AMICI e RIVALI GIOACHINO ROSSINI 1792–1868 ACT I SCENE 7 (Figaro · Almaviva) ACT III Il barbiere di Siviglia Le Siège de CorintheCorinthe 1 “All’idea di quel metallo” 8.42 SCENE 3 (Néoclès) 12 “Grand Dieu, faut-il qu’un peuple” 4.49 RicciardoRicciardo e Zoraide SCENES 4 & 5 (Néoclès · Cléomène · Pamyra) ACT I SCENE 7 (Ricciardo · Ernesto) 13 “Cher Cléomène” 5.37 2 “S’ella mi è ognor fedele” 3.38 14 “Céleste providence” 5.31 3 “Qual sarà mai la gioia” 3.26 ACT II SCENE 2 (Agorante · Ricciardo) Armida ACT III SCENE 6 (Rinaldo · Carlo · Ubaldo) 4 “Donala a questo core” 5.57 15 “In quale aspetto imbelle” 8.57 5 “Teco or sarà” 3.27 7 9.02 LaLa donna del lago ACT II SCENE 1 (Elena · Uberto di Snowdon) LAWRENCE BROWNLEE tenor 6 “Nume! Se a’ miei sospiri” 4.10 Almaviva · Ricciardo · Uberto di Snowdon SCENE 2 (Elena · Uberto di Snowdon · Rodrigo di Dhu) Duke of Norfolk · Rodrigo · Néoclès · Ubaldo 7 “Qual pena in me già desta” 1.45 MICHAEL SPYRES tenor Figaro · Agorante · Rodrigo di Dhu ACT II SCENE 13 Elisabettta,Elisabettta, regina d’Inghilterra Earl of Leicester · Otello · Cléomène · Rinaldo (Earl of Leicester · Duke of Norfolk) 8 “Deh! Scusa i trasporti” 4.20 TARA ERRAUGHT mezzo-soprano Elena · Desdemona · Pamyra Otello ACT II NO.7 DUETTO (Otello · Iago) XABIER ANDUAGA tenor Ernesto · Iago · Carlo 9 “Non m’inganno: al mio rivale” 7.0 2 NO.8 TERZETTO (Rodrigo · Otello · Desdemona) 10 “Ah! vieni, nel tuo sangue vendicherò le offese” 4.47 I VIRTUOSI ITALIANI 11 “Che fiero punto e questo” 6.50 CORRADO ROVARIS o many the idea of more than one major tenor role in an opera significant rivalry – even when the casting policy switched with the T might seem unusual, if not downright profligate. As the 19th premiere of Ricciardo e Zoraide to having Nozzari play villains to century progressed, having a single star tenor as romantic lead David’s heroes. became the norm, as much as did the casting of the baritone as Such casting of both tenors was made dramatically viable rival or, occasionally, friend. The profusion of tenor roles in certain in large part by their markedly different vocal characteristics, Rossini operas – especially those composed for Naples in the reflected in Rossini’s writing for them. Nozzari began his career second half of the 1810s – can therefore strike modern listeners as as an archetypal tenore di grazia but lost some of the ease surprising; the challenges of casting them, meanwhile, remained in his higher register after an illness at the start of the century. prohibitive for a large part of the 20th century. He continued his career as a “baritonal tenor”, with a more Happily, there is today a wealth of tenors equipped to deal powerful lower range, no less agility, but without the same endless with Rossini’s writing for a voice type that, in the composer’s supply of effortless top notes. David, by contrast, was renowned time, was characterised by sweetness and supreme facility in for his brilliant top register and a florid style that, as his career both florid passagework and the delivery of top notes – sung developed, was even criticised for bordering on excess. in something closer to falsetto than the chest voice that later The nature of the relationships between the characters the two became standard. But, as the scenes on this album demonstrate, tenors played was restricted by the fact that Rossini’s works for even within the tenor category there existed a variety of voice Naples – despite the great variety in the time and place of their types, especially among the unparalleled collection of singers settings – were produced in compliance with the conventions at the disposal of legendary impresario Domenico Barbaja for of opera seria. This elicited from him a musical language that the Neapolitan theatres under his control, not least among them added grandeur and nobility to the irresistible élan that was the magnificent Teatro San Carlo. his trademark. But these were serious operas, which precluded For Rossini’s first opera for Naples, Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra – the knockabout, wise-cracking chumminess and informality composed in 1816 just months after the Rome premiere of we hear in the sparkling duet between Figaro and Almaviva in Il barbiere di Siviglia and even recycling certain passages from Il barbiere di Siviglia. the famous comedy – guest artists included Manuel García (who Friendships in opera seria are based instead on earnest bonds, had created the Count in Barbiere) as Norfolk. But the strength with characters united in lofty goals. Such is the relationship of the ensemble was astonishing. The major attraction was the heard in the duet between Ricciardo and the minor character great Isabella Colbran, Barbaja’s mistress and later Rossini’s