Those who like lavatorial humour will thoroughly enjoy Il Turco In Italia but not enough true Gioachino Rossini appears in this show
Il Turco In Italia
Glyndebourne, East Sussex Until June 20
This new production of The Turk In Italy has divided opinion: some serious reviewers have given it five stars, another only two.
One thing is certain. This opera benefits from sympathetic direction, as it got from the French duo Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser at Covent Garden in 2005.
The question here is whether the French director, Mariame Clément, offers Rossini a supportive arm, or shoulders his creation off the stage with a lot of crude nonsense about sausages and salami.
Rossini doesn’t need a salami shop, but sadly the Russian baritone Rodion Pogossov (above) probably does. Left to his own devices, he wouldn’t make much of Rossini’s wit
For some reason, Geronio, a cuckolded old man – a part that provides a feast of opportunity for a talented buffo (comic) baritone – is here turned into the proprietor of a salami shop.
Rossini doesn’t need this stuff, but sadly the Russian baritone Rodion Pogossov probably does. Left to his own devices, he wouldn’t make much of Rossini’s wit. Suggestively playing with salami is a different thing altogether, at least to lovers of coarse-grained humour.
Only one member of the cast is Italian. The others have decent enough voices, but that isn’t enough. And what they lack is proper training in buffo techniques, not much of which seems to have been imbued in them during the rehearsal by the conductor Sesto Quatrini.
He is neat, but that’s no compensation for the exuberant propulsion of a top Rossini specialist.
Turco is actually a fine piece, carefully assembled, with memorable ensembles and one of the finest quintets even Rossini ever wrote.
But much of this goes for little because of inexperienced singing and clumsy direction, so that the ensembles become a bit of a mess, with people wandering around reading books.
Why? Because the director’s conceit here is that being a writer, Prosdocimo (the best performance on the night from the Italian Alessio Arduini) suffered from writer’s block, and the whole plot is just his attempt to create a best-selling book.
Those who like lavatorial humour will thoroughly enjoy this show. Rossini, however, is about more than that. And not enough true Rossini appears in this show.