Fedorino happiness – Newspaper Kommersant No. 199 (7400) of 10/26/2022

La Scala Theater hosted a series of premiere screenings of Fedora by Umberto Giordano (1898). An opera-thriller based on a savory Russian plot was staged by the venerable Italian director Mario Martone. I understood the specifics of the Italian view of Russian customs Gular Sadykh-zade.

The Italian director did not escape the temptation to present the Russian aristocrats and diplomats of the 1880s as the current “new Russians” with European real estate, carelessly traveling around the world. Already at the beginning of the performance, the princess with the typical aristocratic name of Fyodor (Sonya Yoncheva) appears in the luxurious penthouse of her fiancé Vladimir – maybe in New York, or maybe in Milan; she is exhausted with love and impatience – their wedding is scheduled for tomorrow – but she bosses around the servants exactly like a spoiled fifa from the nouveau riche.

Suddenly, a bleeding groom is brought in, a hasty investigation begins – who, when and what he saw. Meanwhile, the groom lets out a terrible cry and dies, and Fyodor swears on a massive pectoral cross to take revenge on the murderer. Suspicion falls on a count with the also charming name of Loris Ipanov (Roberto Alagna), who lives nearby and has a reputation as a politically unreliable “nihilist”.

Such is the plot of Giordano’s veristic operatic drama based on the play by Victorien Sardou: blood-love, murder-revenge, political investigation, blackmail, suspicion, betrayal are shaken up into a cocktail of burning passions, breaking through not only in extremely excited vocals, but also in naturalistic screams and sobs. In the finale, there comes later remorse and the death of the main character, who managed to fall in love with Count Ipanov. She betrayed her lover, her letter to the Russian police led to the death of innocent people – mother and brother Loris. And Fedora commits suicide by taking poison, hidden for the time being in the core of her cross.

The tightly wound plot of Fedora contains all the components of a real thriller – Sardou (to whom we owe the plots of several more action-packed operas, including Tosca) knew his business well. But the director Martone does not seem to be making any effort to make the stage behavior of the characters at least somewhat natural and authentic. On the contrary, he in every possible way emphasizes the conditionality of what is happening, its mechanistic nature. Heroes turn out to be toys in the hands of blind fate and act under the influence of circumstances. With menacing frequency, the course of events breaks and changes direction after the appearance of another note or letter, which reveals another grain of truth. Turning to the images of Rene Magritte – impersonal sinister figures in hats and raincoats of the 1950s, the director tries to emphasize the lack of independence of opera heroes, their purely reflex reactions to external circumstances. They sing their arias addressed to their partner, but look into the hall, at the conductor (Marco Armigliato). And the partner at this time goes into the shadows, modestly crouching in the background, so as not to interfere with the soloist to receive his portion of applause.

From time to time, the ghost of the murdered groom appears on the stage: the head of the ghost is wrapped in a bloody white cloth, which clearly turns him into the egg-headed character of Magritte. At the beginning of the second, “Parisian” act, where a declaration of love takes place, the main characters, Fedora and Loris, stand motionless with white veils on their heads: a plastic quotation from Magritte’s “Lovers”. Meanwhile, it is in the second act that the Russian flavor manifests itself in all its glory – the French attaché, Baron de Sirier, sings a playful song about a Russian beauty, almost completely repeating the melody of Alyabyev’s Nightingale. And the servants squat down to the music of a gallop, in which the echoes of Kamarinskaya are clearly audible.

In the third act, the action takes place in Fedora’s villa in the Swiss Alps, but this circumstance of the place also fits into the Magritte flavor. Stage designer Margherita Pally reproduced here almost word for word the mountain landscape outside the window, the blue-gray tones and the subject matter of the famous canvas “Murder Threat”: even the gramophone was not forgotten.

Giordano’s verismo itself, in comparison with these surrealistic performances, looks, of course, fairly straightforward, and it is not for nothing that an essential component of the score is sobs in a voice. And with Roberto Alagna – Count Loris – they turned out well: talking about the betrayal of his wife, whom he found with Vladimir, he sobbed nobly restrained. At the news of the death of his brother Valerian in the dungeons of the Peter and Paul Fortress and the death of his mother – with the prescribed exhaustion. And he sang the part well, with a beautiful smooth sound, obviously waiting for the approval of the hall – and invariably receiving it in the form of noisy applause. But the performance still rested not on him, but on Sonya Yoncheva – her charisma, temperament, bright, strong, though not always even-sounding voice. Fedora’s part is of a huge range, it is designed for deep mezzo-soprano notes in the lower register and distinct soprano highs; the singer failed to equalize it according to the timbre, then an interior vibrating sound appeared in the lower register, then a somewhat forced one in the upper one.

Serena Gamberoni was good in the role of Countess Olga Sukhareva – she rode her bicycle at ease, flirted with Baron de Sirier (George Petyan), chirped with guests, her voice in duets and “French Song” sounded fresh and loud. But the sound of the orchestra conducted by Marco Armigliato disappointed: there are too many rhythmic errors, and even inaccurate introductions. Only at times, during the moments of orchestral episodes – the introduction to the third act, the intermezzo of the second act – did the sound clear up, acquiring delicate pastel colors and transparency of texture. Which, after all, is no less valuable part of Giordano’s opera than the anguish and the quasi-Russian action-packed vampuka.