Page 388 - Liverpool Philharmonic 22-23 Season Coverage Book

Garden in 2007, while the avaricious Donati family, whom he eventually defrauds, are
played by the EOC’s young singers.

Rozet is hampered by the need to cramp the action into a narrow strip of space in front
of the orchestra, though his direction can be astute, the comedy sometimes very dark
indeed. He updates the opera to the 1960s, and his Donatis are a grotesque crew that
might have strayed from Fellini or Buñuel, barely attempting even a semblance of grief
at Buoso Donati’s death and casually stepping over or kicking his corpse, which is
dumped at the foot of Hindoyan’s podium. Terfel’s knowing Schicchi observes them
with both irony and contempt before turning on them, eventually driving them from the
platform to seek refuge among the audience. He is in fine voice, his performance at once
very funny and wonderfully subtle, always leading the young cast around him yet never
upstaging them.

Funny and wonderfully subtle: Bryn Terfel (front) with Domingo Hindoyan and the Royal
Liverpool Philharmonic. Photograph: Mark McNulty

There’s some lovely singing elsewhere. Anaïs Constans’s wilful Lauretta can be very
much her father’s daughter: O Mio Babbino Caro is tellingly manipulative as well as
beautiful; later on, she and Matteo Roma’s Rinuccio sound good together in their duets.
Matteo Loi’s camp, fussy Betto is outstanding, as are Indyana Schneider’s bossy Zita
and Felipe Cudina’s dim Simone, but this is very much a cogent ensemble where no one
really puts a foot wrong. Hindoyan gets the mix of wit and passionate lyricism bang on,
too.

With the RLPO on terrific form, he prefaces the opera with intermezzi and dances from
other works by Puccini and his contemporaries, making such familiar favourites as
Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana Intermezzo and the Dance of the Hours from
Ponchielli’s Gioconda sound fresh and newly minted, while the demonic Tregenda from
Puccini’s Le Villi is played with thrilling precision and panache.

Gianni Schicchi, Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool, Sunday 12 March