Opera Reviews
29 March 2024
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A compelling and enjoyable performance of a Cherubini rarity



by Silvia Luraghi
Cherubini: Alì Babà e i quaranta ladroni
Teatro alla Scala, Milan
1 September 2018
Alexander Roslavets (Ali Baba)

After the summer break, La Scala re-opened with a production by the Academy, featuring a full cast of promising young singers and young musicians in a new production directed by Liliana Cavani. For this production, the choice fell on a rarity: Luigi Cherubini’s virtually unknown opera Alì Babà and the Forty Thieves (original title: Ali Baba, ou les quarante voleurs, performed in Italian as Alì Babà e i quaranta ladroni).

The opera, which premiered in Paris in 1833 had a round of performances in Germany shortly thereafter, and disappeared from the stages. The only notable revival took place at La Scala in 1963. It is hard to explain the reasons for such a meager performance history: Cherubini’s title met very harsh critics, starting with Berlioz, who, after the premiere, wrote that this was one of Cherubini’s worst scores, and continued up to the 1963 revival. On that occasion, in spite of the star studded cast that featured no less than Alfredo Kraus and Teresa Stich-Randall, Milanese critics remained cold, and even a 1990 review of the ensuing recording on Gramophone dubs the music as “arous[ing] minimal interest”.

In spite of such bad reviews, the Academy artists bravely tackled the score, and, under the lead of the stage director, came up with a compelling and enjoyable performance. True, the music is not especially interesting, and one can certainly live without this opera, yet the theatrical structure of this work is such that it can allow for a couple of hours of amusement.

The libretto by Eugène Scribe and Mélesville elaborates on the well-known Arabian Nights tale. In this variant, Alì Babà does not directly learn about the thieves den: he is a merchant who illegally smuggles in coffee, and promises his daughter Delia in marriage to the head of the tax department Aboul-Hassan, hoping that he will turn a blind eye on his dealings. However Delia is in love with Nadir, but he is too poor to appeal to her greedy father. When Nadir overhears the thieves opening their den by the famous formula “Open Sesame!” he finally gets hold of some treasure.

From here on, the action develops with Nadir and Aboul-Hassan contending Delia’s hand, Alì Babà trying to get the most from the hidden treasure, and ending up in great danger when he is discovered by Our-Kan, the chief of the thieves’ gang who kidnap him. The thieves then try to break into his house hidden in the coffee sacks, but Aboul-Hassan, seeking revenge for the broken oath, sets them on fire and involuntarily rescues Alì Babà.

Although the finale is somewhat hastened, and the ballets, that Cherubini added in compliance with the grand opéra tenets, have no function in the action, the libretto can serve as basis for a compelling production.

Stage director Liliana Cavani with the aid of set designer Leila Fteita and costume designer Irene Monti basically followed the plot, after sketching a frame to the story: during the overture, the curtain briefly opens on the reading room of a library, where a young man reading the story of Alì Babà flirts with a girl sitting a few desks away. When the prologue starts the same young man, who turns out to be Nadir, witnesses the opening of a high wall that hides the thieves den. The action then moves to a Middle-Eastern setting, where the fabulous atmosphere is made realistic by the mundane concerns of Alì Babà about evading taxes.

All the singers sang and acted with commitment, supported by cheers and applause from the loggione which this time hosted several of their fellows students of the Academy. At opening night, the cast featured tenor Riccardo Della Sciucca as Nadir, bass Alexander Roslavets as Alì Babà, soprano Francesca Manzo as his daughter Delia, baritone Eugenio Di Lieto as Aboul-Hassan and soprano Alice Quintavalla as Delia’s cunning servant Morgiane. The orchestra, also featuring young musicians from the Academy, was conducted by Paolo Carignani, while the dancers from the dance Academy were instructed by choreographer Emanuela Tagliavia.

In the end, the choice of this work proved not to be all that bad, except that the Italian rhythmical translation of the French libretto is really ugly: Cherubini’s opera would deserve to be given a chance, maybe as a festival feature, sung in the original language.

Text © Silvia Luraghi
Photo © Teatro alla Scala
 
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