Alfredo Catalini La Wally opera to libretto by Luigi Illica. Directed 2021 by Barbora Horáková Joly at the Theater an der Wien. Stars Izabela Matula (Wally), Leonardo Capalbo (Giuseppe Hagenbach), Jacques Imbrailo (Vincenzo Gellner), Ilona Revolskaya (Walter), Alastair Miles (Stromminger), Zoltán Nagy (Il Pedone), and Sofia Vinnik (Afra). Andrés Orozco-Estrada conducts the Wiener Symphoniker and the Arnold Schoenberg Chor (Chorus Master Erwin Ortner). Set and costume design by Eva-Maria Van Acker; video design by Tabea Rothfuchs; lighting design by Michael Bauer; dramatic advisor was Bettina Auer. Directed for TV by Tiziano Mancini. Sung in Italian. Released 2022, disc has 5.1 Dolby Digital sound. Grade: NA
In December 2022, there is one old DVD of La Wally. This new La Wally is the only Blu-ray. Steven Jude Tiejen, writing in the January 2023 Opera News, loved our new La Wally. He says Barbora Horáková Joly’s show proves La Wally should be in the standard repertory along with Puccini. Tiejen lauds both the singers and the conductor for a “definitive, high-octane performance of this score.” Hugo Shirley reviewed this in the November Gramophone (page 80). He didn’t like the ugly sets, but he winds up calling this “a powerful account of a fine verismo work.” You are probably familiar with the aria “Ebben? Ne andrò lontana” from La Wally. Maybe it’s time now to get familiar with the whole opera.
Here’s a trailer from C Major:
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