Recordings > Opera and Oratorio
MEYERBEER:
Il Crociato in Egitto
Ciofi, Polverelli; Maniaci, Portari, Vinco; Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro la Fenice, Villaume. No text or translation. Naxos 8.660245-47 (3)
Before Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791– 1864) changed the scope of opera with his four French extravaganzas — Robert le Diable, Les Huguenots, Le Prophète and L'Africaine — the German-born composer wrote six Italian operas. The fourth and fifth were first heard at La Scala. Il Crociato, the sixth, had is premiere in 1824 at Venice's Teatro la Fenice, where this performance was recorded live in 2007. Some of the stereotypical Meyerbeerian hallmarks of the Paris works were already in evidence, among them the gratefully crafted woodwind solos (though the Crociato orchestra is standard in size and disposition) and the onstage halftime show of two brass bands (here, opposing Christian and Muslim factions).
But Meyerbeer's Italian operas are more frequently praised or damned for their Rossinian influence. Certainly there is a Rossinian cut to some of the melodies, all of the ensembles and the intermittent pattering of woodwinds in thirds. There is some gorgeous harp-accompanied praying that brings to mind Rossini's Otello and Maometto II. (The twist here is that soloist and chorus are all male. Meyerbeer, a thoughtful and studious composer, was to retain the careful balance of male and female scenes in his French works.) But the real influence on Il Crociato, and none better, is Mozart's. "D'una madre disperata," the aria of the Muslim heroine, Palmide, has a Mozartean integrity, and it is sung here with the command of a Donna Anna by Patrizia Ciofi. All of Meyerbeer's Italian operas have passages of innovation as well as nostalgia; here, it's an extended sextet embedded in the Act I finale. The effect is irresistible.
Il Crociato is on the fringe of the operatic radar for two reasons. One is that in the title character, the Knight Armando, Meyerbeer wrote the last major role for castrato. The role was created by Giovanni Velluti (1780–1861), but even in Meyerbeer's day casting proved difficult. Soprano Giuditta Pasta sang it, although Meyerbeer preferred a mezzo-soprano or contralto if a woman took the part. When Il Crociato received its belated U.S. premiere in 1979, Felicity Palmer, then in a soprano phase, sang it at Carnegie Hall. Here the role is taken by Michael Maniaci, who bills himself as a male soprano, although the Naxos packaging has made him a countertenor. Maniaci sounds like an 80/20 mixture of countertenor to mezzo-soprano, and he gives a tremendous performance suitable for a starring role. He has worked hard to find various colors in his voice, and his legato is a model for singers of any voice type. Not every section of the role fits him ideally. He has two multipartite duets nearly back-to-back, and the final number of the show, a solo, is an ineffective piece. But he can hardly be blamed for not being a castrato.
The other famous feature of Il Crociato is a high-voice trio for soprano, mezzo-soprano and castrato. The first two both believe themselves to be pledged to the latter. The women trade verses of an air first sung to them, individually, by the man who was courting them. Soon the tune drifts in from outdoors; he is singing it again. The accompaniment is for a small ensemble of eight players — harp, four winds and three strings — but even this tiny band tends to drop away and leave the voices floating. It's a moment of surpassing loveliness.
Since Richard Bonynge can't go on conducting this sort of opera forever, we're fortunate that Emmanuel Villaume shows such an affinity for it. It's hard to imagine a more attentive partner than Villaume for moments such as Armando's entrance scene, a difficult piece even if it didn't come in the singer's first moments onstage. Villaume is a reassuring presence all evening, but he should be specially commended for his handling of the long Act I finale. He shows the sort of musicologically astute understanding of tempo relationships for which conductors are acknowledged when they restudy the Beethoven symphonies, but which often passes unnoticed in the opera house. (Il Crociato was one of the first opera scores to be published with metronome marks.) The ensembles of Il Crociato, with its heavy bel cantoinfluence, often send the singers off in flights of a cappella writing with only the barest of orchestral foundation every few bars; Villaume knows how to weight and lengthen the chords to minimize the possibility of wayward vocal intonation.
Ciofi's Palmide hits her stride in that Act I trio. Her singing is highly engaging. Mezzo Laura Polverelli's Felicia offers something more: forthright, reliable, but with warmth, her voice is a major instrument that is all of a piece. Her timbre would be especially affecting in trouser roles. She should be singing Rossini's Arsace all over the world. Fernando Portari, the tenor who does all that praying as Adriano, has a masculine timbre with very little of the nasality that often comes with this type of voice. His prayer, at any rate, has a heroic pendant to it, in which Portari fully captures the exciting visionary quality of Meyerbeer's music. Bass Marco Vinco's Aladino doesn't have any arias. (He could have, if other choices had been made. The idea of exactly which musical numbers belong in an opera was much more flexible in Meyerbeer's day than in ours. But Villaume has made plausible choices, and the opera runs nearly three-and-a-half hours as it is.)
This is not a neglected masterpiece. Meyerbeer can be a scattered composer, who finds a form, an instrumental color, a melodic vein and then loses interest in maintaining or developing it. But this is an opera that works. Alas, no libretto is provided with the discs. Naxos directs listeners to a website, where there is an Italian-only text that does not correspond to the scene divisions in the synopsis from the CD packaging, which itself has the wrong labeling of scenes. But we may be hearing more of Il Crociato. Like a surprising number of Meyerbeer's operas, it involves religious intolerance and a religious conversion. Surely stage directors will want to explore it.
WILLIAM R. BRAUN
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