Monthly Archives: November 2019

As the warm applause greeted the curtain of the Atlanta Opera’s season opening production of Rossini’s La Cenerentola this Friday, November 8th, glittery confetti showered on Angelina as she unfurled the final phrases of her celebrated aria (and arguably the only number keeping the opera active in the repertoire) “Non piu mesta”. Mixed with the acclaim and the sincere the delight of many was the inescapable memory of my first time attempt at making pasta sauce from scratch. I recall getting the finest ingredients my meager salary could secure, and the great care with which I managed the ratios between homemade tomato paste, garlic and herbs, graced by the required dramatic finger flicker of salt and pepper. Efforts notwithstanding, I recall my palate’s cruel assertion that I thoroughly missed the elusive alchemy that marries worthy elements into the desired result, leaving me to taste the ripe but uninfluenced tomato, the stand alone furry oregano, all made further insipid by the heavy handed interpolation of a very blunt dose of black pepper. The thing tasted like nothing at all, and a similar conclusion sunk in my heart as I tried to sum up the evening while patiently waiting to exit the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center parking lot. Looking for a culprit in situations like these makes for an uncomfortable task. Opera is a tough gamble, and those involved in it are often drawn to it by significant love. Artists and companies invest extensive amounts of time and effort to tackle often impossible music, be measured up against exhaustive standards and hope to offer their best to the public. Those who witness the effort, even opera critics, would rather describe a party rather than prepare an autopsy report, but alas, here we are.

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Fresh from giving the neighborhood trick or treaters a halloween that will, hopefully, haunt their dreams for the remainder of the year, we ventured to Boston this past weekend for our first visit to Odyssey Opera. The young company, already causing stirs with its bold and daring choice of repertoire, devotes its seventh season to the exploration of the Tudor dynasty in opera, and ushers in November with (of this we are fairly certain) the American premiere of Giovanni Pacini’s Maria, Regina d’Inghilterra.  Like Mercadante, Spontini, and (quite unfairly) Meyerbeer, references to Giovanni Pacini are often a footnote when discussing his more famous contemporaries such as Donizetti, Bellini and Verdi. Kept alive nowadays only by the unusual revival of his opera Saffo, it may come as a surprise to most that Pacini wrote over 80 operas, many of which served as vehicles for the famous opera stars of the era. A complete unknown today, he was once as established as any of the illustrious Italian composers who dominate the standard repertoire offered by opera companies around the world to this day. Odyssey Opera’s presentation of Pacini’s Maria, Regina d’Inghilterra gave its audience the rare opportunity to judge the composer’s merits in the flesh, and despite the opening night’s warm reception, it is clear that Pacini’s musical language falls in an awkward musico dramatico crack of history. His musical language is more phlegmatic than Donizetti’s, certainly less melodic than Bellini’s, and lacks that dramatic swagger that sets Verdi apart from the lot. That said, his orchestral voice is elegant and empowered, pointing north of the Alps, and prepares musical Italy for the later works of Verdi. More importantly, his fellow composers were influenced, even in reactionary fashion, to the work of this seasoned and talented musician, thus even the casual awareness of his musical language becomes a valuable asset in understanding the great masterpieces of his day.  

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