Matilde & Corradino ( Aleksandra Kurzak and Juandi Florez) fill the ROH with giggles

Foto MARK ELLIDGE at timesonline


This Halloween performance of Matilde di Shabran was the perfect date-night-out. If there was ever an operatic rom-com - this was it! It is definitely not the most accomplished Rossini creation, but in spite of being a good 3 hours 15 minutes long, it manages to be very entertaining. At least for me, once I got into it, it felt as if over in a flash!

Never mind the intrigue; it is all very obvious, in spite of the considerable number of characters on stage. It is all about the boy and girl :-)

It took some time for everyone to get going, but once they did, it was all smooth from there. The staging and direction (Mario Martone) is nothing special, but it also doesn’t disturb the music, which given the difficulty of some parts of the score is not such a bad thing. But it does put all the weight of the performance on the singers. It was entirely up to them to take the plot forward and give shape to their characters. And still in the ensemble scene with have some déjà vu moments, with the chorus in the back and the singers in the front, spread evenly across the stage, singing towards the audience. foto Catherine Ashmore

So let’s then do as I did there and zoom in to the characters:

The biggest contribution to the recitative and the language came undoubtedly from the “poet” Isidoro (Alfonso Antoniozzi) .. I enjoyed his Neapolitan twang to the fullest and pity no translation could ever do it justice ( and as always some laughs were slightly timelagged due to this). He is an excellent actor and as his singing is reduced to a minimum (and this is rather weak compared to his acting) gives a delightful performance.

Marco Vinco as Aliprando (the good doc) has a warm and deep tone to his voice, perfectly suited for the role. And although in his first phrases he had a bit of trouble reaching into the audience, the volume then smoothly adjusted to fit perfectly with the orchestra. He is definitely a pleasure to listen to, making it all sound quite effortless. Belcanto indeed and not something encountered so often in a young bass-baritone and in a Rossini performance.
Mark Beesley as Raimondo didn’t particularly stand out for me, but I don’t think the score is very generous with him, not really giving him the opportunity to shine. His performance however was much more balanced than the other experienced and he didn’t seem to need the time to warm up. I’d like to hear him again in a more substantial role. Same is valid for the evil contessa sung correctly by Enkelejda Shkosa.

Vesselina Kasarova’s Edoardo sounded slightly strange to me, some brilliant upper parts and then suddenly a pit in the lower register, which comes totally unconnected to the rest. And I was a bit unpleasantly surprised to see the exact same mimic and gestures as earlier in the year in her Carmen. She is sometimes wonderful (and her 2nd aria got some well deserved applause), but makes you wish you heard her with your eyes closed.

Matilde/Aleksandra Kurzak - I did remember her from last November’s Adina, however I can’t say she made an impression on me then. Weeeelll, what a change!!! Fair to say I was blown away!!! The effortless singing, the cheeky character, the spunk of this Matilde! From the moment she appeared on stage you knew who would command this story. She more than once stole the show. And how’about Rossini??!!! In a 3 hour and a bit opera where do you put the most difficult coloratura for your soprano? At the very end of course, when she has already been singing for more than 2 hours!! Kudos to her, she looked at ease and totally in control all the way… I tell you, I would have been s*****g myself knowing what would come at the end! But she totally aced it! And the high notes were flowing playfully from those smiling lips and what you were left with was not the technical effort of the score but the personality and strength of this cute Matilde. Brava! Molto Brava! A Matilde to fall for and a singer to admire! And applaud they did, she got as many cheers, shouts and applause as JDF and that more than proves how well she’s earned the public’s admiration.

Ok, ok, I am getting there! I know what you all want to know, especially since I clearly said I had never heard HIM live before ;-))))

foto Catherine Ashmore

Oh, well what did you expect? I loved him, of course! :-)
Juan Diego Florez was an adorable Corradino and yes, he is very much lovable himself. He wasn’t applauded when he came on stage, but I think it was just because it was incredibly fast and the moment was gone; I believe it was also right. It would have been unfair from the public towards his colleagues as no performance really stands just because of one singer. And applause is there to reward somebody’s performance not just acknowledge their physical presence, however nice it may be ;-)))

