Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana

http://www.renaud-bray.com

http://www.renaud-bray.com

*** Résumé en anglais seulement ***One would be hard pressed to find an opera more proudly Southern Italian than Cavalleria rusticana, set in Vizzini, a small mountain village in the Sicilian hinterland that was the birthplace of the storys playwright, Giovanni Verga. Its enduring popularity makes it surprising indeed that the last studio recording dates to exactly 30 years ago (1990, Semyon Bychkov), preceded just a year earlier by Giuseppe Sinopolis critically acclaimed production dedicated to his father, who, like its protagonists and Verga, was Sicilian. This new interpretation is thus long overdue and joins a small but prestigious circle of recordings, with Carmine Gallone (1953, film), Tullio Serafin (1960), Herbert von Karajan (1965), James Levine (1978), Franco Zeffirelli (1982, film) and Georges Pretre (1983) predating Sinopoli. This new production of Cavalleria Rusticana brings together some of the most prominent artists on todays international opera stages under conductor Filippo Arlia, a native of South Italys Calabria and youngest-ever Director of an Italian conservatory (Nocera Terineses Tchaikovsky Conservatory). The recordings soloists are no less impressive: tenor Piero Giuliacci (Turiddu, winner of the Mascagni dOro 2013 and Pavarotti dOro 2017); mezzo-soprano Alessandra Di Giorgio (Santuzza); baritone Domenico Balzani (Alfio); mezzo-soprano Irina Dolzhenko (Lucia); and soprano Giorgia Teodoro (Lola) who, like Arlia, calls Calabria home. This recording revives Mascagnis voice in a new millennium with artists capable of honouring the verismo vocal color he pioneered, before an entire generation of opera composers followed suit.