Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.For some, it is a startling masterpiece that bulldozed operatic conventions and paved the way for musical innovators to come. For others, it is unrelentingly angry and dark, a messy mix of stock Rossini and pastiche Gluck.The jury has long been out for Rossini’s 1819 opera Ermione, which was dropped after its disastrous Naples premiere and languished in obscurity until the Rossini Opera Festival in the composer’s hometown of Pesaro revived it almost 170 years later. Now the festival has opened a new staging led by a formidable duo: tenor Juan Diego Flórez and Michele Mariotti, the foremost Rossini conductor of his generation.On the opening night, the stark originality of a score Rossini called his “little Italian Guillaume Tell” hit home with breathtaking force. Johannes Erath’s sharp staging provides a feast for the eyes but also trusts the experimental music — chromatic flashes, interrupted melodies and declamatory style — to drive the drama.A raked stage framed by rectangular neon lights is filled with a chorus of punkish misfits, some in leather and string vests, others with cigarettes hanging from their mouths. They peer and strike offbeat poses like scrutinising Furies ready to pounce, creating a grim tableau vivant that illustrates the events of Andrea Leone Tottola’s libretto, adapted from Racine’s Andromache, about a doomed love triangle in the aftermath of the Trojan war.In Heike Scheele’s design there is plenty of onstage detail, with lavish banqueting tables appearing behind screens, Andromaca’s imprisoned son tied to a chair with a plastic bag fastened over his head, and an arrow-bearing cupid flitting across a platform around the orchestral pit before being struck dead. Mostly, however, the staging is atmospheric — black-and-white wall projections creating a noirish feel and side panels displaying melancholy videos of seaside scenes.Spot-on casting ensured the music carried the action. Enea Scala’s swaggering Pirro, son of the hero Achilles, was a revelation, his volcanic tenor surging through runs. Flórez, also the festival’s artistic director, was a hobbling, world-weary Oreste consumed by sorrow. Famed for his blazing voice and coloratura showboating, the Peruvian singer showed he also has emotional substance, sculpting music to plunge the depths of despair.Anastasia Bartoli, though she has evident technical flaws, used her impressive voice in the title role like a consummate tragedienne, whispering feverishly one moment, hurling syllables like vocal daggers the next. This Ermione, who veers between love and hatred before calling in the Furies to punish Pirro’s murderer, was unpredictable, savage and engrossing. As Andromaca, Victoria Yarovaya’s rich legato and pristine Italian diction embodied the nobility of a woman ready to kill herself to preserve her dignity.Conducting a staged production at the festival after a five-year absence, Mariotti drew a wealth of orchestral detail from the RAI National Symphony Orchestra and showed mastery of the score’s momentous architecture, propelling the marathon-like second act all the way to its crushing climax. The festival was launched in 1980 to revive all of Rossini’s operas and, having recently achieved that goal, may be searching for a new purpose. Here, it made an indisputable case for the continued importance of its work.★★★★★To August 20, rossinioperafestival.it
