Rossini: La Cambiale Di Matrimonio

Paolo Bordogna - Baritone, Désirée Rancatore - Soprano, Saimir Pirgu - Tenor

The story of La Cambiale Di Matrimo (The Marriage Contract) concerns the attempts of Tobia Mill, an English merchant, to force his daughter Fanny into a marriage with Slook, a rich Canadian merchant who has offered him a large sum of money to find a suitable wife. Mill sees this arrangement as merely an exchange of goods between merchants via a contract. Fanny, however, is in love with Eduardo, a young man of restricted means. When she learns of her father’s intentions, and particularly being treated as goods, she lets Slook know her views. With the help of her chambermaid along with her lover Eduardo, acting as Mill’s cashier, Slook is at first threatened and then converted to the cause of the young lovers. He concedes the contract to Eduardo and generously gives him money so that Mill cannot object to the marriage. Mill relents at the prospect of a grandchild within the year. Whilst extensive refurbishment goes on at the main theatre in Pesaro many productions are staged out of town. Any limitations of the location are in no way evident in this production using a simple single set of the inside of Mill’s house. His occupation as a merchant is well represented by the swinging hand crane outside the large central window and the passing of bales of goods through the house during the overture. Furnishing and costumes are in period. The mainly Italian cast are committed actors bringing out the humour of the opera with the musical brio of Rossini’s music well handled from the podium. Paolo Bordogna as the English merchant Mill, and Fabio Maria Capitanucci as Slook, have nicely differentiated vocal timbres, and a pleasing ability for vocal characterisation and acting. Their clear diction is a virtue throughout and particularly in the duet when Slook tries to warn Mill that all is not well with his plans (CH.14). The duet that follows (CH.15) is a real Rossini buffa gem, well delivered and acted. As the goods of the contract, Fanny, Désirée Rancatore twitters well in the vocal stratosphere in her aria Vorrei spiegarvi (CH.16) but is less appealing in her lower voice and lacks a convincing range of colour and legato. I find her performance a little disappointing although she is well applauded by the audience. Désirée Rancatore has sung at some of the best addresses and her performances as Lucia and Olympia have featured on Dynamic DVDs. The singing of the Albanian tenor Saimir Pirgu as Edoardo is pleasant without having the ideal head tone required. He makes what he can of his contributions to the proceedings. Presumably the San Moisè roster did not feature a tenor of quality as Eduardo does not have an aria. In her brief aria the Russian-trained Maria Gortsevskaya as Clarina makes little of her brief aria (CH.13), but her acted contribution to the proceedings is better. The orchestra under the idiomatic direction of Umberto Benedetti Michelangeli plays with verve. The sound is adequate and the video direction is fine. Any intrusions of applause are measured, warm and commendably brief. There is some stage noise. As I noted in my review of the CD of this series of performances, Dynamic have a habit of recording performances for later issue on DVD. However, whilst Dynamic is shown as copyright owners this DVD is among the first to be issued by Naxos in the medium. This seems to me to be wholly appropriate as Naxos is second to none in their promotion of audio recordings of Rossini’s operas, both studio and also of live performances at the Bad Wildbad Festival. If a developing relationship between Naxos and Dynamic brings worthwhile DVD performances by other composers from the various Italian Opera Festivals it will be welcome. This is particularly so in respect of the booklet presentation. This follows the Naxos tradition of including detailed artist profiles, regrettably so often lacking elsewhere, not least with Dynamic CDs and DVDs.

Price: $42.98

In stock
ships in 3 to 5 days