Rossini – Il Signor Bruschino
de Candia; Lepore; Aleida; Alegret; Orchestra Sinfonica G Rossini; Daniele Rustioni
Opus Arte OA 1109 D
For your next vacation, why not go to Pesaro on the sunny beaches of the Adriatic and if you are an opera lover, to the Rossini festival, a really fun destination judging by this video. Venice is not too far away either where the 20-year-old Rossini spent his first creative period writing operas for a near bankrupt theatre company that took a chance on the young fellow with no previous experience in writing anything, let alone opera. Amusingly, the elders of the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro did much the same thing in trusting this revival of Il Signor Bruschino to a young theatre group, Teatro Sotteraneo, with no previous experience in opera. The directors of the group are all in their 20s and full of ideas, energy and fun.
The scene for this one-act farsa giocosa is a modern-day theme park complete with Coke machines, popcorn, balloons and silly hats. Tourists of all ages wander in and out snapping photos and are invited to join in the even sillier plot where everyone lies except the poor put-upon protagonist, Bruschino. In fact they confuse him so much that he ends up wondering who he is and there is typical Rossinian mayhem, except for the wonderful music and the singing. The polished cast are mainly young people such as the soprano, Maria Aleida, spectacular in her high register, and her suitor, David Algret, a fine tenor. The principal baritones: Roberto de Candia (Signor Bruschino) and Carlo Lepore, the guardian of the bride, who arrives on a Segway, singing his cavatina riding on it up and down the stage, are a bit older and undoubtedly best in show. In charge of it all is the conductor Daniele Rustioni who is barely out of his teens, just like the composer.
