. As in his two other opera buffas still very popular today, Lʼitaliana in Algeri (1813) and La cene­­ rentola (1817), Rossini prefers the lower voice over the high soprano for his two female lead roles.

Barbiere in turn calls for a “buffo cantate” or “buffo nobile” whose vocal range corresponds to today’s baritone. By contrast, the “dottore” Bartolo is a classic comic bass who with his parlando style and occasionally babbling repeated notes is designated as “buffo caricato.”

As is often the case in opera buffa, basses are cast in the other men’s roles, so the duplicitous music teacher Basilio and the two servants Fiorello and Ambrogio as well as a notary and a police officer. Besides Rosina, Berta (soprano), a governess in Bartolo’s house, is the only other female role. In its reception history, Il Barbiere di Sivi­ gliahas been the subject of many political interpretations, above all in the 19th and 20th century, not infrequently in the wake of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro.

The notion that the Barber is a victorious, even “democratic” or “revolutionary” hero cannot be deduced either from the two operas of Rossini and Mozart or from Beaumarchais’ play scripts. This view stems rather from the fact that as it was written immediately before the French Revolution, the drama has always been seen as directly linked to the revolution. In fact, contrary to conventional interpretations, “the Barber proves to be more an inept rather

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than shrewd intriguer, a losing rather than winning manipulator, but also a boaster who is as impudent as he is irresistible with his infectious empathy and cheerfulness.”

This plausible hypothesis offered by Saverio Lamacchia and evidenced by

numerous examples and collations can be transferred cum grano salis to Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro. Ultimately, it is the music the makes the schemer Figaro triumphant and the centre of attention both in Mozart and Rossini.

Next pages: PAOLO BORDOGNA as BARTOLO KS JUAN DIEGO FLÓREZ as ALMAVIVA RUTH BRAUER-KVAM as AMBROGIO VASILISA BERZHANSKAYA as ROSINA AURORA MARTHENS as BERTA

VASILISA BERZHANSKAYA as ROSINA

ARISTOTLE / DE ANIMA

IT WAS PRECISELY THE NATURE OF COLOUR THAT IT IS CAPABLE OF SETTING IN MOTION THAT WHICH ‚ IS ACTUALLY TRANSPARENT. LIGHT IS THE ACTUALISED STATE OF THE TRANSPARENT MEDIUM.

GELTRUDE RIGHETTI-GIORGI

IT’S

MY TURN TO SPEAK ROSSINI – I think that this name piques people’s interest the world over. No other artist has been either as much praised or as much criticised as Rossini. And if his name alone isn’t enough to get your attention, I will waste no time mentioning that this piece is written by a woman who will try to defend him against the disrepute in many cases into which he has perhaps unjustly fallen. I have often felt the need to pay tribute to the truth of this case. It has not been the difficulty of the topic, but the derision of tactless people that has held me back until now.

In Italy a woman who calls on the public in writing is a rare thing. In the midst of the general silence from women, I am plucking up my courage to talk about things that should interest all Italian women, namely about Rossi­ni and his music. I am neither looking for praise nor seeking a prize. It is only for the sake of truth that I want to test a few rather bizarre accounts that have been accepted with excessive gullibility. And if I cannot cite authors or refer to the music of the Greeks and Egyptians, as scholars are wont to do, I shall talk about modern operas and say things that are also worth a certain level of attention.

A Milan newspaper that appeared in early June in 1822 caused me to reach for my pen to defend Rossini. In it, I read so much fiction and so many mistakes that it made my blood boil, the most so since I noticed that the way had been cleared and everyone was smiling about what they had read. When I arrived in Ravenna to hear Morandi, Mariani and Taccinardi and entered the Café on the Piazza, it took all my willpower for me to control myself. The ladies and gentlemen roared with laughter when they read the address that Rossini had apparently written on the letters his mother. They made every imaginable comment! Then and there I made this decision. I decided to defend mother and son. Now it was necessary to meet the challenge. Let us set aside the needle (“ago”) and step into the ring (“agone”)!

I shall reproduce the article from the Milan paper here, but not conti­ nuous­ly: I shall insert my comments after each section.

[Milan newspaper:] “After Rome signed him on for a new opera, when the censors rejected a number of dramas, the impresario proposed a new composition of Barbiere di Siviglia. The maestro from Pesaro hesitated ini­tially and

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GELTRUDE RIGHETTI-GIORGI

GELTRUDE RIGHETTI-GIORGI

then wrote to Paisiello to request his consent, which he also re­ceived, since the latter had no doubts about the project’s success. Rossini showed his letter to all his lovers and also published a note on the subject in the libretto. He composed his Barbiere within 13 days and confessed that he had significant heart palpitations when he took his place at the pianoforte at the première.

