After meeting Sir John Eliot Gardiner, the Monteverdi Festival 2024 comes alive with the first of the two original productions of this edition: theOrpheus. The setting for special occasions is Ponchielli, with the elegant audience in evening dress and the second tier of boxes framed by wonderful white roses suspended from the balconies. To introduce the evening an incredible orchestration of the national anthem created specifically for the event by Tomato. The superintendent of the Ponchielli Theater will do the honors Andrea Cigni who, after greeting the authorities and Government representatives, thanked the administration and the Government itself for the important result achieved by the Festival: “Now this manifestation is of absolute international importancean important milestone, pride of the Cremonese for their fellow citizen, undisputed father of opera”.
Having opened the curtain on the essential and transcendent scene designed by Thomas Lauret, a place-non-place opens up, where everything you see is the evocation of itself without being it. Even the costumes are black tunics with designs that evoke tunics, as are the columns and arches of this ideal “room”, white lines on black columns and arches, which almost thanks to the “Gestalt” shows us now an open place, now a hall, now a crypt. To add images, the rear projections at the back of the stage. From the first notes proposed by Il Pomo d’Oro you can perceive an energy never heard before, with a vigorous and exciting sound marked by a tight and brilliant rhythm. Here the famous overture immediately prepared the audience for a whirlwind of emotions. Monteverdi would have been proud of all these “affections”. On stage the Choir of the Monteverdi Festival-Cremona Antiqua in great shape. The group, prepared by Diego Maccagnola, is ready, compact, never out of time and always in perfect tune. A warranty. In the voice cast Marco Saccardin, in the title role after winning the inaugural Cavalli Monteverdi competition last year. Saccardin paints a vigorous, expressive, convincing Orpheus who manages to dramaturgically express all the drama of the loss of Eurydice and the troubled and then failed path of bringing her back with him from her underworld. Jin Jiayualso winner of the 2023 singing competition, first offers La Musica and then Euridice, both with good intonation and articulation but despite not having too powerful a medium, she managed to outline a present and dramatic character. Margherita Sala it is a Messaggera with a beautiful dense and round timbre, used with evident mastery especially in the use of sound dynamics. Proserpina’s is good Paola Valentina Molinari as well as Speranza played by Laura Orueta. Solida the Nymph of Emilia Bertolini. The men’s sector also performed well with the good Caronte di Alessandro Ravasio and the convincing Pluto of Rocco Lia. They complete the cast of absolute level, Giacomo Nanni, Roberto Rilievi, Matteo Straffi, Sandro Rossi.
The direction inspired by quantum physics is enjoyable Olivier Fredj which gets stage movements and dramaturgy right, enhancing the libretto without ever disturbing it with useless gimmicks that are so fashionable these days. Nice idea about “You’re dead” to lower the ceiling giving a serious dramatic and oppressive sense well described by the text and score. Also interesting is the ending of the Opera in which Orpheus takes up an archlute and accompanies himself (for real) in the last orchestral notes as if he were a storyteller who has just finished telling his story by singing.
Francesco Corti he put a lot of himself into this complex score, rewriting several choral parts and redistributing the most important choruses between the choir and soloists. His sure pulse, the taste for marked liveliness where permitted, the great musical quality of Il Pomo d’Oro, have given Cremona an Orfeo of the highest quality, one that hasn’t been heard for a long time. The musical practice on stage, as well as in the pit and behind the scenes, is high. The result is a production that will hardly be forgotten. A long, vigorous applause from the full hall accompanied the first curtain call of the Monteverdi Festival 2024. And we know that those who start off well…
photo Gianpaolo Guarneri/Studio B12
