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The Cadaver, Great Voices and an Obtuse Staging Pesaro
Auditorium Scavolini
08/10/2025 - & August 13, 16, 19, 2025
Gioacchino Rossini : Zelmira
Anastasia Bartoli (Zelmira), Lawrence Brownlee (Ilo), Enea Scala (Antenore), Marina Viotti (Emma), Marko Mimica (Polidoro), Gianluca Margheri (Leucippo), Paolo Nevi (Eacide), Shi Zhong (Gran Sacerdote)
Coro del Teatro Ventidio Basso, Pasquale Veleno (chorus master), Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Giacomo Sagripante (conductor)
Calixto Bieito (stage director), Barbora Horáková (sets), Ingo Krügler (costumes), Michael Bauer (lighting)
L. Brownlee, A. Bartoli (© Amati Bacciardi)
Based on a French tragedy, Zelmire, by Dormont de Belloy (1727-1775), Rossini’s opera Zelmira (1822) was his last for Naples, the city in which he wrote his greatest opere serie. It had been completely forgotten until 1965, when it was revived for the Romanian soprano Virginia Zeani. With the great Rossini revival in the 1980s, it enjoyed new life at the Rome Opera in 1989, with Cecilia Gasdia, Chris Merritt and William Matteuzzi. The Rossini Opera Festival produced it in 2009 with Kate Aldrich, Gregory Kunde and Juan Diego Flórez. The present production was much‑awaited, given the rarity of the work and the excellence of the cast. Alas, the director is Spaniard Calixto Bieito, whose stagings were revolutionary when they first appeared on Europe’s major stages a quarter century ago. Their linear contours and geometric shapes complemented original visions of the operatic literature. In recent years, his productions have merely been vacuous provocations. His recent staging of Tristan und Isolde for Vienna was the worst production of the work I’ve ever seen.
The opera’s story is convoluted, and, as it’s unfamiliar to most, would have benefited from a less avant‑garde treatment, where even those familiar with the music and the plot were left bewildered. Things were further complicated by not holding the opera at the festival’s usual venue, the huge Vitrifrigo Arena. Instead, it was held at the Auditorium Scavolini, a converted rectangular sports arena. In order to take full advantage of the arena’s capacity, the stage was placed in its centre, as at sports events, making surtitles challenging. The public was invited to follow the text (in Italian or English) using a cell phone app. With a significant part of the audience not computer savvy, many resorted to the online PDF versions of the libretto. As the overwhelming majority of the foreigners at the festival were French and German, the languages on offer weren’t ideal.
Had this surtitles and linguistic treatment been for an overly familiar opera, such as Il barbiere di Siviglia or La bohème, this would have been a minor problem, but Zelmira is unfamiliar ground. Things were further complicated by director Bieito’s idiotic ravings. Many had no idea what was going on, others imagined a plot unrelated to the opera’s, with homosexual subplots and the dead rising from their graves.
Zelmira is a rescue opera like Beethoven’s Fidelio, albeit more complicated by several factors. Important events happen before the opera: Zelmira, the daughter of King Polidoro of the Greek Island of Lesbos, has married a foreign prince, Ilo of Troy. While the latter is on a military campaign abroad, Azor, the lord of Mytilene and a rejected suitor of Zelmira, takes the opportunity to invade Lesbos. Zelmira managed to hide her father in the royal mausoleum and tricked Azor into believing that he was hiding in the temple of Ceres (Demeter), which Azor burnt down, thus eliminating Polidoro. Meanwhile, Antenore, Azor’s son, has arranged to assassinate his father to ascend to the throne. All this happens before the opera even starts! Most intelligent productions would have an account of these events projected prior to the beginning of the opera, or perhaps in the lobby preceding the show. In any case, the director didn’t think it through.
Act I opens to Antenore plotting with Leucippo to incriminate Zelmira of the death of both Azor and her own father. The populace, even Zelmira’s confidante Emma, end up believing the lie. Possibly a clin d’œil to the location of the opera, Lesbos, Bieito casts Antenore and Leucippo as lovers. This is not immediately shown, but becomes progressively evident. Even Zelmira and Emma seem to be lesbian. What this innovation brings to the plot remains obscure. Ubication exige!
Zelmira reveals the truth about her father’s survival in the mausoleum to Emma and secures her young child’s well-being to her for his own good, to protect him from the treacherous Antenore. Bieito’s “brilliant” idea was to revive the cadaver of the invading Azor. Had he been the good king of Lesbos, one could imagine that the good deceased king was the conscience of Lesbos. However, Azor, despite having been murdered, is the despicable invader. The poor actor hired to be the cadaver is the most active in the entire Bieito plot, removing the helmets of dead soldiers, moving furniture, holding the “hidden” child and even dancing. One hopes he was well paid for this non-stop activity as well as for confusing those assuming he was a zombie.
