Scottish Opera’s new production of Rossini’s Cenerentola, which is being shared with Strasbourg, received such glum reviews, especially from The Times, that it brought memories flooding back of the famous old Edinburgh Festival production staged at the King’s Theatre during Peter Diamand’s reign as Festival director. With Teresa Berganza, the brightest star in the Diamand firmament, as Cinderella, it marked one of the first appearances of Diamand’s own Festival opera company, in a striking black-and-white production by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle that was eventually taken to La Scala, Milan.
Those were the days, my friends, which we thought would never end. It was not that the production was the greatest imaginable - it had its characteristic Ponnelle flaws - but it was staged with such style, wit, polish, and irresistible zest that it stuck in the memory. The cast was classy, and not just dependent on a single singer. Claudio Abbado, on his way to becoming the most masterly Rossinian of his period, conducted. The Scottish Opera Chorus, which then still existed and knew how to show its paces, provided dapper support.
By the time the show reached La Scala, it had been slightly modified, but not to its detriment. The chorus’s monochrome costumes had changed to red. Berganza was succeed by the similarly gifted Frederika von Stade. But the gloriously spindly Paolo Montarsolo was still the tetchy Don Magnifico and Francisco Araiza and Claudio Desderi were the brilliant Ramiro and Dandini.
Happily the Scala version dated fron a time when internationally celebrated performances could go straight on to DVD, which was why I found myself watching it, with renewed pleasure, a week or two ago. Abaddo’s conducting was seductively spruce, though it was sad that there was not a glimpse of him on screen. The Italian articulation was as zippy as could be. Though Von Stade struck me as not quite so haunting as Berganza, she sang exquisitely. And Montarsolo was a wonderful old rascal, even better than Ian Wallace in Glyndebourne days under Vittorio Gui’s conductorship. The way that DVD keeps fine productions of yesteryear alive is one of the miracles of opera.
A pity this did not happen when Scottish Opera staged Henze’s Elegy for Young Lovers at the Edinburgh Festival in the 1970’s or when Janet Baker sang in the Trojans.
1 December 2014
If memory serves me correctly, the 1971 Cenerentola was not in fact a new production for Edinburgh. It had been mounted with largely the same cast (including Berganza and Abbado) at the Florence Maggio Musicale some months earlier. Perhaps it was an early example of a co-production. Whatever, apart from the previous Scottish Opera odfferings, it was one of the Festival's first productions that fitted the small King's Theatre stage like a glove. iIt looked gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteA small anecdote. In addition to the Chorus, Scottish Opera also provided all the technical staff for the production. One of the ladies on the crew was named Hazel. Try as he might, Ponelle could never pronounce her name correctly, always calling her "Aizel". When it came to the first performance, Ponelle had small gifts for the cast and key members of the crew. Hazel was delighted to receive a moderately-sized beautifully wrapped present which, she told me, felt rather 'squishy'. She was then somewhat horrified to open it and discover a roll of Izal toilet paper! Stuffed into the central tube, though, was a small bottle of cognac. Another example of Ponelle's wit!
And a postscript. That sparkling Edinburgh production was recorded immediately after the run of performances - I believe the location was George Watson's College. It is still available from amazon and remains one of the finest - if not the finest - on disc.