fyglia

For the festivities marking the Pergolesi’s tercentenary in his native Jesi, Ignacio García created a new staging of the imperial drama Adriano in Siria. His staging in Jesi’s exquisite 18th-century Teatro Comunale Pergolesi includes the delightful comic intermezzo Livietta e Tracollo, thus following the precedent set at the premiere in 1734. A fine Italian cast and the distinguished Accademia Bizantina are led by the Accademia’s director, Ottavio Dantone.

Il prigionier superbo tells the story of two rival kings and a princess in distress. In order to strengthen his power, Metalce imprisons his rival Sostrate. Further, he tries to obtain Rosmene’s love. Proud like her father Sostrate, she persistently thwarts the tyrant, while on the other hand she forces herself to hate her beloved Viridate. La serva padrona is the short comedy of Serpina and Uberto: the wily maidservant, hell-bent on her willing to become the mistress of the house, thinks up a plan in order to convince her master to marry her. Both operas were directed by Henning Brockhaus, who placed Il prigionier superbo within a contemporary setting inside a cave and La serva padrona in a circus. The casts both brilliantly show their versatile voices in numerous virtuosic arias accompanied by the Baroque specialists of the Accademia Barocca de I Virtuosi Italiani, conducted by Corrado Rovaris.

In this sparkling production from the Teatro Valeria Moriconi in 2010 it's an absolute triumph: fresh, genuinely amusing and touching. (...) If you fancy dipping into the bright lights of early eighteenth-century Neapolitan opera, there's nowhere better to start than the uplifting "Il Flaminio".," said Simone Heighes on International Record Review, Juni 2013. The 2010 Jesi production is conscious of the complexity of Flaminio for all its seeming simplicity and cleverly exploits the suggestive milieu of the Teatro Valeria Moriconi, in particular its shape and relatively small scale. Without any attempt at realism, (the main action takes place “in a villa on the outskirts of the city of Naples, complete with hunting lodge, etc.”, but just a handful of props to symbolise the bucolic atmosphere), the production concentrates on establishing a kind of meta-theatrical relationship to this repertoire work which sets out to highlight the interweaving and overlayering of truth and fiction, passion and irony, tragedy and comedy. The orchestra sits behind a broad wooden platform and suspended netting decorated with leaves; every so often scenes about the characters’ private lives open up on various levels (these serve to expand the audience perspective both horizontally and vertically), as if the plot were following the inner development of these living characters. The theatrical narrative unravels – through a brilliant succession of dramatic and light-hearted moments – to its predictable happy ending.