wife, of Ernesto in Ricciardo e Zoraide, an opera described by Rossini but the cast also included a superb duo of contrasting tenors in biographer Richard Osborne as “an exotic blockbuster set amid Andrea Nozzari and Giovanni David. Asian potentates, Christian Knights and African emissaries”. Like Colbran, Nozzari sang in the premieres of all nine of Rossini’s Ricciardo, the Christian knight, was composed in florid style operas composed for Naples and appeared alongside David for David, with Nozzari as the “exotic” King Agorante, the rival in five of them including Otello (1816), Ricciardo e Zoraide (1818) for Zoraide’s affections: the two singers’ ranges and styles are and La donna del lago (1819). These two tenors seem to have perhaps nowhere better demonstrated than in their Act 2 duet, co-existed, if not necessarily as friends, then at least without where a disguised Ricciardo feigns friendship with the king. 3 This pattern of rivalry had been established in Otello, where the of Cléomène (sung by Nozzari at the Naples premiere of Maometto “baritonal” Nozzari created the role of the Moor with David cast II), while his son, Adolphe, sang Néoclès, adapted and somewhat as Rodrigo, a role expanded in the Marchese Berio di Salsa’s simplified from the original travesti role of Calbo. The action was much mocked libretto to become a conventional rival in love. The transplanted from Italy to Greece, thereby finding contemporary reduced role of Iago was sung by Giuseppe Ciccimarra, another resonance in the Greeks’ own struggle against Turkish rule, with “baritonal” tenor who had also been the first Ernesto in Ricciardo the heroine Pamyra torn between her love for the invading e Zoraide. Although praise for Otello is usually reserved for the Mohamet and her loyalty to her country. In this extract from remarkable final act, the consecutive Act 2 scenes featured here the opera’s tragic final act, Néoclès’s despairing appeal to demonstrate what a fine score it is throughout. In the first, Rossini God is followed by a moving trio in which Cléomène at first deftly presents Iago’s gentle but expert baiting of an increasingly renounces Pamyra, before the pair finds reconciliation in the face broken-hearted Otello (with the aid of the letter, which in Berio’s of their impending fates. libretto replaced Shakespeare’s handkerchief) before they join We conclude with Armida, a rich, grand and colourful setting in a driving vengeance duet. The second extract, singled out of a celebrated episode from Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme for praise in a review of the premiere, sees an angry exchange liberata. The work marked Rossini’s return to a Teatro San Carlo between Otello and Rodrigo, which a distraught Desdemona then hastily rebuilt after a fire (Otello had to be premiered in a different attempts to diffuse. theatre, the Teatro del Fondo). Though a vehicle for Colbran, who An extract from La donna del lago also features two perceived portrayed the lovelorn sorceress of the title, Armida featured an rivals: just as Uberto (sung by David at the premiere) renounces unprecedented six tenor roles, with Nozzari taking by far the most his romantic hopes to Elena, the pair are overheard by the hot- important, that of Rinaldo. In the stirring Act 3 trio featured here, headed Rodrigo (the role created by Nozzari), unleashing a thrilling we return to the camaraderie of knights: Armida has cast her spell trio and a series of events that culminates in Rodrigo’s death by on Rinaldo but he breaks out of the enchantment upon seeing his Uberto’s hand. In the extract from Act II of Elisabetta, meanwhile, image in the shield held up by Ubaldo and Carlo, the two knights a duplicitous Norfolk tries to lure an unjustly imprisoned Earl of sent to save him. Leicester to treachery, their exchange given urgency by a nagging Hugo Shirley descending figure in the strings. We conclude with more friendly relationships. For Le Siège de Corinthe, premiered in Paris in 1826, Rossini reworked his Maometto II (1820) and called upon the father and son duo of Louis and Adolphe Nourrit for the adaptation’s two tenor roles. Nourrit père took the role 4 ue la distribution d’un opéra comporte plusieurs grands rôles Il semble qu’il n’y ait pas eu de grande rivalité entre les deux Qde ténor semblera à beaucoup inhabituel, voire un gaspillage, hommes – bien qu’ils ne fussent pas forcément amis –, pas même tant la présence d’un ténor vedette par ouvrage est devenue la lorsque la politique qui consistait à confier les rôles de héros à norme au cours du XIXe siècle avec en face de ce protagoniste un Nozzari et ceux de méchants à David fut inversée à partir de baryton comme rival, ou parfois ami. La profusion de ténors dans Ricciardo e Zoraide.