Puccini – La rondine

Magda – Mariangela Sicilia
Lisette – Rosalía Cid
Ruggero – Matteo Lippi
Prunier – Giovanni Sala
Rambaldo – Pietro Spagnoli
Périchaud – William Allione
Gobin – Pierluigi D’Aloia
Crébillon – Jo Wonjun
Yvette – Aleksandrina Mihaylova
Bianca – Martina Russomanno
Suzy – Andrea Niño
Rabonnier – Giordano Rossini
Georgette – Cristina Injeong Hwang
Gabriella – Serena Pasquini
Lolette – Silvia Spruzzola
Un maggiordomo – Giuseppe Capoferri
Uno studente – Andrea Semeraro
Voce di tenor (fuori scena) – Michele Mauro

Coro del Teatro alla Scala, Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala / Riccardo Chailly.
Stage director – Irina Brook.

Teatro alla Scala, Milan, Italy.  Sunday, April 14th, 2024.

Tonight’s was the penultimate performance of Irina Brook’s new production of La rondine at the Scala.  It uses an edition by Ricordi that differs from what one might have heard previously.  For instance, Prunier’s composition of Doretta’s dream lasts for two verses before Magda takes it up.  We lose Ruggero’s entrance aria, and the off-stage voice at the end of Act 2 is taken by a tenor, rather than a soprano.  It did feel that the omission of Ruggero’s entrance aria was a bit of a loss here, since it gave Matteo Lippi less time to establish his character, and one would certainly have appreciated more opportunities to hear him sing. 

This lack of character development is, unfortunately, an overriding impression that I had of Brook’s staging.  I found it extremely problematic.  Rather than illustrating the story, allowing her principals to drive the action forward, Brook constantly adds a layer of visual ‘noise’ throughout the entire evening.  Act 1 appears to be set backstage as a cast rehearses something – it’s not clear what.  A figure, who presents as female, is seen constantly gesticulating around the cast.  I’m not sure if she’s a stage director or a stage manager, but she takes a physically active role in the proceedings, so much so that I just wanted to go up on stage and tell her to get off.  It was incredibly distracting and added nothing to the narrative, instead drawing attention away from the cast and making them extras in their own stories.  Similarly, the start of Act 2, is full of bright lights and a stage full of choristers and ballet dancers, with the lights being suspended up and down.  Yet what this did, instead of amplifying the music and heightening its effects, was rather to drown out the music in layers of the aforementioned extraneous visual ‘noise’.  So much so, that one simply had no idea where to look and it felt that the impact of the music was lost.  Once one did focus on the chorus, for instance, it was clear that they were simply parked there.  That glorious moment at ‘bevo al tuo fresco sorriso’, simply consisted of the principals placed at the front, hands outstretched to the audience, while a dancer wildly gesticulated at the back, drawing our attention away.  The closing act, was set on a Côte d’Azur, where the sea is populated with ballet dancers in tutus.  Magda takes her leave by walking, in procession with other women, towards a door marked ‘Exit’ at the back of the stage, as if participating in a moment recycled from a staging of Dialogues des carmélites.  Perhaps Brook was attempting to make a point about how women are used by men and then disposed of.  Yet like so much in her staging, it was unclear whether that was actually the point and, at any rate, its an idea that felt added on and completely at odds with the more innocent and heartfelt love the Ruggero showed Magda.

The Scala cast the show with a youthful group of singers.  These aren’t the world’s biggest voices, and so they needed a set that was acoustically supportive to them.  Unfortunately, they didn’t get it here.  Patrick Kinmonth’s set had wide open spaces that did not provide the acoustic support the cast needed, although it was undoubtedly visually attractive.  Had Brook placed the cast more appropriately on stage that might not have been as much of an issue, but having Rosalía Cid’s Lisette singing her Act 1 interjections from the middle of the stage, meant that she wasn’t as optimally audible as she could have been.  There was one moment where this opera worked its magic on me.  That was at the end of Act 2, when, for a brief second Magda and Ruggero were alone on stage, as Mariangela Sicilia’s Magda repeated ‘ti amo’, Sicilia filling it with emotion.  It didn’t last for long until some extras came back on, but at least for a second, we had a glimpse of the deep emotion at the heart of the work.

It’s a real shame that Brook didn’t seem to trust her singers because musically, this was a very special evening.  Riccardo Chailly led a Scala orchestra on glorious form, conjuring a seemingly unlimited palette of orchestral colour.  The soupy portamenti in the strings, with a shimmering autumnal warmth at the core, seemed to embody the longing that lies at the core of this piece.  Chailly managed to find both a lightness to the orchestral sound, which let his singers through despite the lack of acoustic support, while allowing the climaxes to ring out thrillingly.  Indeed, that ensemble at ‘bevo al tuo fresco sorriso’ was definitely helped by the great improvements in the Scala chorus, who sang here with such firm tone, the sopranos pouring waves of sound out on high.  I wish they had given us a bis.  The brass was also on exceptional form all night.

Sicilia gave us a lovely Magda.  There were some genuinely emotional moments here, and one can only imagine the impact her performance would have had in a more sensitive production.  Sicilia has the ability to float the lines beautifully on high, able to allow the tone to open up, and also to pull it back to a thread of sound.  She filled the words with meaning and, when given the opportunity to hold the stage, such as the end of Act 2, was deeply moving.  Her closing lines to Ruggero, ‘Io riprendo il mio volo e la mia pena’, saw Sicilia finding so much heartbreak and resolve in the text.  The voice is slender, with a pearly core, and a little hardness on top suggested to my ears that Magda might represent Sicilia’s current limits.  Make no mistake, however, hers was a thoughtful and highly musical assumption.

Lippi brought a gloriously Italianate sound to Ruggero.  The voice is a good size, with a sunny warmth at the core that lit up the room.  He phrased his music with generosity and managed the passaggio expertly.  There was a wide-eyed innocence and generosity to his reading that felt so right for the character.  Giovanni Sala sang Prunier in a focused, well-placed tenor, which carried well despite the lack of acoustic support.  His was a deliciously sardonic assumption, making so much of the text.  Cid sang Lisette in a bright soprano, with easy reach on top and was an energetic stage presence. 

Pietro Spagnoli’s baritone seems to defy the years as Rambaldo, singing with impressive firmness of tone and verbal acuity.  We had a fabulous trio in Aleksandrina Mihaylova, Martina Russomanno, Andrea Niño, who sang with genuine personality – though I wish they had also assumed the roles of the grisettes as I would have appreciated hearing more from them.  The remaining roles, of which there were many, represented the standards one would expect from this legendary address, with Michele Mauro singing the off-stage solo with genuine eloquence.  As mentioned above, the Scala chorus is on excellent form currently, prepared by Alberto Malazzi. 

This was a bit of a mixed evening.  The production I found drowned out the work and the characters in extraneous layers of visual activity.  The best opera productions are those that, even when presenting radical readings of a work, use the visuals to amplify and heighten the effect of the music.  Here, it felt that the music was secondary to what we saw, as if Brook didn’t trust the work or her principals.  Musically, on the other hand, it was wonderful – a youthful cast, finding genuine beauty in the music, with Chailly and his orchestra on magnificent form.  They brought out the nostalgia and the longing that lie at the heart of this fabulous, if flawed, work.  The audience responded with polite applause, with particularly loud cheers for Sicilia.