Friday, May 8, 2009

DONIZETTI : L'ELISIR D'AMORE

DONIZETTI'S ELIXIR OF LOVE
New York Metropolitan Opera Broadcast
Radio New Zealand Concert network

Sunday 17th of April 2016 at 6.04 -9 pm
Sunday 23rd of February 2014 at 6.03 - 9 pm
Sunday 10th of March 2013 at 3.03 - 6 pm
Sunday 6th of May 2012 at 3.03 - 6 pm
Sunday 10th of May 2009 at  3 - 6 pm

Sunday 29th of June 2008 at 3 - 5.30 pm

DONIZETTI: L'elisir d'amore, an opera in two acts
A lovesick peasant boy gets a magic potion from a quack doctor to soften the heart of the girl he loves, and her furtive tear seals their fate.
2016

Adina........................... Aleksandra Kurzak
Nemorino..................... Vittorio Grigolo
Sergeant Belcore.......... Adam Plachetka
Dr Dulcamara.............. Alessandro Corbelli
Giannetta..................... Anne-Carolyn Bird
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Enrique Mazzola
2014
Nemorino......................... Salvatore Cordella
Adina................................ Anna Netrebko
Belcore............................. Nicola Alaimo
Dr Dulcamara................... Erwin Schrott
Giannetta.......................... Anne-Carolyn Bird
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Maurizio Benini

 2013
REVIEW (NYT)
Nemorino..................... Matthew Polenzani
Adina........................... Anna Netrebko
Belcore......................... Mariusz Kwiecien
Dr Dulcamara.............. Erwin Schrott
Giannetta..................... Anne-Carolyn Bird
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Maurizio Benini
Note that when this was shown in cinemas, Dr Dulcamara was Ambrogio Maestri, 
but this time it is Erwin Schrott (who happens to be married to Anna Netrebko).

INTRODUCTION
COMPOSER
PREVIEW
SYNOPSIS
LIBRETTO (Italian)
REVIEW (NYT 2014)
REVIEW (NYT 2014)
This has the news that Netrebko and Schrott have ended their 6-year relationship which produced a 5-year-old son.


The setting is a village (Italian, originally Basque).


This opera comica includes the story of Tristan and Isolde, before Wagner got his hands on it. In this case it is Tristan who procures the love-potion, the philtre, the elixir of love.


First let me tell you about the recordings I have. On audio compact disc José Carreras and Katia Ricciarelli (conductor Scimone). On vinyl disc, Luciano Pavarotti and Joan Sutherland (with Bonynge of course) showing off her 'comic talents' as in The Daughter of the Regiment [Penguin Guide]). Who do you think the tenor is on my other disc? No, not Placido Domingo with Ileana Cotrubas (John Pritchard), but Luigi Alva, with Rosanna Carteri (Tullio Serafin), Columbia (1959), made in collaboration with Teatro alla Scala, Milano.


In 1832 Hector Berlioz passed through Milan, and went to see the Elixir at the Canobbiana. Yes, he saw it but did not hear it, because the audience was talking, gambling, and eating, while ignoring the action on the stage.


Indeed the good citizens of Milano can be very cruel to opera performers, as the stories from La Scala substantiate: poor Maria Callas, and more recently Roberto Alagna (singing Radamès, instead of Nemorino, which he does on the finest version on record [Erato], according to the Penguin Guide).


However (don't stop me if you have heard this before, many times) in July 1965 I had a wonderful wonderful (I did not mean to type that twice, but let it stand) afternoon at a matinée performance in Melbourne. I had just finished the seven examinations for the London University M.Th. (it was mainly Hebrew and Aramaic I was doing for it and doing it for, and many months later I was notified of my failure, but all the study stood me in good stead for my future career); and I was taking time out from my Melbourne M.A. thesis (at the end of the year I passed that degree with 1st class honours, and moved on to doctorate studies).


So there I was sitting in a cheap seat next to a genial Catholic priest, who assured me that the slim tenor on the stage was Luciano Pavarotti (history not memory informs me that he was wearing blue overalls over a white shirt with a red sash around his waist, in lieu of a white handkerchief, hindsight tells me). He was fresh from his successes in Holland, Switzerland, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Austria, so the publicity was able to state that his ringing tones had been heard in the opera houses of Europe; and now it was Australia, and its opera critics were enthusiastic. John Cargher pronounced him "World-class by any standard" and a "rare thing": "a lyric tenor with volume" (referring to his marvellous voice not his physical size at this stage of Luciano's life), and "an accomplished actor" (so there! but it did become harder for him to achieve this later, when his shape did not suit his roles). Right now I am looking at a monochrome photograph of him in performance as Nemorino, smiling. He was already known in Italy, naturally, and he had substituted for Di Stefano in La Bohème at Covent Garden, and had been Idamante in Mozart's Idomeneo at Glyndebourne, and had sung with Joan Sutherland in Lucia in America; but that tour of Melbourne and Sydney with Joan and Richard Bonynge made his name universal, I dare to say.


At last, in 1966, he made his debut at La Scala in Bellini's Capulets and Montagues. He also sang in Verdi's Requiem, and many people (some of them known to you and me) can say that they have sung that with him, in the accompanying choir. Requiesce in pace, Pavarotti.


And with regard to the opera, Denis Forman describes The Elixir of Love as a miracle, and enthuses over the pure enjoyment it offers; he awards it a medal inscribed with A+.


Sunday 6th of May 2012 at 3.03 - 6 pm
DONIZETTI: L'Elisir d'amore, an opera in two acts
Nemorino...................... Juan Diego Flórez
Adina............................ Diana Damrau
Belcore......................... Mariusz Kwiecien
Dr Dulcamara................ Alessandro Corbelli
Giannetta....................... Layla Claire
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Donato Renzetti
REVIEW (NYT)
REVIEW

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 29th of June 2008 at
3 - 5.30 pm

DONIZETTI: L'elisir d'amore, a comic opera in two acts
Nemorino...................... Stefano Secco
Adina............................ Alexandra Kurzak
Belcore......................... Ludovic Tézier
Dr Dulcamara................ Paolo Gavanelli
Giannetta....................... Kishani Jayasinghe
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden,
Chorus & Orch/Mikko Franck
Sunday 10th of May 2009 at  3 - 6 pm
DONIZETTI: L'Elisir d'amore, an opera in two acts
Adina............................ Angela Gheorghiu
Nemorino...................... Massimo Giordano
Belcore......................... Franco Vassallo
Dulcamara..................... Simone Alaimo
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Maurizio Benini

BACKGROUND
UNDERGROUND

ANALYSIS

STORYLINE


 

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