Marco Pellegrini reviews Robert le Diable at Martina Franca

Marco Pellegrini reviews Robert le Diable at Martina Franca, August, 2000

Robert le Diable by Giacomo Meyerbeer

Martina Franca - XXVI Festival della Valle d’Itria - August 6 & 8, 2000

Patrizia Ciofi (Isabelle), Annalisa Raspagliosi (Alice), Warren Mok (Robert), Giorgio Surjan (Bertram), Alessandro Codeluppi (Raimbaut), Domenico Colaianni (Alberti), Eléna Lopéz (une dame d’honneur), Kim Hyun-Dong (un héraut d’armes), Kim Hyun-Dong (le prevot du palais), Soon-Won Kang (un prêtre), Ilaria Landi (Hélène)

Bratislava Chamber Choir, chorus master Pavol Prochazka

Orchestra Internazionale d’Italia, conductor Renato Palumbo

Lorenzo Mariani (producer), Italo Grassi (stage designer), Luisa Salvini (costume designer), Ferdinando Gagliardi (choreography)

Artistic Director: Sergio Segalini

Note from webmaster (Stephen A. Agus): the number in bold characters after a quotation refers to the list of reviews published by Meyerbeer Fan Club on Martina Franca Page and are hyperlinked in such a way that clicking on the reference number will open a new window -- if you size the new window, you can read both Marco's text and the reference reviews side by side.

Introduction

Stockholm, June, 1999: Le Prophete; Bilbao, November, 1999, Les Huguenots; And now, Martina Franca, August, 2000: Robert le Diable. Here, for the third time in a little over a year a small musical institution has shown a skeptical world that it is possible to perform a grand opera on a limited budget and with relatively poor technical resources. Do Mathias Clason, the members of the A.B.A.O. (Asociacion Bilbaina de los Amigos de la Opera) and Sergio Segalini know "des secrets pour conjurer les esprits invisibles?" [secrets of conjuring up spirits]. Not at all. What they do know is that they trust in Meyerbeer. All of them dedicated themselves to respect, if not the letter, the spirit of his operas.

Martina Franca does not have a well-known orchestra trained by great conductors; nor does it have a large chorus; it has no great corps de ballet; and the big name singers of the "star-system" are absent. In fact, Martina Franca does not even have a theatre. What Martina Franca does have is a group of young, extraordinarily talented and enthusiastic players, consisting of a small Slovakian choir, five female and three male dancers, a cast of young singers "trained" in the style of singing of the opera that they have to perform and stage in a courtyard. To perform an opera in an open-air courtyard in a Southern Italian town in August means, on the premiere night, that the opera must compete with the sound of a festival for the patron saint including a procession and band; there were fireworks during the second performance. Nevertheless, and in spite the diversions outside, this opera captured and involved its audience fully. This was reflected in the enthusiastic critics’ reviews that followed; even those critics who were pre-disposed against Meyerbeer were forced to admit this as you shall see.

Warren Mok, as Robert, holds the magic branch at Martina Franca
(photo courtesy of MFC member Guido Pellegrini)

The Edition

For these performances of Robert le Diable, Segalini did not use the newly available critical edition. Consequently I did not hear any of the great discoveries of Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Künhold, the "B" section of the opening chorus, Mario air, the "ripresa" of the Prince of Granade theme at the end of the second act (a brief passage I love) and the Bertram fifth act air "Jamais, c’est impossible" all of which were heard for the first time at the Berlin Staatsoper in March. However, to his credit, the edition he did use is, more or less, the original version of 1831 Paris première. Were there any cuts? Yes, of course there were. The performance begun at 9.00 / 9.15 PM (an "open-air theater" needs to wait until sunset) and ended at 1.15 / 1.30 AM, with only one thirty-minute interval after the second act, and brief pauses after the others. In all, Segalini cut approximately twenty minutes of music from the 1831 version (which in itself is shorter than the critical edition), but in the end it is important to note that he could not reasonably begin earlier, nor end later.

What did he cut? During the press conference the conductor, Renato Palumbo, said that when he first read the partition, he was stunned by the beauty and expressive force of Meyerbeer’s recitative, with their leitmotifs, their "ariosi" and their orchestration "a piena orchestra". As a result, he kept every measure of the recitative, and introduced only a few cuts in some of the musical numbers.

For the purists among us (and the music historians of the future), I provide here a list of the cuts. It is not an official list. I hope it is complete, but sometimes I was so overwhelmed by the performance, that I was not sure of having noticed every cut.

