Le siège de Corinthe Tragédie lyrique by Luigi Balocchi and Alexandre Soumet Music GIOACHINO ROSSINI
LE SIÈGE DE CORINTHE
Tragédie lyrique by LUIGI BALOCCHI and ALEXANDRE SOUMET
Music GIOACHINO ROSSINI
Conductor ROBERTO ABBADO
Direction and Settings CARLUS PADRISSA
CORO DEL TEATRO VENTIDIO BASSO
Chorus Master GIOVANNI FARINA
ORCHESTRA SINFONICA NAZIONALE DELLA RAI
New production 2017
The collapse of Constantinople in 1453 had serious consequences for Europe. To mostly suffer consequences was Greece conquered by the Ottoman empire.
Dominance lasted for over three centuries, Greeks opposed with their usual pride, but the dominators was always merciless..
It will need to wait for 1821 because the revolt of the Greek can conduct to the independence. The Hellenic rebellion was long, it began in 1921 and it ended in 1832, and above all it was not simple and caused the death of so many people,
The victory of the Greek people was influenced by several factors.
The most important was the weakness in that period of the Ottoman Empire.
Then the religious awareness and consequent guidance of the rebellion by orthodox bishops and the participation of many monks of Mount Athos.
The third was the availaibility of Europe, for the first time determined to help Greece both politically and militarily.
One of the most culturally important aids came from France. Many characters at that time sided with the Greeks. Among them there were the librettist Luigi Balocchi and the Pesaro composer Gioachino Rossini, who finally arrived in Paris in 1824. (1)
Both expressed their commitment to the cause with first work of the French Rossini: Le siège de Corinthe was represented in Paris in the autumn of 1826. This is a work of hold actuality because the Greek war was still in progress. The opera fed the philhellenism, and: "... that helped to reconcile liberal with conservative spirits". (2)
The siège de Corinthe was actual in 1826 and we can be said actual in 2017 too, during the Rossini Opera Festival: conductor Roberto Abbado to the guide Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai, interpreters
Mahomet II Luca Pisaroni,
Cléomène John Irvin,
Pamyra Nino Machaidze,
Néoclès Sergey Romanovsky,
Hiéros Carlo Cigni,
Adraste Xabier Anduaga,
Omar Iurii Samoilov,
Ismène Cecilia Molinari.
Spanish director Carlus Padrissa has headed towards on a scene colorful, specially red, and a representation of all performers vibrant, gymnastic, symbolic.
The space behind the singers was filled with big bottles of water. The director speaks of current wars for the conquest of water: "Yes, we fight for water like gold and for oil. It is a topic of great relevance that involves North Europe but not only. I was inspired during a trip to Argentina, in the San Juan region, a desert area where salt water stays and it does not make grow anything." (3) Therefore a distraction from the motivations of the Greek liberation war.
We can more simply read the symbol in different way; water is the most precious good during a siege, therefore up to when the great bottles are being standing, we have life and resistance.
Padrissa then uses many banners, great images, written to define moments of dramatic history and of course sentences written by the English poet Lord George Gordon Byron died at Missolonghi, where he had gone to help Greece.
The siège de Corinthe is a terrible melodrama with many painful elements, moreover, the colonization of Greece was cruel.
Inside there is an impossible love story. So many characters acts with great participation and emotion. They wear colorful costumes, with arabesques, sketches, geometric shapes, a symbol of the confusion of roles and the absence of hope for the most beautiful feeling, that of unreachable love. Mahomet II, the conqueror of Greece, the greatest enemy of the people, is in love with Pamyra, known to Athens anonymously, some time before. Pamyra corresponds to his love but he did not know who he was. During the siege they meet again, they are still in love, but Pamyra is the daughter of Cléomène, governor of Corinth. Pamyra faces a dilemma, must she choose: love or father? Obviously, the melodrama demands the maximum devotion to the history, it doesn't admit decreases of tensions and happy end is forbidden. Deciding it will be the duty, the duty to defend the city, Greece and honor. (4)
The singers are positioned ahead to everybody, often sustaining the song before the orchestra or even among the audience. But the patriotic, irredentist tone is predominantly given by choirs. So many, beautiful, important, chants of the chorus can be just patriotic.
The director likes to exalt the physicality especially of the chorus members, who move fast, physically, muscularly, even dissimulating the ballet of the second act with extremely athletic, vigorous gestures. They appear to our shoulders, cautious or energetic as in the beautiful Hiéros scene, when the singers drastically accompany even the unaware spectators to participate in.
If the chorus are the thrilling and exciting part of the performance, the grandeur of Le siège de Corinthe is in Rossini's music, as the opening symphony; It is music to determine the romantic result of the tragedy. In the final, the fall of Corinzio is followed by a mass suicide of Greek defeats, a military loss, but the honor and pride remain triumphant, as represented by the chorus which recalls the myths of a historic Greece like the Battle of Marathon, The Thermopylae and the hero Leonidas. (5)
The opening in Paris is a great success and used for a long time also for other political movements: "... the opera was regularly performed until 1844, to a total of over a hundred and ten performances ..." (6)
The Siège is a perfect work to exalt the nationalist awakening. Therefore, during the siege of Paris by German troops, in the Prussian War of 1870, it was used to invoke the participation of the French.
The siège de Corinthe is a great work, exalting and definitive music of the choir. This performance is the second at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, with a new and important review.
The music is thrilling, exhilarating, thanks to conductor Roberto Abbado, who directed with impetus despite a wound to a shoulder that prevented his complete movement of the right arm.
(1) “Rossini and his librettist Luigi Balocchi has already announed their support of an eventual military intervention in Greece ...” (Libretto Le siège de Corinthe Rossini Opera Festival august 2017, pag. 51 text by Damien Colas)
(2) Libretto Le siège de Corinthe Rossini Opera Festival august 2017, pag. 23 text by Giovanni Carli Ballola
(4) “... will be inspired by patriotic fervour and the father's curses ...” (Libretto Le siège de Corinthe Rossini Opera Festival august 2017, pag. 25 text di Giovanni Carli Ballola)
(5) “... brooding over Greece, now condemned to eternal bondage, the invocations to Marathon, Thermopylae and Leonidas ...” (Libretto Le siège de Corinthe Rossini Opera Festival august 2017, pag. 31 text by Giovanni Carli Ballola)
(6) Libretto Le siège de Corinthe Rossini Opera Festival august 2017, pag. 47 text by Damien Colas