Bellini reviews

This last opera of Bellini’s may not be his greatest work – obviously Norma is that – but it is full of lovely music.

This new disc from the South African soprano covers similar territory to her previous, prize-winning debut disc. She begins with a nigh-on immaculate account of the waltz song from Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette. To the Mad Scene from Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor (her previous disc included different extracts) she brings a pure and ethereal tone, entering into the character and her poignant situation within a world of her own beyond earthly reality.

First staged on 12 September 2016, the Royal Opera’s new Normawas the work of Spanish director Alex Ollé, one of the artistic co-directors of the theatre group La Fura dels Baus. In a programme note included with this DVD/Blu-ray release he asks the rhetorical questions, ‘Some will see [Norma] as a traitor to her country and her religion, but what is she really guilty of having done? Falling in love?

The Romanian soprano Elena Mosuc takes few prisoners on this bel canto CD. (Despite its title, it’s not just Donizetti heroines since Bellini’s Norma makes a late appearance singing ‘Casta Diva’.) And her singing can be viscerally exciting. Never mind that the plangent woodwind solo which opens ‘Ah dolce guidami…Coppia iniqua’ almost goes for nothing in this final aria from Anna Bolena; Mosuc finds tenderness in the aria and terror in the cabaletta.

Il pirata is Bellini’s third opera, an uneven work with numerous choruses that might have been written by several of his gifted contemporaries. The plot’s central character, Imogene, has two men in her life; she is married to one yet falls for the other with disastrous consequences. It’s pretty generic stuff, but Bellini takes the opportunity to do what he does best, writing long, sinuous melodies, usually for soprano, that are among the most moving in the repertoire.

Inch by inch the Met drags itself into the late 20th century. So Mary Zimmerman, trailing Broadway clouds of glory, is imported to direct La sonnambula. ‘The plot,’ she says, ‘is famously light and even for the world of opera, a little incredible.’ Notice the emphasis on the word ‘even’.

If you believe that I Capuleti e i Montecchi is apprentice work, young Bellini on his way to becoming the mature Bellini of Norma or I puritani, then this is the recording to change your mind. Fabio Luisi conducts the overture as if it were challenging Rossini at his own game and Elina Garanča as his Romeo in the last grand bel canto ‘breeches’ role is encouraged to out-sing any of the older maestro’s cross-dressing heroes.

How Rossini would have fallen for the Latvian Elina Garanča! Her voice, with its creamy mezzo middle and purposeful drop into the chest register suggests a perfect Rosina; part passionate young woman but mostly knowing minx.

The first Maria that springs to the minds of opera lovers will be Callas, but Bartoli’s new collection is a tribute to an earlier singer: Maria Malibran. In her short life – she was born in Paris in 1808 and died in Manchester in 1836 – she reached the loftiest heights of stardom in the operatic world.