Bel canto and my favourite mezzo !

Fiorenza Cedolins lost in the maze..
And in the red light, all in white,
departing from life in beauty and honour.
A fantastic rendition of the role!




A memorable afternoon at the opera . La Fenice, May the 3rd, last performance which was amazing, so musical and well sung by the entire cast, for me above all by a dedicated mezzo who knows how to handle that role, who has the colours of authority and doubt, passion and hatred,in this awful feminine role, and who sings like a cello. I sat there in absolute paradise and luckily my stick worked, for a change! Sonia Ganassi is a wonderful singer and musician. Once I got over the strange setting which changed colours with lightings and heights with action, in fact it sort of made it simpler for the tragic grip and the beauties of the music.
When it got all green and flat as a maze I had a little laugh, in case the audience did not get it was the forest act.. and the red lighting was quite childish too but still not too annoying!
The way it parted to include poor Mary's prison was clever. Modern ( I found it very similar in its death meaning and shapes to the Colonnade Memorial in Berlin) and efficient, not taking the attention away from music and singing, in its bareness. I have ended on Sonia's Curtain calls because I am fond of her voice and acting , and I hope she will be a happy mother soon!
What I enjoyed a lot is the orchestra, the flutits, the delicate way the conductor went along with the singers, something really magic about it, in this precious house which is built for music and singing! I know now what the Fenice sounds like, I will not forget these moments of sheer beauties. And the flutist, when he was not playing, was singing the role, I saw his lips moving as he followed the conductor constantly...

Maria Stuarda
tragedia lirica in tre atti
libretto di Giuseppe Bardari
dalla tragedia Maria Stuart di Friedrich Schiller
musica di Gaetano Donizetti
prima rappresentazione assoluta: Milano, Teatro alla Scala, 30 dicembre 1835

personaggi e interpreti
Elisabetta Sonia Ganassi (24, 28, 30/4, 3/5)
Maria Pia Piscitelli (26, 29/4, 2/5)
Maria Stuarda Fiorenza Cedolins (24, 28, 30/4, 3/5)
Maria Costanza Nocentini (26, 29/4, 2/5)
Roberto, conte di Leicester José Bros (24, 28, 30/4, 3/5)
Dario Schmunck (26, 29/4, 2/5)
Giorgio Talbot Mirco Palazzi (24, 28, 30/4, 3/5)
Federico Sacchi (26, 29/4, 2/5)
Lord Guglielmo Cecil Marco Caria (24, 28, 30/4, 3/5)
Simone Piazzola (26, 29/4, 2/5)
Anna Kennedy Pervin Chakar

maestro concertatore e direttore
Fabrizio Maria Carminati

regia, scene, costumi e luci
Denis Krief

Orchestra e Coro del Teatro La Fenice
maestro del Coro Claudio Marino Moretti