First Act: unabridged, except for one dice throwing (from "Contre vous tous je joue encor / Mes diamands et ma riche vaisselle"), there were a passage of dialogue between Robert and Alice that I had never heard before (from "Et comme le savoir?" to "De grand coeur! tiens").

Second Act: perhaps the "ripresa" of Isabelle cabaletta " Idole de ma vie" was cut, but I am not sure. Patrizia Ciofi was so great that also during the second performance I was not able to check up. The ballet was cut in half, but there was a beautiful monologue for Bertram after Robert’s departure that I never heard before (from "Oui, va poursuivre une ombre vaine!": a sort of "arioso" for bass analogous to Robert’s " J’aperçois ce rameau").

Third Act: unabridged, except for Alice second couplet "Raimbaut disait".

Fourth Act: as in 1985 Paris version (perhaps the dialogue between Isabelle and Alice and the chorus "Frappez les airs" was more complete, but I am not sure).

Fifth Act: monks chorus "Malheureux ou coupable" was cut and the act begun with the organ melody and the prayer "Gloire à la Providence" sung first by the priest and then by the choir; the Duo "O divine harmonie!", with the reprise of the previous chorus, was abridged as in 1985, the recitatives are all complete, but - hélas! - during the Grand Trio the reprise of the ensemble "Dieu puissant, ciel propice" was omitted. This last one is the only cut that I believe was inexcusable.

I do note that the entire beginning of the Fifth Act, missing here, is a section ("morceaux") that I think is very powerful. The effect of the succession of the great monks chorus in unison, the organ’s delicate melody, the dialogue between Bertram and his son, and finally, their dramatic Duo with Chorus is extraordinarily impressive: one of those great examples of "local color" ("couleur locale") (as in the beginning of Les Huguenots and L’Africaine Third Act) where Meyerbeer is unequalled.

The Production

I think that Lorenzo Mariani can claim 50% of the credit for the success of these performances. He is a young producer born in New York of Italian parents, who studied in U.S.A. and now lives in Florence. I wrote above that Martina Franca has no theatre. Every set change must be made by hand. Robert le Diable is set in six different places, so here it is physically impossible to make a literal representation of Scribe’s instructions. Thus, the audience saw neither the harbor, nor the tournament. The cloister and the cathedral were not represented on stage. Moreover, the story was not even placed in the Middle Ages. But Lorenzo Mariani decided that even if he was unable to follow the letter of the libretto, he had to respect its spirit. Thus, as in the original text, Alice was Raimbaut’s fiancée, Bertram was Robert’s father (and not his Fifth Act psychiatrist, as in Berlin) and at the end of the opera, Isabella did not marry the Prince of Granada, but her beloved, the redeemed knight. Even better, every stage indication of Scribe and Meyerbeer was carefully respected. So all the dramatic situations that moved the 1831 audience, the situations that every Meyerbeer fan knows well thanks to well known illustrations, printings and pictures, viz., Alice embracing the cross, picking up Berthe’s testament after Robert had read it, Robert between Alice and Bertram in the Grand Trio as painted by Lépaulle (as illustrated in the Meyerbeer Lives! T-Shirt), Isabelle on her knees in front of a troubled Robert, all of these were represented on stage at Martina Franca.

Very often we see producers interested only in finding an "original setting" for the opera they had to produce. In doing so, they take little interest in the singers’ recitation. The result is that each singer feels free to improvise what he or she is able to do; the outcome is a very uneven and unbalanced performance. Perhaps it is a consequence of the short rehearsal times that the great singers agree to do this. By contrast, in Martina Franca the recitation of all the soloists was very accurate and the chorus-singers too moved upon the stage individually and with expression. This is another great merit of Lorenzo Mariani, because the action was very dramatic and involving for the audience.

In the press conference the producer and the stage designer said they wanted to create a dark and disquieting setting, because people generally think that the devil doesn’t live in elegant palaces, but rather in decadent and sinister places. Meyerbeer himself, in the third act, suggested such an atmosphere. But in making this production, they were inspired by The Phantom of the Opera (that begins with an auction where some skulls from the 1831 production of Robert le Diable are sold) and placed Robert in a 19^th century abandoned theater. On the left side there was the stage with a crimson torn curtain, swelled by the wind that blew during both the performances: a very effective scene, although the wind was unplanned. On the right side there were many pit-stalls, and in the middle was an enormous crystal-chandelier that had fallen down from an invisible ceiling. All these elements were very functional. During the scene of the nuns, the walls of the stage fell down and a great heap of skulls appeared, while the chandelier lit up and opened to allow the nuns’ tombs to be seen.

