My second opera at the Rossini Festival in Bad Wildbad was another rarity by Rossini – Ermione. The story of this opera is a lot more complicated and there are more people in the opera, but short version of the story is as follows: Troy has been conquered and the widow of Hector – Andromache is a prisoner in the court of Pyrrhus. He is in love with her and wants to marry her. Andromache has conflicting feelings since she wants to remain true to her dead husband but at the same time protect their son. The earlier intended of Pyrrhus, Hermione is angry at Pyrrhus and convinces Orestes, who is in love with her, to kill Pyrrhus. Well, in the end Pyrrhus, Hermione and Andromache are all dead. Such a joyful story for an opera!
This opera was performed in the ”Trinkhalle”, which is the
building were the guests of the baths were drinking curing waters. Air
conditioning would have been nice, but otherwize it was ok for operas.
I didn’t like this opera as much as previous evening’s
Adina, because the story was even more idiotic (I seldom like the operas based
on ancient Greece) and in my opinion even the music was not quite as enchanting.
But there were a lot of good singers among the cast this time, too. Mezzosoprano
Aurora Faggioli, who sang the role of Andromache, had a delicious dark voice
and the soprano Serana Farnocchia, who sang the role of Hermione, had the
stamina to sing this heavy role with lots of ornamentations brilliantly till
the end. Tenor Moisés Marin, who sang the role of Pyrrhus, also did well, even
though the exhaustion caused by this heavy role could be heard in a few phrases
before the interval. But I can definitely
with good conscience recommend this festival to all friends of bel canto, so
high level the performances were.
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