Respighi La bella dormente nel bosco (The Sleeping Beauty) opera to a libretto by Gian Bistolfi after the fairy tale by Charles Perrault. Directed 2017 by Leo Muscato at the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari. Stars Veta Pilipenko (La Regina/The Queen, La Vecchietta/The Old Lady, La Rana/The Frog); Angela Nisi (La Principessa/The Princess); Antonio Gandía (Il Principe Aprile/Prince April); Vincenzo Taormina (Il Re/The King, L’Ambasciatore/The Ambassador); Shoushik Barsoumian (La Fata Azzurra/The Blue Fairy); Lara Rotili (La Fata Verde/The Green Fairy, Il Gatto/The Cat, La Duchessa/The Duchess, Il Cuculo/The Cuckoo); Claudia Urru (Il Fuso/The Spindle, L’Usignolo/The Nightingale); Enrico Zara (Mister Dollar, Il Buffone/The Jester); Nicola Ebau (Un Boscaiuolo/A Lumberjack), and Nicola Ebau, Francesco Leone, Marco Puggioni, and Enrico Zara (I quattro Medici/The Four Doctors). Donato Renzetti conducts the Orchestra e Coro del Teatro Lirico di Cagliari (Chorus Master Gaetano Mastroiaco). Set design by Giada Abiendi; costume design by Vera Pierantoni Giua; lighting design by Alessanrdo Verazzi; video design by Fabio Massimo Iaquone and Luca Attilii; choreography by Luigia Frattaroli. Directed for TV by Tiziano Mancini. Sung in Italian. Shot in 4K, but (due to inexcusable carelessness by Naxos) package artwork provides no information about the disc video format: we assume the format is 1080i (2K) and not 4K. Released 2020, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio Sound. Grade: NA
Tim Ashley, writing in the July 2020 Gramophone at page 78, watched this fairy story and fell under its spell. This princess sleeps for 300 years—we start with baroque music and end with cakewalks and foxtrots. It’s an ensemble piece in which all the singers stars are backed by charming staging. Tim concludes that the result is some “much-needed magic at a time when we really could do with it most. I loved every second of it.” He went on later to name this as his favorite new recording among all formats for 2020.
Here’s a trailer from Naxos:
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