The costumes too were in a 19^th century style (more or less like in a traditional Traviata), and were very refined and elegant. The prevailing colors were black and red; only Isabelle and the female dancers are dressed in white. Giorgio Surjan (Bertram) had really a satanic look wrapped in a full scarlet mantle (but when I later saw him walking on the street, out of costume and without make-up, he still looked quite diabolical). Warren Mok (Robert) also looked right for the part. He wore his hair quite long; during the fourth Act he managed to take on the look of a man possessed.

The Ballet

Concerning the ballet, Segalini repeatedly specified two matters of extraordinary signficance:

The ballet of Robert le Diable is not a simple divertissement as in other operas. In Guillaume Tell, Les Vêpres siciliennes or La Gioconda, when the dance begins, all the singers sit down and look at the performance just like the audience. In those operas it is a break in the dramatic action, and could easily be omitted. But in Robert le Diable the ballet is integral part of the plot. If we were to cut the third Act ballet, Robert’s seduction by the infernal powers, which is central to the plot, is lost irreparably. Without this fall, even his redemption loses interest.

It is the first Romantic ballet in history. In our day it is difficult to imagine the astonishment of the 1831 Paris audience when, for the first time, within the story of the opera, the dancers in their white tutus dance on point. (It was a true revolution, and though it is forgotten today, it was a phenomenon that was well understood for the remainder of the 19^th century, as memorialized by such artists as Degas and Mikhail Vrubel at the turn of the century.) This particular point resonated well with the Italian press; virtually every newspaper emphasized the novelty of the ballet of Meyerbeer’s Robert le Diable.

In the few previous post war 20^th century productions of this opera (Florence, 1968; Paris, 1985; Berlin, 2000) the choreographers thought that they had to shake up the audience in order to recreate the astonishment of the respectable Parisian bourgeoisie that in 1831 (!!) saw a group of seductive nuns pushing a knight to commit a sacrilege. Consequently, in these modern manifestations, they introduced strip-tease, transvestite dancers and nudism. But the result is an unsatisfying diversion from the intentions of Meyerbeer and Scribe. Today, these stage representations may perhaps shock and disgust a few, but they can hardly be considered diabolical transgressions; their use in fact tend to undermine and destroy the enchantment of Meyerbeer’s genuine invention. In Martina Franca Ferdinando Gagliardi did the simplest thing he could do: he put the dancers on the stage exactly as they were in 1831.

Before going any further, let me admit that Robert le Diable is my favorite opera and I have always tried to learn everything about it. Thanks to MFC member Rodney Edgecombe who sent me many articles, I carefully studied the nuns’ ballet. With the help also of Dr. Jürgensen’s very interesting book, I got an idea of the original choreography for this ballet. From what I’ve learned, it seems to me that Ferdinando Gagliardi, with his much smaller resources, adapted what is reported in the original sources to his little corps de ballet. Meyerbeer’s ballet needs sixteen danseuses and a ballerina, the abbess Hélène. He had only six women, so he was forced to reduce the action, but he carefully respected those indications.

The result was greater than could be imagined. The adherence to the original text was more amazing than those pseudo-trangressive innovations. In particular, Robert took part actively in the ballet and the audience could understand what was happening on the stage. For example, my wife observed that Robert twice refused to pick the magic cypress branch, matching his behavior in the fourth Act where he twice answers "No, no, no, no", before he surrenders to Isabelle’s prayer. And this correspondence is rather significant, binding the ballet to the drama. This is true also in the second act; there Isabelle, as princess of Sicily, opens the dances and with great charm (and the precious help of the male lead) she herself danced during part of the ballet.

