Opera review: Verbier Festival 2018 25th Anniversary Gala

4 / 5 stars
Verbier Festival 2018 25th Anniversary Gala

THE Swiss ski resort of Verbier sees a complete change of scene each summer. A firm favourite with the younger British royals for its challenging pistes and lively après-ski, it is reputedly a luxury resort for celebratory skiers in winter.

VERBIER FESTIVAL

SOUND OF MUSIC.... The Swiss alps echoed to Adriana Lecouvreur conducted by Valery Gergiev (Image: Nicolas Brodard)

When the snow melts, the pace calms down, and hikers come for walking holidays in the foothills of Mount Fort. 

In July and early August the sound of music fills the valleys, as musicians and singers arrive from all over the world for the annual Verbier Festival. 

Indeed, this little Swiss village (altitude a heady 1500m rising to 3300m in the highest reaches) attracts a royal gathering of musicians. 

Verbier Festival celebrated its 25th anniversary last week with what was billed as a Surprise Concert. 

Nearly 40 distinguished classical musicians were scheduled to appear, but there was no published programme. 

The mystery as to how to accommodate so many famous soloists in one evening was solved when the concert opened to Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 with the star instrumentalists, who included Pinchas Zukerman, Maxim Vengerov and Tabea Zimmerman, working together as an 18-strong team. 

After the strings, it was the turn of the piano, where such unlikely team-mates as young Chinese Yuja Wang in sequinned mini-skirt shared the keyboard with veteran maestro Sir Andràs Schiff to play Dvorak’s Two Slavonic Dances.

The high point was the wheeling onstage of four shiny black Steinway grand pianos for Rossini’s William Tell Overture.

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Two pianists at the keyboard of each Steinway totalled 16 hands in all. 

The choice of the William Tell Overture – a nod to Switzerland’s historic freedom fighter and champion archer Guillaume Tell – hit the target with the audience. 

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Cilea’s ADRIANNA LECOUVREUR Stars ****

Francesco Cilea’s rarely performed Adriana Lecouvreur was the main opera event at the festival. 

Russian maestro Valery Gergiev, the festival’s new artistic director, conducted a concert performance with a cast that included leading singers and chorus of the Mariinsky Theatre. 

opera

The Festival is held at the Swiss ski resort of Verbier (Image: nc)

Cilea’s opera, premiered in 1902, is a tale of love, intrigue, jealousy and murder, loosely based on the life of a great actress in 18th-century Paris.

The murder weapon is a poisoned bouquet of violets, which legend has it was sent to the actress by an arch rival in a love triangle.

Cilea’s music draws on similar sources to Puccini’s, in its on-the-sleeve passion, though Cilea’s operas were to become somewhat unfairly overshadowed by those of the master composer.

One effect of performing the opera in concert without stage design is it allows the mind to concentrate on the drama of the music.

Gergiev’s toothpick-sized baton and fluttering hands galvanised the Verbier Festival Orchestra into vigorous playing that swept the audience with them. 

Wonderful performances all round, with a peerless Adriana from Russian soprano Tatiana Serjan. 

Her gloriously expressive voice and fine acting brought out the emotional depths of the role, especially in the final act aria “Poveri fiori” when Adriana receives the poisoned bouquet sent by the Princess of Bouillon. 

Mezzo Ekaterina Semenchuk as the wicked princess dispensed contralto growls and arrogant stares to splendidly malign effect.

Central to the opera’s love triangle was Maurizio, Count of Saxony, sung by 26-year-old tenor from Belarus, Migran Agadzhanyan, who received the wildest applause of the evening – a star in the making, who should be noted by our opera houses. 

You can view the festival on medici.tv

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