Surprisingly, it wasn’t his voice that knocked me off my socks, it was his stage personality. Of course his voice is beautiful! But I had heard it in recordings before and he is every bit as good as those, which is a compliment, as few singers are as good live as their recordings. He too sounded a bit quiet for me for the first phrases, but he then found his zone and brought the house down on several occasions. I’m not saying anything new here when I mention that he doesn’t have a booming volume, but does anyone want to have their ears shattered in Belcanto?? I think not; I don’t give much credit for volume anyway, because that is mostly genetics and you don’t get many brownie points in the long run for the gifts of mother nature alone :-) What makes him special are not even those easy high notes that he throws with the ease others say good morning. It is his sweet and intense lyrical singing, with this silken mezza voce of his that really does you in. Your know Pour me rapproche a Marie? Well that is what I mean, that is where for me he is better than all the other belcanto tenors today. And for working hard to polish this part of his singing I admire him. He has them all at his feet with high Cs. Ds. Es and all the other letters of the alphabet he can do, but I appreciate that he doesn’t leave it at that and is intent at showing all the other things his voice has to offer. For this reason my favourite part voice-wise as Corradino was the bit in the last act when he thinks he has sent innocent Matilde to death himself. He was absolutely exquisite there and I long to hear him sing something like that again. By the way, he’s got amazing diction; considering the amount of words he had to pronounce during these coloraturas it is no small success that one could understand every word he uttered.

And did anyone every say he was bland and not the best actor? Well all the laughs you will hear in the radio broadcast are 90% his! He is unbelievably funny! His face never stops moving and his got 1000 of them; and he is not a bit afraid of making a fool of himself ( and mind you he is a very composed person outside stage ;-) ) I didn’t feel anything special for that winding staircase… that is until Juandi was jumping up and down on it and started crawling in and around the railing like a little koala! Unbelievably funny and it made you want to cuddle him then and there! And there were a gazillion moments like that, he was never out of character, singing or not. He is an incredible bundle of energy and character.

It looked as if he enjoyed himself immensely and it makes me wonder why would anyone want him to sing something as boring as the Duca, when there are a gazillion more interesting and fun roles out there that he can excel at, why be one of the pack when he can be the prince? Oh yes, of course he knows just how good he is and he graciously accepts the admiration. From what I saw this evening he’s found that good balance between being a star and knowing you are one and still being able to make fun of yourself, not taking yourself too seriously and being a good and generous colleague.



I have to give a very big Bravo to the orchestra and the maestro Carlo Rizzi! They made the very very very best of this score! They showed how classy they are and Rizzi is fun to watch, with his baguette elegantly changing hands or disappearing all together. He did an excellent job in my opinion and got me for the first time truly excited about his Trovatore in spring (even more so considering how they were dissing Il povero Trovatore during the insight ;-))))

I can only say how much I regret not being able to watch it one more time. Now that I know where the thrills are, musically speaking :-)

I’ll be counting down the day to my next Rossini, this time one on my top-3-know-it-by-heart list of all times! Il Barbiere with the adorable JDF and the amazing DiDonato (and for me the big unknown of the evening, Simon Keenlyside as Figaro).


This performance is broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Saturday 22 November

Gearing up for Matilde di Shabran

pic pinched from Decca

While some lucky ones have already seen the opening night of Matilde (see review from Intermezzo :-)) I still have to wait one more week for mine.

But I did get a sneak peek at it last week in one of those clever Insight evenings that the ROH spoils its “friends” with. And I am glad I did, even after an 14 hours long day, it was still as interesting and fun as expected.

The program surprisingly announced Juandi ( Juan Diego Florez) to be attending, which in the end he was not. Called in indisposed, oh well :-) Guess better to be fit for the opening night than do too many extracurricular activities and I sincerely wasn’t even expecting him to be there before I read the program ;-) So I wasn’t too disappointed. But I was kind of in minority in the room as most were obviously passionate Rossini and Juandi fans and the gasp was audible.

Since I am not one to know the trains, planes and footpaths to Pesaro forwards and backwards, I found the change in participants in the insight evening rather interesting. We did in change have the pleasure of the company of his wonderful replacement, Luciano Botelho a young Brazilian tenor. When big names such as Juandi head the cast one always worries what happens if… oh my, they have to call off sick! In this particular case I also very much look forward to hearing Juandi live, since it will be my first :-) But it was good to know that the whole cast, not only Juandi have permanent replacements, just in case, since it is not an opera which is in everyone’s repertoire. Reassuring to know, but I didn’t expect any less from the ROH.