The Performance

It has been said, and it is true: Despite its title, Robert le Diable is not a tenor opera. When we listen to it, we wait for Alice’s Romance "Va dit-elle", Bertram’s invocation to the nuns and Isabelle’s Air de Grâce. Robert has no great solo aria (not counting Mario’s Aria); despite this, he is on stage in every act and has many important interventions, both musical and dramatic, from the First Act "Sicilienne" to the charming Arioso "Ah! qu’elle est belle!" Notwithstanding the lack of a great solo aria, I’m sure most will agree that Robert’s role, sung and performed properly, is the key to the success of this opera. Today is easier to find a good Bertram or a good Isabelle (for Alice there are some problems) than it is to discover an acceptable Robert. Like MFC member Tom Kaufman, I am a tenor fanatic. When I consider the most difficult tenor roles in all of opera, at once three names come in my mind: Arnold (Tell), Eléazar (Juive) and Raoul (Huguenots). Well, the creator of all these terrific opera rôles was the same great tenor: Adolphe Nourrit. Writing for him, Meyerbeer composed extraordinarily difficult music; one might even accuse him of having been a sadist. It is enough to think of Raoul’s "hermine" Romance or, in Robert le Diable, of the Duo "Des chevaliers de ma patrie".

Nearly every Italian reviewer emphasized this point. "The part of the title-rôle is practically impossible for a singer. It needs volume, ‘declamati martellanti’, ‘agilità’ (agility) like in Rossini’s operas, exceptionally high notes, endurance like in a marathoner and even a certain humor" [2]. "In order to carry out all the potential of this rôle Mario Del Monaco and Alfredo Kraus should come back to life and unite themselves in one man: perhaps even the sublime Nourrit was also unable to do all of it alone, as, in another respect, his successor Duprez" [13]. Consequently "today it is very difficult to find a performer adequate to the vocal tasks of this rôle from the beginning to the end of the opera" [5]

As Robert, Warren Mok did an admirable job in my view, but his performance did not persuade every reviewer entirely. "He partially perplexes, because his voice is powerful but rigid, correct but not ductile enough" [7]. "He did what he was able to do, and sometimes, unfortunately, even what he was unable to do" [2]. But every reviewer, myself included, praised his zeal: "He did the best he could, and the results he achieved were more than acceptable" [5]. His most convinced supporter was Paolo Isotta who wrote: "Whoever reproaches Warren Mok for his poor diction is correct; but he who reproaches him because he sang "in falsettone" C and even D over-height, is an incompetent, because this artist is efficacious as far as possible" [13]. In my own view Mok is a really a good tenor with a beautiful voice and sharp high notes. But he was not always able to control it; above all his French was not simply "poor", but quite incomprehensible. He gave us a great performance, but on occasion he had difficulty with some notes or in changing his tune.

The rest of the cast was perfect. The other rôles too are not simple. Alessandro Codeluppi (Raimbaut) has perhaps a thin voice, but his French was very good and performed his rôle with great ability and niceness. Giorgio Surjan (Bertram) had a remarkable success and every reviewer praised his ability as an actor [5, 6, 8]; likewise, the worth of his vocal performance was judged "authoritative" [2], "unexceptionable" [5], "powerful" [6], "strong" [7], "valuable" [8], "splendid" [11, 13]. It is not an overstatement to say that he was not inferior to the great Samuel Ramey.

Patrizia Ciofi (Isabelle) can no longer be regarded as a surprise. She is a successful soprano who has sung in the bigger Italian theaters; since 1994 she is not a simply a Princess of Sicily, but the true Queen of Martina Franca. Her performance here as Isabelle was a triumph and the audience applauded her performance with overwhelming enthusiasm. Perhaps her voice is somewhat thin, but her technique is striking. The reviewers had the most emphatic praises for her performance. But I think that a single quotation may be enough: Isabelle "has the voice extension and the style of singing of a true coloratura soprano ("What a wonderful morceau is her Second Act Cavatine!" [6]) but in the Fourth Act she sings an Air that has a pathos almost unequalled and the great Patrizia Ciofi may touch even a stone heart with her delicacy" [13]. In a word she was "simply unforgettable" [11].

But I think the true revelation of these performances was Annalisa Raspagliosi (Alice). Every Meyerbeer fan knows how decisive the role of Alice is for the success of Robert le Diable. And I think all fans would agree that one of the chief reasons for the Firenze, 1968 failure was the inadequacy of Stefania Malagù (and I think that more or less we can say the same thing about the performance of Lagrange in 1985: she was not a bad singer, but she was not right for Alice). Here, Annalisa Raspagliosi was perfect, both as singer and as actress. Probably Lorenzo Mariani can claim credit for her recitation, but seeing her as Alice I could not avoid calling to mind what I read about Cornelie Falcon, who was not the creator of Alice’s rôle, but after 1832 she replaced Julie Dorus-Gras permanently. During the Third and the Fifth Act her dramatic and passionate performance was, to my taste, unequalled. I am sure that she will become very famous in a short time. The great success of Patrizia Ciofi did not overshadow her, and Italian newspapers were prodigious in praising her temperament and her "very refined enchantress voice" [6]. She "was infallible, deadened and raised the volume of her voice poetically, shot solid and silver B" [13]. In a word she was "excellent both vocally and scenically" [5].

