Pesaro

For their hugely successful La Cenerentola at the Rossini Opera Festival (seen Aug. 13), director Luca Ronconi and designer Margherita Palli adopted a strongly symbolic approach -- Don Magnifico's half-ruined palace was represented by a heap of aging furniture, Don Ramiro's was decorated with elaborate fireplaces. Though updated (skyscrapers in the background and sophisticated costumes suggesting a 1920s urban setting), the story remained rooted in its fairytale origins. Added touches of magic included Alidoro's arrival down a chimney and Angelina's being carried to Ramiro's palace by a stork. These and other coups de théâtre (there being no proscenium arch at the Palafestival, the sets were raised and lowered in plain sight) matched the sense of stupefaction so frequently expressed by the music, and the overall result was compelling (though less consistently revealing of character than Ponnelle's famous production), with many deftly timed comic effects.

Vesselina Kasarova is not the most touching Angelina, but on this evening she conquered the audience with the bravura of her vocalism and the professionalism of her acting. Every phrase, gesture and pause was employed to maximum effect. As Ramiro, Juan Diego Florez combined a youthfully romantic figure with considerable vocal beauty and elegant phrasing. Without underplaying the character's sheer nastiness, Bruno Praticó made one feel what it would be like to be Don Magnifico, while Alessandro Corbelli's Dandini was equally eloquent in inflection and hilariously clumsy in disguise.

Lorenzo Regazzo's Alidoro, Marina Comparato's Tisbe and Rosanna Savoia's Clorinda were less memorable, but it was good to hear the latter's rarely performed aria "Sventurata! mi credea" and the equally unfamiliar knights' chorus (neatly performed by the Prague Chamber Choir) in Act II. Both these pieces were composed by Luca Agolini for the opera's 1817 premiere and are included in Alberto Zedda's newly published critical edition. On the podium, Carlo Rizzi achieved a happy balance of filigree precision and relaxed good humor, and the Orchestra della Toscana responded as alertly as the singers.

- STEPHEN HASTINGS