Alfredo Casella La donna serpente opera to libretto by Cesare Vico Lodovici. Directed 2016 by Arturo Cirillo at at the Teatro Regio Torino. Stars Piero Pretti (King Altidòr), Carmela Remigio (Miranda, a Fairy), Erika Grimaldi (Armilla), Francesca Sassu (Farzana / Coryphaea), Anna Maria Chiuri (Canzàde), Francesco Marsiglia (Alditrúf), Marco Filippo Romano (Albrigòr), Roberto de Candia (Pantúl), Fabrizio Paesano (Tartagíl), Fabrizio Beggi (Tògrul), Sebastian Catana (Demogorgòn), Kate Fruchterman (Smeraldina / A voice), Donato Di Gioia (Badúr / Coryphaeus), and Emilio Marcucci (Herald / Magician Geònca’s voice). Also features dancers from Fattoria Vittadini with choreography by Riccardo Olivier. Gianandrea Noseda conducts the Orchestra Teatro Regio Torino and the Chorus Teatro Regio Torino (Chorus Master Claudio Fenoglio). Set design by Dario Gessati; costume design by Gianluca Falaschi; lighting design by Giuseppe Calabrò. Directed for TV by Ariella Beddini. Sung in Italian. Released 2019, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio surround sound. Grade: NA
If Puccini’s Turandot from 1926 marks the end of the opera Age of Aria, then maybe the Casella’s La donna serpente from 1932 marks the beginning of modern opera. But according to Mike Ashman, writing in the Gramophone 2019 Awards Issue at page 116, subject recording at Teatro Regio Torino avoids atonality and makes for “compulsively relaxing viewing.” Fred Cohn is less enthusiastic in the March 2020 issue of Opera News at page 55, where he opens by writing, “As an opera, La donna serpente doesn’t succeed, but it’s intriguing.” Cohn writes that the music suffers from a “compositional attention-deficit disorder” with a production is “short on sense”’ but “long on splendor, thanks to . . . the multi-colored, phantasmagorical costumes, conjuring a world of fantasy.“
The title in Italian probably sounds more enticing than “The Snake Woman” sounds in English! Consider the official trailer below and see if you agree that the production is “long on splendor.” To us it looks cheap on costume budget:
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