Upon Ilo’s return, he’s convinced by Antenore of Zelmira’s guilt. As the latter attempts to stab Ilo, Zelmira leaps on the attacker and snatches his dagger. This was a setup for Zelmira, and she’s caught red‑handed with the dagger and further accused of the attempted murder of her husband.
In Act II, Antenore intercepts a letter from Zelmira to Ilo claiming innocence and revealing her father to be still alive and in hiding. Leucippo and Antenore release Zelmira to find out where Polidoro is hidden. Emma has conveyed the truth to Ilo who arrives to save his wife and her father, Antenore and Leucippo are arrested. Of course, the actual plot does not agree with Bieito’s “genius”. In his innovation, Antenore escapes and Leucippo drowns himself after stripping down to his underwear for a bit of homoerotic diversion.
Credits for sets are given to Calixto Bieito and Czech Barbora Horáková, though one cannot really speak of them, given the limited space and its configuration, which is just as well. Horáková was the uninspired stage director of Dresden’s Benvenuto Cellini, though nothing as tawdry as Bieito. The costumes were mostly modern, except for Zelmira who alternated between military fatigues and an evening dress.
Mercifully, it was only the staging that was horrific. The music, singing and orchestra were all marvelous, which is what made this production so maddening; it could have had it all. Three roles in particular are technically challenging: Zelmira, Ilo and Leucippo. Anastasia Bartoli was a stunning Zelmira, vocally and dramatically. It’s to be noted that she is the daughter of Cecilia Gasdia, who revived the opera in 1989. More secure in this role than in Ermione at ROF’s last edition, or as Cristina in Eduardo e Cristina in ROF in 2023, Bartoli is a worthy successor to her mother. Her rendition of the Act II aria “Riedi al soglio” was superlative. She was able to portray the falsely accused victim convincingly, with pathos but never soliciting pity.
The tenor role of Ilo, Zelmira’s Trojan husband, was sung by American Lawrence Brownlee. Recently heard as Tonio in La Fille du régiment in Munich, and as Ernesto in Don Pasquale in Milan, Brownlee is a bel canto tenor par excellence. He was certainly up for the challenge of the role’s high tessitura. His rendition of the Act I aria “Terra amica” was the high point of the evening.
The other tenor role, Antenore, was created by Andrea Nozzari (1776‑1832), often referred to as a baritenor, a hybridized voice featuring the virility of a baritone and the high tessitura of a tenor. He had also created the roles of Rossini’s Otello, Rinaldo in Armida, Pirro in Ermione, Rodrigo in La donna del lago and Paolo Erisso in Moametto II. This production’s Antenore is Enea Scala, who, like Bartoli, is in his third year at ROF and in the same operas. His rendition of Act I’s “Si figli miei” had the needed heroic quality. Throughout the performance, his much darker voice contrasted well with Brownlee’s high tenor.
Swiss mezzo Marina Viotti was a warm Emma, able to express her care for Zelmira through her voice and expressive acting. Her duet with Zelmira, “Perche mi guardi e piangi”, with harp accompaniment, was beautifully rendered. Viotti, recently heard as Charlotte in Werther in Paris, is one of today’s most beautiful mezzos. It was a luxury to enjoy her in the relatively minor role of Emma.
Croatian bass Marko Mimica was a noble Polidoro. I enjoyed him recently as Jacopo Fiesco in Simon Boccanegra, in Berlin. Endowed with a beautiful timbre and an overwhelming stage presence, he excels in such regal, aristocratic roles.
Italian bass-baritone Gianluca Margheri deftly portrayed Leucippo’s perfidious nature. His beautiful timbre added to his appeal in the role, as seen by Bieito. He is Antenore’s Lady Macbeth, who pushes the weak prince into outrageous acts, but he is also hysterical. Acting horrendously towards Polidoro once he captures him in Act II, he pathetically crumbles into a craven coward by the opera’s end. Margheri was able to magnificently express these starkly contrasting emotions.
The Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna under the capable baton of Giacomo Sagripanti showed they are among the best Rossini interpreters. Rossini’s opera seria is quite distinct from his comedies, and the orchestral writing complex. If conducted with the same panache applied to comedies, the drama is diluted. Sagripanti managed to bring out the pathos in the music. As a veteran operatic professional, he expertly supported his singers, particularly in their most technically challenging moments. To know they are so supported allows the singers great creative freedom, thereby creating magic.
Bieito surpassed his own mediocrity in the aforementioned Viennese production of Tristan und Isolde – quite an accomplishment. At the end of the performance, amid the much deserved applause for the singers, conductor and orchestra, there was a loud disapproving voice “Vogliamo Pizzi!”, referring to the venerable Pier Luigi Pizzi, director of several memorable Pesaro productions. ROF’s Administration ought to listen!
Ossama el Naggar
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