Puccini’s place in the operatic firmament
has hardened into unassailability during the past century, yet there any many –
the present reviewer included – who approach his oeuvre somewhat dutifully,
forced by the weight of popular opinion to concede his mastery without quite
feeling it. For such sceptics, the Staatsoper’s new production of La Fanciulla del West was an unexpected
delight. Although it featured three strong principals and a reasonably focussed
staging, its persuasive energy came primarily from the eruptions of orchestral emotion
summoned by Antonio Pappano, who spent much of the evening heating up
individual scenes to the point where they transcended melodrama and achieved
their own particular euphoria.
Certainly the audience was primed for catharsis
of any kind: it had been nearly eight months since the second wave of the…
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