Together with the producer, the main author of the great success of the performances was the conductor, Renato Palumbo, who "was able to obtain from the heterogeneous ‘Orchestra nazionale d’Italia’ a sound not only good, but virtuositic… obtaining a not ephemeral admiration for three characteristic that rarely are present together in the same conductor: meticulous care in recitatives; chisel of the orchestral and vocal details and real skill in accompanying the singers; sense of the contextual connections present in the opera and consequently realization of a powerful dramatic synthesis of the opera itself" [13]. In the reviews there is no voice of disagreement about his work: his conduction was "careful and elegant" [4], "at the very least, splendid" [6], valuable for the accuracy of the performance and skill" [8], "stimulating and truly musical" [9], "intense and persuading" [10], "authoritative and imaginative, but always very accurate" [11]. It is especially his credit if everything reached its goal in such a wonderful way [2 and 5]. I read regularly the opera reviews in Italian newspapers, but I must admit that it is very difficult to find a so great unanimity of praises! If we consider that we are in an open-air theater, that both the evening was windy and that maestro Palumbo was not conducting the orchestra of a great and well-known opera house, we must appreciate his worth even more. The whole performance was wonderful, but the First and Second Act were, to my mind, a true revelation.

During the première the singers were probably tense, and especially during the Third Act there were some faults, but the second performance was almost perfect. The court yard of the Ducal Palace is not large, so there is little room for the audience. However, there was not a single vacant seat for both the performances. Even better, the "Corriere del Giorno" reported that the management added many seats at the last minute because of the unexpected flood of would-be patrons to Martina Franca in the last days before the performance. In spite of the length of the opera (1:30 a.m.), barely a handful left the theater before the concluding notes. (By way of comparison, for Dinorah last March in Parma, there were a lot of defections.) During the performance, the conductor did all he could to prevent any interruption of the opera. So we were able to applaud only before Isabelle’s Air and the following the Duo in the Second Act, and before the Duo bouffe in the Third Act. Some people did not hide their disappointment because they have not the opportunity to applaud Patrizia Ciofi before her Fourth Act Cavatine, but the maestro was inexorable. At the end the applause was warm, convinced and unanimous and as it left the audience was visibly pleased.

The reviewers are unanimous in asserting that this Robert was the most important musical event of the summer, and in praising Segalini’s courage and ability. This is even more significant because this is one of the most demanding operas, the Festival of Martina Franca has little money and is without great means, and because even the great opera-houses do not have the courage of staging it. And to my great pleasure at least one critic blamed and criticized the Palermo Teatro Massimo that "fece per viltade il gran rifiuto" and canceled Robert, after having scheduled it with great emphasis [14]. Could there possibly be a more appropriate venue for this opera than Palermo itself?

The Press Reports

When Roberto il diavolo was performed in Florence in 1968 reviewers’ comments were generally very negative, not only towards the performance, but in particular towards the opera itself and its composer. Then, the most recalled indictment of Meyerbeer was Wagner’s famous "effects without causes", while Berlioz’s or Balzac’s consideration was ignored or greatly reduced. Francesco Canessa considered it "old and ugly, tedious and dull" and Enzo Borrelli added that "one romance [Isabelle’s Air de grâce] is not able to redeem this historic long opera from more than four hours of absolute and total vacuity." Poor Roberto!: it is "vulgar" (Guido Pannain), "obsolete" (Piermaria Paoletti), "superficial" (Giulio Carli), "bombastic" (Piero Dallamano) and so on.

It is not difficult to discover the reason for this failure: the edition chosen was so cut and distorted that it would be impossible to appreciate its worth. But at Martina Franca the performances were so convincing that everybody had to admit that Robert le Diable is a masterpiece and Giacomo Meyerbeer was not only a "talented craftsman", but a one of the greatest composer of his times. Of course there were many different nuances, but on the whole the comments are very positive. But first I must make a brief clarification. In Italy it is very difficult admit the greatness of Meyerbeer, because that means recognize how many debts Giuseppe Verdi has towards him. And in Italy he is not only an opera composer, but a true father of the of the Nation, as Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi. So every attempt to reduce his originality is a sort of "crimen laese majestatis", a betrayal towards their own country. These remarks can explain a certain coldness of some reviewes - particularly the "Gazzetta di Parma" -, that had to admit the importance of Meyerbeer and the musical revolution of Robert le Diable, but they feel the duty of specifying that Verdi is whatever "deeper" than him.

