Farnace by George Petrou

This production of Vivaldi’s Farnace was broadcasted on Arte Live Web. It is orchestrated by Concert Koln and conducted by George Petrou. It brought the same edition and the casts from the opera album conducted by Diego Fasolis.

Initially, I really wanted to see exact same performers including Fasolis & Il Barocchisti for the stage because they have highly polished, beautiful agile music. But this production by George Petrou & Concert Koln was also wonderful and exciting. Their music was very lively, young and flesh with very good sounds.

The stage director is Lucinda Childs who is ballet choreographer. Her stage is very beautiful. She has keen eyes for visual arts. Her stage set is contemporary and artistically stylish. I liked how they used lightings that made some of the outdoor scenes look like artificial but outside.

She has rather weak acting direction though. Replacing the lack of acting, she used quiet bit of stylish ballet dancing to convey the singers’ moods and emotions at each scene, which are arty and also can be felt little overused towards the end.

All the singers sang wonderfully. These are gorgeous and powerful singers.

Max Emanuel Cencic sang Farnace. He’s the best to sing this role. His voice was full, rich and exciting. He sang the dramatic aria “Gelido in ogni vena” replacing much sentimental “Perdona, o figlio amato” in the opera, which I liked it better this way.

Ruxandra Donose who sang Tamiri had such dramatic stage presence. She had both dramatic weight with her singing and acting.

Mary-Ellen Nesi as Berenice was wonderful though her voice was little less full than when she sang in the album (it’s live and singer’s voice condition can change daily.)

Juan Sancho as Pompeo sang well with beautiful tenor voice but his singing felt he’s not all there completely.  It may be because his voice was little higher. I preferred Daniel Behr in the album who had lower and fuller voice than Sancho’s.

Emiliano Gonzalez Toro as Aquilio was even much better than when he sang in the album. His voice was much richer on this stage.

I really wanted to see Ann Hallenberg as Selinda. Instead, Carol Garcia sang the role. She had the similar voice texture with Hallenberg but did not have rich texture or depth like Hallenberg’s. And she had much drier voice. She had powerful voice though which she showcased in her last aria, “Ti vantasti mio guerriero” wonderfully.

I also loved Karin Gauvin as Gilade in the album. She had such deliciously gorgeous soprano voice. Instead, this role on the stage was sung by Vivica Genaux. She is such amazing singer who had different kind of deliciousness. I always compare her voice with watermelon for she has such juicy beautiful voice. Like Cecilia Bartoli, her wonderful techniques can get in the way of her singing expression at times, but more than that, her singing has such mutuality and richness. She almost could take over Max Emanuel Cencic in this production.

One of the interesting things about Vivaldi’s music is the fact that it is like ameba or sponge. It depends on performer, same music of his could sound very different. That’s how flexible his music is. This difference is not very obvious in other composers’ music. This is one of many reasons why his music is always timelessly refreshing.