July 14, 2006: Pagliacci in Verona

2006-07-14 Pagliacci (Leoncavallo), Arena di Verona

Nedda = Svetla Vassileva
Canio = José Cura
Tonio = Alberto Mastromarino
Beppe = Cristiano Olivieri
Silvio = Marco Di Felice

Lü Jia, conductor

Principal Conductor Lü Jia
Director Gilbert Deflo
Scenographer William Orlandi
Costume Designer William Orlandi




With José Cura as Canio, Svetla Vassileva as Nedda, Alberto Mastromarino as Tonio, Cristiano Olivieri as Beppe & Marco Di Felice as Silvio, Pagliacci was a great success. José Cura and Alberto Mastromarino are experts as Canio and Tonio, they can do nothing wrong in these roles. Svetla Vassileva was perfect as Nedda. Cristiano
Olivieri was wonderful as Beppe. And of course Marco di Felice was a luxury Silvio.

Arena di Verona is huge, the stage is very big and it is not easy to be a singer in the arena. And it is all outdoor. There is always the temptation to fill the whole stage. In this production of CAV/PAG it was the chorus that had the role to fill the stage. Strange as it seem it the Italian chorus seemed to have trouble with the Italian text. Maybe it was just that the stage was so big and it was a large chorus
to hold it all together.

Jose Cura was maybe tired after singing both Turriddu and Canio, so I did not see him at the stage door. That was the only disappointment of the evening.

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