Riddled with paradox, La Gioconda (1876) was a triumph at its premiere for its Italian composer, Amilcare Ponchielli, but is now seldom staged. The music is hardly known but contains a ballet, the Dance of the Hours, so famous through appropriation and parody that Ponchielli’s name lives on. (Think of hippos en pointe in Walt Disney’s Fantasia.) All praise to the Salzburg Easter festival for assembling an illustrious lineup for this four-act grand opera, led by the soprano Anna Netrebko and the tenor Jonas Kaufmann, conducted by Antonio Pappano.
They were joined by the all-Italian forces of the orchestra and chorus of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Rome, who displayed their affinity with opera – a departure from their usual concert hall activities – with buoyant and unerring skill, both in the pit and on stage. Pappano is Santa Cecilia’s conductor emeritus, after 18 years as music director. (His British successor, Daniel Harding, takes over next season.) The warmth of this established relationship was palpable, both in La Gioconda and in concerts they gave as resident ensemble elsewhere in the festival.
Squashed chronologically between two titans – Verdi in his prime, Puccini starting out – the prolific Ponchielli (1834-86) has long endured “one hit wonder” exile. Grange Park Opera staged La Gioconda in 2022 and the Royal Opera gave concert performances two decades ago. Based on Victor Hugo’s Angelo, Tyrant of Padua, it relates the tale of a ballad singer crossed in love with Enzo (Kaufmann), who prefers the married Laura (mezzo-soprano Eve-Maud Hubeaux). Infidelity, religiosity and the inquisition clash against a backdrop of Venice and the lagoon. Some will know the opera through Maria Callas’s 1952 recording but to most, it remains a novelty. A third performance was added in Salzburg to meet demand.
Staged by the Royal Opera House’s director of productions, Oliver Mears, with an elegant arcaded loggia design by Philipp Fürhofer (lighting by Fabiana Piccioli), this Gioconda is due for performance at Covent Garden in a future season. The lure of Netrebko – who, after much controversy, and cancellation by some international houses, has condemned the war in Ukraine and distanced herself from Putin – in her role debut, was key to its appeal. Whether pirouetting in glittering slit gown, or lurking, clad in black and dark glasses, in the shadows, she held the stage, finding new colours to her voice, hitting the important middle range with intensity and richness. Kaufmann, ever watchable, held recent vocal problems in check by avoiding fortissimo excess, instead emphasising expression and restraint. Hubeaux, together with the contralto Agnieszka Rehlis as Gioconda’s blind mother, baritone Luca Salsi as the villainous informer Barnaba and bass Tareq Nazmi as Alvise, a bullying inquisition leader, completed the excellent main cast, spanning as it does all six main voice types.
There were a few grand guignol excesses, easy to excise, in an otherwise powerful updating. We can intuit the backstory of abuse suffered by Gioconda without it being itemised to such a degree (too many sticks of candyfloss, electric-shock therapy). With costumes by Annemarie Woods, choreography by Lucy Burge, and Hannah Rudd and Adam Cooper among the dancers, there was a notable British presence – as there was elsewhere in the 10-day event (which is independent from the ultra-ritzy summer festival). The audiovisual artist Max Cooper’s immersive Seme, designed by London-based Architecture Social Club, exemplified Salzburg Easter’s desire to broaden its artistic horizons. Cooper’s name – and Pappano’s – dominated the big yellow street banners in a city where Mozart, born here, is god.
Also in the Grosses Festspielhaus, the festival’s main venue for opera and concerts, Pappano conducted an unforgettable performance of Verdi’s Messa da Requiem (1873), in which the Santa Cecilia musicians were joined by soloists soprano Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha, mezzo-soprano Judit Kutasi, tenor Luciano Ganci and bass Michele Pertusi. From the opening, hushed Requiem to the shattering utterances of Dies Irae, the fugal riot of the Sanctus and the pleading ecstasy of the Libera Me, Verdi’s masterpiece yielded all its familiarity and passion, yet sounded fresher than ever.
Completing the intricate knotwork of relationships in Salzburg last week, Santa Cecilia’s principal guest conductor is the Czech-born Jakub Hrůša, who will succeed Pappano at the Royal Opera House as music director from 2025. Hrůša conducted the Rome musicians in a programme of Italian-themed works: the sensuous Les Fresques de Piero della Francesca by his Czech compatriot, Bohuslav Martinů, and Berlioz’s oddball quasi-concerto Harold in Italy, after Byron’s Childe Harold. Pinchas Zukerman, as viola soloist, riffed joyfully with the orchestra. That a septuagenarian can still capture the youthful dreams of Byron’s hero should cheer us all.
Star ratings (out of five)
La Gioconda ★★★★
Messa da Requiem ★★★★
Harold in Italy ★★★★
