The Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino has a new auditorium. It is called Sala Zubin Mehta, and Zubin Mehta, 85 years old and an indomitable energy, had the task of inaugurating it, directing the Orchestra and the Choir of the Maggio in three events one after the other. Symphonic-choral the first two, with programs remodeled at the last: Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, expressly requested by President Mattarella (present on the opening night), in place of Luca Francesconi’s Divine Comedy, a specially commissioned piece which then disappeared into thin air; Puccini’s Messa di Gloria and, in the second concert, Bruckner’s monumental Te Deum.
Acoustics
Pages that reveal how much there is still a bit to work on the acoustics of the new Sala, magnified in words, especially in seeking the right balance between the sound sources: the rendering is all too generous, in Puccini the Chorus tends to overwhelm the ‘orchestra, if there is a fortissimo any sonic identity is lost. Moreover, the sounds requested by Mehta are abundant, who places Puccini’s youthful Mass in a theatrical dimension, almost like an opera, and which poignantly accompanies the good singing soloists, the tenor Benjamin Bernheim and the baritone Mattia Olivieri.
Te Deum Bruckner
Great and solemn, as it must be, resounds Bruckner’s Te Deum, with a beautiful response from the choir and valid proof of the quartet of soloists (in addition to Bernheim, Elisabet Strid, Marie Claude Chappuis and Franz-Josef Selig). But it is Beethoven’s seventh that prevails: firm and compact, it knows no hesitation, and has a final charged with tension. For the third opening night, the opera, Beethoven’s Fidelio arrives: but since the orchestra pit is not yet ready, the professors of the Maggio play on the proscenium, and the director Matthias Hartmann creates a semi-show made of few means and curated in acting. The singers act like this on the raised mystical gulf, and they are formidable: Lise Devidsen, very applauded, is an identified Leonore with a powerful river voice, Tomas Konieczy renders Pizzarro with ferocious expressiveness, Franz Josef Selig gives Rocco a warm humanity, Klaus Florian Vogt is a Florestan with a bright timbre; then there are the pleasant Marzelline by Francesca Aspromonte and the casual Jaquino by Luca Bernard.
Mehta gives Fidelio a robust symphonic fullness. Too bad for the final slip: Minister Fernando (the good Birger Radde) enters the scene as a nice politician, who dispenses handshakes and is photographed with the dying prisoners, surrounded by a crowd in bright and sequined clothes. But irony doesn’t suit Fidelio.
