Opera Reviews
28 March 2024
Untitled Document

Flórez shines in this little heard Nicolai opera



by Silvia Luraghi
Nicolai: Il templario
Salzburg Festival
27 August 2016

When Clemens Hellsberg, the leader of the Wiener Philharmoniker, received an email from tenor Juan Diego Flórez, inquiring about the possibility of performing Otto Nicolai’s virtually unknown opera Il templario (The Crusader) he couldn’t believe his eyes. Hellsberg is a world expert on Nicolai, and considers the composer, who founded the Wiener Philharmoniker over 150 years ago, his tutelary deity. Out of the discussions between Hellsberg and Flórez came two concert performances of Il templario at this year's Salzburg Festival, one of this summer’s highlights.

Born in Eastern Prussia in 1810, Nicolai moved to Rome in his early twenties, and spent several years in Italy, where he enjoyed a remarkable success as opera composer, even rivaling with the young Verdi. In Italy, Nicolai became a friend of Bellini and Donizetti, and was soon acclaimed as a belcanto expert. Il templario, which premiered in Turin in 1840, was his most successful opera. With it, the composer travelled to Vienna the following year, where he remained until 1847 first as Kappelmeister, while the opera was being performed across Europe and even made it to New York.

The reason for the disappearance of this important opera by Nicolai, who is virtually only known to the general public for his later masterpiece, Die lustige Weiber von Windsor is that the score was destroyed during the World War II and lost until the German edition was found in Naples, and musicologist Michael Wittmann was able to reconstruct the score in 2006. The opera was then revived in Chemnitz in 2008. When one considers the vocal score, one immediately understands Flórez' interest in this opera, which is pure belcanto, with virtuoso parts for all principals. The orchestral score is also rich and perhaps denser and more complex than in Italian belcanto operas, thus reflecting Nicolai’s German background.

The libretto by Girolamo Maria Marini is based on Walter Scott’s medieval novel Ivanhoe, and focuses on the cultural clash between Christian and Jews in the Middle Ages. The French crusader Briano di Bois-Gilbert confronts Vilfredo di Ivanhoe who has offered protection to Briano’s Jewish slave Rebecca. Rebecca has saved Vilfredo’s life, and has fallen in love with him: for him, she is ready to leave her faith and convert. But Vilfredo is in love with Rovena, and in spite of some initial resistance from his father, he finally marries her, while Rebecca dies out of despair.

Flórez as Vilfredo was able to showcase his tremendous vocal range and his shining top notes. The other singers where no less impressive: mezzo Clémentine Margaine as Rebecca mastered the killing top range with ease, as did baritone Luca Salsi as Briano, in a role that does not ask for much psychological complexity, but requires a solid technique and a sizable voice, even in the top range. Soprano Kristiane Kaiser was a compelling, temperamental Rovena. All the singers gave an outstanding contribution that shows how this opera is worthy of being compared to better known belcanto masterpieces, and would deserve serious consideration as a possible feature of opera seasons by major opera companies.

Bolivian conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada provided an authoritative reading of the score, and the Wiener Philharmoniker played with great commitment. The chorus also plays an important role in this opera, and the Salzburger Bach Chor, instructed by chorus master Alois Glaßner, was up to the high standard set by the soloists and the orchestra.

The audience showed appreciation with a final ovation for all principals.

Text © Silvia Luraghi
Photo © Salzburger Festspiele / Marco Borrelli
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