The beginning of the opera seemed boring to the audience in Rome and markedly inferior to Paisiello’s opera.

One of Rosina’s arias – “Io sono docile” – and with it the insolent cry of a mature woman instead of the dulcet lament of a young lover met with displeasure. The duet between Rosina and Figaro was the first number to draw applause. The slander aria was judged to be exquisitely beautiful, but it was far too similar to the revenge aria from Mozzart’s [sic!] Nozze di Figaro.

The opera had a curious fate: at the first performance it was met with disapproval, but was then enthusiastically received at the second. Never­theless, the Roman critics felt that Rossini was inferior to all the famous masters in his expression of tender emotions. The complicated trills and fioriture that Rossini so loved, and which prompted considerable applause in Paris were almost hissed off the stage. Everyone agreed that if Cimarosa had set Barbiere, it would have been both funnier and also more expressive. They also shared the belief that Rossini’s buona-sera quintet sending Bartolo off to bed could not hold a candle to Paisiello.”

Now, Mr English Journalist, I, for whom Rossini composed the role of Rosina in Barbiere di Siviglia, it’s my turn to talk.

The censorship had nothing at all to do with Rossini. The poet Ferretti was com-

missioned to write a libretto for Teatro Argentina, the lead role in which was to be sung by the tenor Garzía. Ferretti proposed the subject of an officer in love with an innkeeper’s wife and was thwarted in his affections by a a court official. The plot seemed too ordinary to the impresario, and so after releasing Ferretti, they turned to another poet, Mr Sterbini. Sterbini had had little success with Torvaldo e Dorliska but was inclined to try his luck again.

The subject of the new libretto was agreed with Rossini, and all agreed on the choice of Barbiere di Siviglia. Rossini did not write to Paisiello, as was generally assumed, because he was aware that the same subject could be successfully developed by more than one composer.

How many famous 18th century tragic dramatists have not written a Merope?

Cimarosa and Paisiello set L’Olimpi­ ade almost simultaneously without the one asking permission from the other.

In order not to cause offence, Rossini wrote an explanation for audiences that he had not selected a subject that Paisiello had already so brilliantly set to music. It is possible that this note was partially responsible for the failure of the première performance. The streets and cafés in Rome were abuzz with rumours! The jealous and malicious claimed that Rossini had exhausted his talent and were absolutely amazed when they heard that the noble impresario of the Teatro Argentina had commissioned him to write an opera.

People agreed to execute him, and to achieve this goal as well as possible they started to rebuke him for having laid hands on a story of Paisiello’s. Now you see, people shouted out in the dress circle, where the arrogance of an illadvised youth will get you. He thinks he

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IT’S MY TURN TO SPEAK

can destroy the immortal name of Paisiello. You will be amazed, yes you will!

In such situations there is little that friends can do to help, and even their circumspect silence fans and inflames the enemies.

The acquiescence that moved Ros­ sini to allow the tenor Garzía to compose the ariettas under Rosina’s window after the introduction proved disastrous.

By doing this, Rossini had intended to promote the expression of Spanish character, and Garzía did in fact paraphrase motifs from this nation’s love songs. But Garzía, who tuned his guitar on stage and incited the laugh­ter of the riff-raff, sang his cavatina with little gusto, and it was received with disapproval.

I was prepared for anything. Trembling, I climbed the steps leading to the balcony, where I had to say two words – “Segui, o caro, deh segui così.” The Romans typically showered me with applause in Italiana in Algeri and expected me to prove myself worth of it with a graceful, tender cavatina. After those few words they started to whistle and protest.

What had to happen did happen. No one could hear Figaro’s cavatina, although masterfully sung by Zamboni, and the wonderful duet for Figaro and Almaviva, performed by Zamboni and Garzía. Finally, I appeared not just at the window, but on the stage. At the time I was not a mature woman, dear Mr Journalist, but had just turned 22. My voice was considered to be the most beautiful that had ever been heard there. Always eager to do my duty, the Romans had accepted me as a daughter.

Finally, they quietened down to listen to me. I plucked up my courage.

The Romans themselves will tell you how I sang the cavatina of the “Viper”,

and Rossini will confirm it. They honoured me with three rounds of applause, and once Rossini even rose to thank me.