That being said, we can try to list the main opinion about this masterpiece masterpiece "that now returns to live in its sparkling and integral beauty" [6].

"We must regard Robert le Diable as a point of reference in the story of the opera of every times" [5]. In 1831 "it exploded like a bomb, with a exemplary deflagration, not very different than what was caused the previous year by Hugo’s Hernani, a true revolution able to break a lot of proprieties and conventions" [9]. The succes it had in 19^th Century was not a simple consequence of its spectacularity and of Paris middle classes dullness, but was caused by the intrinsic worth of the score. And this opera keeps intact its greatness even today and despite its lenght, "listening to it, we can never find a boring passage" [5].

The innovations of Robert le Diable are basically two, and they were emphasized by Sergio Segalini both in his press conference and in the program, and then they were exposed by some reviewers.

Robert le Diable marks the entrance of the gothic "noir" in the music world. This is the theme that the Romantic Movement imposed upon the German cultural élite in art and literature but by 1830 had already been abandoned by them; but with this opera, the gothic noir reentered the realm of music and won the hearts of the masses for the remainder of the century. The real hero of the pièce is not the tenor, the title-rôle, but the bass, who is the devil himself. By this way the Evil breaks out in the narrow world of the opera, where he stood during the whole 19^th century, embodying himself in Mephistopheles and above all in Iago [see especially 9 and 13]. "The Romantic spirit that elsewhere at the same time assumed an insurrectional accent, here for the first time saw a manifestation of the ego in the demonic." [11]

In Robert le Diable, Meyerbeer obtain a perfect integration of his music and the tasks of the libretto, a perfect adherence of the elements that even the ballet is integral part in the action. Thanks to this powerful dramatic unity, in Robert le Diable, he created an exceptional story of "redemption and damnation" (the same combination which later became the cornerstone of Wagner’s poetry). Betram is not only a devil, but also a father that loves his son with an eternal damned love, and Robert, by the means and design of his infernal father, lost both his money and his weapons playing dice, lost himself in the forest, and risked his soul in order to purchase "la puissance et l’immortalité". In such a context, the entire opera culminates in the Fifth Act and above all the final Grand Trio (Alice, Bertram, Robert) which presents before us the whole range of conflicting emotions of the soul torn between the woman who loves and wants to redeem him and the devil himself. What a plot, Monsieur Scribe! And what music, Herr Meyerbeer! [see 1, 6 and 13]

These fundamental innovations were put into effect thanks to music characterized by a very original orchestration; to a utilization of the voices that has no precedent; and for technical boldness and expressiveness." [10] "Of course [in Robert le Diable] we noticed the echoes of other successful operas of the period, but it is plain that Meyerbeer took full advantage, and expanded upon other hints and indications of other composers, obtaining a result that was truly personal and possessing eternal worth." [5] Better, one reviewer found Robert le Diable to be so original that even "other German precedents - including Weber’s Freischütz [that many reviewers invoke as a significant source] - count for little…" [13]. Consequently this opera "became a model of reference for many composers, including Verdi, and then Berlioz, Massenet and even Wagner" [6, see also 8 and 11]. Even Schumann’s hasty [11] and Wagner’s rancorous [12] critiques of Meyerbeer - so often quoted in 1968 - are rejected. And Scribe’s libretto was appreciated and regarded as able not only to seduce the audience [6], but also to inspire great music in the composer [8]. Even one reviewer who retains some doubt about Meyerbeer’s genius was forced to admit that "all his vocal morceaux are well-made and sometimes strive to excellence" [7]

Conclusion

In conclusion "the Festival of Martina Franca made a tribute to one of the most important composers of the 19th century" [5] and "the artistic result of these performances is very top-level and it made every listener troubled and happy" [13].

After reading all of this, I’m sure you’ll be happy to know that a recording of the opera will be released on the Italian label Dynamic. Next year, before the next Festival, everybody may judge for himself if my praise of this opera and these performances has been exaggerated.

MARCO PELLEGRINI (August, 2000)