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The other ruler of the stage was without doubt Antoniozzi
as the Poeta Prosdocimo. The stage directions by Pier Luigi Pizzi put the
Poeta at the center of the dramatic actions, as a sort of puppetmaster
who rules all the other characters. Antoniozzi clearly relished on
this role, jumping, running around, laughing, directing
the ensembles with a contagious humoristic energy but without ever allowing
all this frenetic activity to interfere with his singing, always perfect
and clearly new heir of the great italian tradition of "basso buffo".
The charisma of Devia and Antoniozzi could have obscured
the other singers, but that did not happen. Michele Pertusi, more brilliant
than ever, brought about a beatifully sung Selim. Bruno Pratico' vocally
perfect as Geronio, was an able humoristic counterpart to Antoniozzi (hilarious
the little skit in neapolitan dialect by those two that interrupts the
opera for a minute). Even Tiziana Carraro as Zaida brought a valuable contribute
to the success of the evening. The only painful exception, the british
tenor Simon Edwards with his intonation problems and his rude approach
to the small coloratura tidbits in the role of Narciso.
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But beyond the contribution of the single singers, what
really was more impressive was the team spirit of the whole company. It
looked as if the singers on stage were having more fun than the audience.
Given that it was the last evening and that Christmas was 3 days away,
jokes and improvisations were common. From the moment Selim interpolated
"Maramao perche' sei morto" (popular italian children' song) in the final
ensemble it was all laughing. Suddendly Christmas decoration appeared everywhere,
Selim's turbant became a Santa's hat and Fiorilla found a comet star on
her head :) At the end my best memory of this Turco will be this goliardic
spirit and the image of six singers having fun with each other.
A few words on the production. Pizzi set up a black empty
stage with a deep track in the middle where some extras dressed in black
would push rolling carts which introduced the various singers and some
stage props. The idea eventually worked. The costumes were colorful and
almost clownesque. The few stage props were beatifully detailed (I recall
envying the sofa in Geronio's house). It's too bad that for too long period
of times the stage was however left empty. But I think Pizzi did his best
job with the staging directions to the singers. I give him some of the
credit for the beatiful characterization Devia got out of Fiorilla.
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