I Capuleti e i Montecchi - Covent Garden

(Anna Netrebko e Elina Garanca)

Netrebko e Garanca pertencem à faixa mais pop da lírica contemporânea, lado a lado com Villazón, Schrott e quejandos.

Como não sou snob, tolero o mainstream, lírico ou outro.

Diga-se o que se disser, a soprano russa, bem como a mezzo lituana, são excelsas cantoras e intérpretes exímias. Netrebko, sobretudo, conta já com registos de excepção (La Traviata e Manon, entre muitos outros), não tendo rival à altura no domínio lirico spinto (Dessay é um bocadinho menos esbelta… Ciofi mais banal, Swenson mais entradota, and so on!).

Anna Netrebko e Elina Garanca actuam em conjunto há um bom par de anos, tendo retomado a estreita colaboração na temporada passado, em Viena, em I Capuleti e i Montecchi (Bellini), que a DG se prontificou a eternizar. Entrementes, o Royal Opera House – Covent Garden retoma uma antiga encenação da mesma ópera, sendo o elenco da dita encabeçado pela tórrida russa e esbelta lituana.

Uma vez mais, Londres marca pontos em território lírico – depois do fabuloso O Navio Fantasma e do magnífico Doctor Atomic -, merecendo entusiásticas críticas, que unanimemente sublinham a excelência das prestações da dupla eslava.

«(...) the Royal Opera offers us another sensational pairing of a rather different musical and dramatic kind. Elina Garanca and Anna Netrebko sing Romeo and Juliet in Bellini's version of the story, and they prove to be as wonderful live as they are on their just-released Deutsche Grammophon recording of the work.

Perhaps they wouldn't score straight tens with those who insist on the purest bel canto style: neither of them being native Italian (Garanca is Latvian, Netrebko Russian), their articulation and colouring of the text is imprecise. Netrebko lacks a firm trill, and Garanca's lowest register is relatively weak. But what fabulously healthy voices they both have, and how thrillingly they wield them, through melancholy aria, dramatic declamation and warmly blended duet.

Garanca's Romeo, looking good in principal-boy wig and tights, is a creature of swaggering bravado, vibrant in tone and confident in style. The audience rightly went wild for her. Netrebko presents a Juliet of naivete and ardour, her fearless spirit reflected in red-blooded singing irradiated by some ethereally floated top notes. You don't look to Netrebko for subtleties of interpretation –­ she's not a sensitive musician – but there's a passion and commitment in her artistry which charges her with electric star quality.»

«Bellini's un-Shakespearean take on Romeo and Juliet essentially forms a vehicle for Anna Netrebko as Giulietta, and while it is difficult to imagine the role better acted or sung, this doesn't give us Netrebko at her best.

The problem is Bellini's, not hers. For all his interest in the female psyche, this is ultimately a work about men. Romeo, rather than Giulietta, carries the dramatic and musical weight. The tragic irony lies not only in the fact that the lovers must fall victim to factionalism, but that Romeo rejects conciliation with his political enemy and Giulietta's fiance, Tebaldo, despite mutual acknowledgement that they are united by desire for the same woman.

Giulietta, in comparison, is viewed almost simplistically: she is conflicted and put upon - and that's about it. Netrebko is at her most devastating in roles like Violetta and Susanna, in which moral probing is allied with emotional complexity. Here, she has little to do except be continuously desperate, though she does it wonderfully - fluttering round the stage like some wounded bird, and filling the air with cries of longing and despair.

Her Romeo is mezzo-of-the-moment Elina Garanc...#711;a, whose voice twines rapturously round Netrebko's, and is all tight-lipped contempt when dealing with Dario Schmunck's Tebaldo. Mark Elder's conducting is persuasive, though Pizzi's Renaissance staging, a stately affair that looked old when it was new, does neither the work nor the performers any favours.»

«Me, I’m backing the combustible pairing of Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca whose charismatic presence, vocal and physical, lends a whole new ring to the phrase “star-crossed”. Never mind the Shakespeare, feel the vocal style. There’s a stylist in the pit, too – Mark Elder – and for all his somewhat thankless task of driving Bellini’s bouncy martial toe-tappers and keeping tabs on the plethora of off-stage band effects (nothing like over-killing a novelty), he is a vital part here of moulding those accompanied recitatives and sensitively shadowing the subtle rubatos of the vocal embellishments. He and the orchestra did a great job and I should single out, as did Bellini, the horn, cello, and clarinet obbligati which so evocatively enhance the mood of their respective interludes.

But the real drama, such as it is, emerges between the vocal chords of our two stars. Netrebko pretty much had Giulietta, the reluctant bride, sewn up here. There were a couple of notes that didn’t quite land, odd phrases that didn’t quite sustain, but for the most part she was riveting. Her glorious entrance aria “Oh! Quante volte” was blessed with a limpid legato and an ability to meld her lovelorn sighs into the portamento. No one should underestimate the technique (and courage) required to sustain the musical line to meaningful effect – there really is nowhere to hide; and those transfixing attacks above the stave where the sound instantly evaporates to a mere thread of sound – they are an essential part of the bel canto soprano’s armoury and Netrebko makes real capital of them.

Equally impressive was Elina Garanca’s Romeo. Her fabulous instrument is evenly and amply produced throughout the range and there isn’t a note of it that Bellini doesn’t deploy to thrilling effect. But, of course, it is in the union of these well-matched voices where the opera really comes into its own – those moments where Bellini silences his orchestra and the vocal caresses are relished a capella. How startling is that unison passage at the end of act one – a great vocal allegory for so near and yet so far.»

Os mais desafortunados e pobresinhos ma non troppo poderão regozijar-se com a prestação da dupla de sonho, captada em Viena, como disse, na temporada 2007 – 2008.

Eis a face da dita cuja:

(DG 477 8031)

Os mencionados "desafortunados e pobresinhos ma non troppo" – categorias que apenas conheço de ouvir falar – terão de aguardar escassos dias! A saída deste desejável I Capuleti e i Montecchi está prevista para muito breve, cá no burgo.