Day 238
Paisiello: Il Barbiere di Siviglia
Soloists
Putbus festival opera orchestra and chorus
Wilhelm Keitel
This is another in this series of operas by the 'wrong' composer. It was certainly an audacious step by the young Rossini to tackle this subject given the fame of Paisiello's opera, particularly as Rossini's libretto followed much the same plot outline. It is almost as if somebody like Mark-Anthony Turnage had started his operatic career by writing another Peter Grimes.
I'm a great Rossini enthusiast - though the Barber is far from my favourite Rossini opera - so it is perhaps unsurprising that I feel that history has got it right in its choice of which Barber should remain in the repertory. Not that there is anything wrong with Paisiello's version - I enjoyed listening to it a lot. It struck me as being like Mozart without the genius. A completely mastery of the mature classical opera style but little that was anything more than the work of a very accomplished composer who knew how to write for an audience. There were a couple of times when I felt that he did achieve something more. There is a comic trio involving a lot of sneezing, which made me smile, and a soprano aria in Act two which had some attractive harmony and some emotional depth. But what was lacking more than anything is the manic energy that Rossini brought to the same story. Perhaps that is an unfair comparison - Rossini was writing a generation later and had a wider variety of musical language to draw on - but if Rossini can sometime be cliched he is never bland and much of this opera did seem to be rather bland.
I can imagine that it would be fun to watch in the theatre, and certainly I was glad to hear it today, but give me Rossini any day.
No comments:
Post a Comment