After a most entertaining lecture from Sarah Lenton we got some time with Carlo Rizzi, the conductor and Mario Martone, the director as well as with Matilde herself, Aleksandra Kurzak. SL gave us some useful insight into the plot ( so we can plough through the weeds and basically keep it to a ruined castle, a macho tyrant, an enemy’s kid in his cellar and a cliff everyone is threatened to be thrown off, oh and a fair and very determined maiden ;-))

Then we moved on to the music: To this curiously entertaining opera, which Rossini wrote almost over night and which was actually called Isolde di Shabran when he finally found a plot to the tune, but adapted the name to the originally announced one of Matilde. Carlo Rizzi usefully explained why the opera is almost 4 hours long ( that is a loooot of coloraturas ;-))) :
- basically there are only 3 arias, an no, none are sung by Juandi – one is sung by Matilde herself, the other 2 by the kid in the cellar;
- there are tonnes of recitative, and yes, they will be doing them all, why? Well as Martone very elegantly put it because otherwise we wouldn’t have a clue about what the hell is going on as it is the recitativi which make the plot progress.
- The most beautiful and challenging parts are the ensambles and Aleksandra spoke very highly of Carlo Rizi here, expaining all the work that goes into these bits, and how carefully everyone’s rhythm and style is adjusted and combined to form the most elegant and exciting combinations. Rizzi definitely said these are the highlights of the opera, so watch/hear out for them :-)
- Carlo Rizzi also share his view about the said recitative in that he does not believe they were written by Rossini , as they are musically much to bland for his pen …. ( but remember, it is where stuff happens, so bear with them ;-))
- Mario Martone stressed how important it is in his view for music and theatre to work together; his direction is there to highlight the music, not to shock us, not to beem the singers into space or take them back to the stone age. No, this is all for Rossini and his music, as it should be I think, Rossini put enough on our plate to deal with as it is. Interesting tid bit shared by Martone was on the fact that in contrast to the recitativi, the arias/ensembles are much more difficult to direct, because this is where Rossini went inside the character to share his thoughts and feelings.
- And they all agreed on the ambiguity of comedy/drama within the piece. Rossini does not tell us what to think, he puts it out there for each to make uo their mind. And by the way, the libretto according to everyone is an intricate one, but beautifully so and doing justice to a most imaginative and delightful Italian ( yes, we did make fun of the oh so famously straightforward Trovatore in comparison, where much less is said and much more confusion is created )

And finally came the musical treat of the evening, a down and dirty (or rather high and sweet) insight into the score itself , courtesy of Luciano Botelho and conductor Paul Wynne Griffiths. And yes we got all the fireworks we expected and more! There are dizzying drops and climbs across a single phrase, there are more words into a line than can be spoken, never mind sung and there are sooo many things that Corradino has to put across by a single instrument: his voice. Luciano was very well prepared, very generous with his time and voice and definitely rose to the challenge! He is someone to watch out for!

Not that I wish Juandi a bug or anything, but I do hope Luciano gets an opportunity to shine himself, he is ready for it and if it happens on the one performance I have tickets for, I will be happy for him and would just as much look forward to it as I am now.
pic of LB at Cardiff

That’s how far my preparation goes thanks to the ROH insight, the excitement is much bigger and hopefully the joy even grander once I come back to tell you all about the live event :-)

For now I will leave you in good company:

Here is Luciano Botelho singing Cujus Animam from Rossini's Stabat Mater:



thanks for the video to lucianobotelho

Matilde at ROH:

Director Mario Martone

Performers :

Conductor Carlo Rizzi

Matilde di Shabran Aleksandra Kurzak

Corradino Juan Diego Flórez

Raimondo Mark Beesley

Edoardo Vesselina Kasarova

Aliprando Marco Vinco

IsidoroAlfonso Antoniozzi

Contessa d'Arco Enkelejda Shkosa

GinardoCarlo Lepore

EgoldoRobert Anthony Gardiner*

RodrigoBryan Secombe