Trittico Gets The Plasma Treatment
(above: Barabara Frittoli in Suor Angelica on top of Ronconi's scary dead Madonna from Scala's Il Trittico)
Classica broadcast via satellite a live transmission from the Thursday night performance at La Scala of Puccini's Il Trittico. OC endured it once again so she could bring you legal shots of the performance via her Canon camera and Samsung plasma. Chailly's conducting remained heavenly even through the canning and compression of live sound to media, although Team Ronconi's odd set designs appeared much darker on screen. The key singers, of course, were much more emotive, with Suor Angelica's Barbara Frittoli even admitting in a post-performance interview that the music moved her so much that she was crying just before one of her arias. suffering for art and all.
The performance was hosted by Classica tv host Gianandrea Gavazzeni's son, he of oddly-composed facial hemispheres, who coolly interviewed both Barbara Frittoli and Leo Nucci (Nucci in full costume and makeup and fake nose, relaxed as a lamby only minutes before getting on stage for his Schicchi) in his II ordine palco between intermissions. There was also a small pre-recorded piece on both Maestro Chailly (who masterfully dissected the evolution of Puccini's style, more on this in a later post) and director Luca Ronconi.
Oddly enough, it was also the first out of the previous three performances where Mariana Lipovšek as Zia Principessa in Suor Angelica wasn't booed loudly at the curtain call. Ronconi didn't show up at curtain call. no boos? a weird coincidence, since the loggione had booed after every previous performance (they didn't like the staging). were they absent? diplomatically silent? good faith? bad? hmmmmm.
Puccini's Trittico will be rebroadcast on Classica a few times next month: April 19 (9pm), 21 (8am), 23 (1:30pm), 27 (10:15am), and 29 (11am). Dayuuum.
OC made a niiiice leetel photo album of a few dozen screenshots, which you can enjoy here. Below are a few of the highlights.
(above: Juan Pons strangles Miroslav Dvorsky in the finale of Il Tabarro.)
(above: The nuns of Suor Angelica walk all over the giant plastic Madonna)
(above: Barbara Frittoli takes her curtain call with her immortalized son)
(above: Leo Nucci in Dante garb as Gianni Schicchi with a prosthetic nose)
(above: Vittorio Grigolo takes a curtain call for Gianni Schicchi: well-deserved applause)
Oh my _____. That blown-up Madonna is quite unsettling. What was Ronconi thinking???
Posted by: number five alive | March 15, 2008 at 06:18 PM
Oh no, I was there on the third performance and Dvorsky didn't sing; he got substituted by Palombi!
Not many loggionisti were present that night, but it was soooo boring that noone would even bother to boo. There were actually people leaving after "Suor Angelica", something which is of course unexcusable but quite comprehendible.
Posted by: RosenkranzAndGuildenstern | March 20, 2008 at 12:02 AM