He, who appreciated my voice greatly, turned to me from the harpsichord and said jokingly: Ah, the gifts of Mother Nature! Be grateful to her, I replied smiling, for without her goodwill you would not now be rising from your seat. We thought then that the opera was saved, but things turned out differently. I sang the beautiful duet for Rosina and Figaro with Zamboni, but jealousy at its most acrimonious employed all her arts: whistles came from all around the theatre. We came to the finale, which is a classical composition that would do honour to the greatest composers in the world. Laughter, catcalls and piercing whistling that only stopped in order to resume at an even more ear-splitting level.

When we reached the wonderful unison passage “quest’avventura”, a strident voice from the gallery shouted: “It’s the funeral of D[uke] C[esarini].” That did it. The invectives that rained down on Rossini were unutterable. He remained steadfastly at his harpsichord, seeming to say: Apollo, forgive these people, for they know not what they do.

After the first act, Rossini signalled for applause, not for his opera, as many people thought, but for the performers who had truly done their best. Many took offence at this. You can probably guess how the second act went. Rossini left the theatre looking just as if he had been an uninterested spectator.

Feeling greatly affected by these events, I went to his house to console him. But he had no need of my comfort and was already fast asleep. The following day he removed everything from his score that seemed to him justifiably

37

IT’S MY TURN TO SPEAK

deserving of criticism. He feigned illness, perhaps in order not to have appear at the harpsichord again. In the meantime, the Romans came to the realisation that they should at least listen attentively to the whole opera if they were to judge it fairly. They poured into the theatre for the second performance and listened in reverent silence. From this point on, Mr Journalist starts to tell the truth.

The opera was received with general applause. When it was over, we all went to visit the imaginary invalid and found his bed surrounded by numerous distinguished Roman citizens who had hurried over to congratulate him on his excellent work. At the third performance, the applause was even greater.

Ultimately Rossini’s Barbiere di Siviglia was added to the ranks of those compositions that never become outdated and exist alongside the most beau­tiful opera buffa of Paisiello and Cimarosa. As far as Rosina’s “trills and fiorituras” are concerned, the journalist perhaps intended to criticise Signora Fodor, who

sang this role for several months in Paris and whom I myself heard sing the role in Venice, perhaps with overladen ornamentation. As for the rest, this capable artist is above the remarks of the journalist. In the short span of my stage career, I sang Rosina in Rome, Genoa, Florence and Bologna, where I received almost endless demonstrations of general delight. With­out vanity I would repeat what all those who came running to hear me said about me. You impre­ sarios in the above-mentioned towns, Garnara, Boschi and Cartoni, prove me wrong, if you can; I challenge you to do so.

Ultimately the world declared Ros­ sini’s Barbiere di Siviglia to be a magnum opus, and impresarios everywhere are clutching fast to it, like a plank that will save them from shipwreck. The finale, the duet, the quintet, the trio all have wonderful appeal. Dr Bartolo’s aria which replaced the original in Florence, was composed by Pietro Romani. It is beautiful, and Rossini was not at all unhappy that it was inserted in his opera.

ILDAR ABDRAZAKOV as DON BASILIO Following pages: VASILISA BERZHANSKAYA as ROSINA

RUTH BRAUER-KVAM as AMBROGIO KS JUAN DIEGO FLÓREZ as ALMAVIVA ÉTIENNE DUPUIS as FIGARO

IMPRINT GIOACHINO ROSSINI

IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA SEASON 2023/24 PREMIÈRE OF THE PRODUCTION 28 SEPTEMBER 2021 Publisher WIENER STAATSOPER GMBH, Opernring 2, 1010 Wien Director DR. BOGDAN ROŠČIĆ Music Director PHILIPPE JORDAN Administrative Director DR. PETRA BOHUSLAV General Editors SERGIO MORABITO, NIKOLAUS STENITZER Design & concept EXEX Layout & typesetting MIWA MEUSBURGER Image concept: MARTIN CONRADS, BERLIN (Cover) All performance photos MICHAEL PÖHN Printed by PRINT ALLIANCE HAV PRODUKTIONS GMBH, BAD VÖSLAU TEXT REFERENCES All texts were taken from the première programme of the Vienna State Opera 2021. COVER IMAGE Bettmann, Students packing into a Volkswagen, Getty Images. ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS Andrew Smith.

Reproduction only with approval of Wiener Staatsoper GmbH / Dramaturgy. Abbreviations are not marked. Holders of rights who were unavailable are requested to make contact regarding retrospect compensation.

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