Paolo Maria Orecchia

Puccini’s La fanciulla del West opened the 2017/18 opera season at Naples’ Teatro di San Carlo, returning to the theatre after more than four decades. Set in the California Gold Rush, this Western drama follows Minnie, the resourceful owner of a miners’ saloon, whose love for the mysterious Dick Johnson challenges the authority of Sheriff Jack Rance. The new production, directed and designed by Hugo De Ana, combines expansive stage scenery and atmospheric lighting to evoke the rugged world of the American frontier. Juraj Valčuha conducts the Teatro di San Carlo Orchestra and Chorus, with Emily Magee as Minnie, Roberto Aronica as Dick Johnson and Claudio Sgura as Jack Rance.

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This production from the historic Teatro Carlo Felice in Genova, Italy, stars the opera worlds power couple, Daniela Dessì and Fabio Armiliato, as lovers Tosca and Cavaradossi. A tragic tale of doomed love interlaced with the age-old themes of jealousy, lust and intrigue, has ensured Tosca its place in the top ten of opera favourites. Probably the best contemporary soprano-tenor combination (a couple in real life, too) Daniela Dessì and Fabio Armiliato are ranged against a worthy opponent in the form of Claudio Sgura as police chief Baron Scarpia.

All warmth springs from woman, All light from love does flow – Truly, only the heat of a virgin's body can ignite your fires.

This set has Edita Gruberova singing in top form, all her scooping cast aside, which one finds in abundance in her Lucia under Richard Bonynge. Here, however, she makes ravishing use of those bits of tone that only she can produce: those instances of coloratura and dramatic legato with little asides and small florishes of style that suggest her intelligent approach and her high degree of musical involvement in this role. She does this in her I Puritani and her Anna Bolena, less so in Roberto Deveraux and Maria Stuarda(both sets). Listen to Addio del passato and the Sempre Libra...ravishing, yes, but there are again those nuances learned from Callas that she makes her own. A very singualr perform,ance, and extremely moving with its detail and cry for pity throughout..from the start even. Neil Schicoff is excellent, not an unworthy Alfredo at all! His is a great lyric tenor voice that should have been in the top line.