Donizetti Pietro il grande opera to libretto by Gherardo Bevilacqua Aldabrandini. Performed 2019 at the Festival Donizetti Opera in Bergamo. Direction and set design by Marco Paciotti and Lorenzo Pasquali (with assistant Adriana Laespada) for Ondadurto Teatro. Stars Roberto De Candia (Pietro il Grande), Loriana Castellano (Caterina), Paola Gardina (Madama Fritz), Nina Solodovnikova (Annetta Mazepa), Francisco Brito (Carlo Scavronski), Marco Filippo Romano (Ser Cuccupis), Tommaso Barea (Firman-Trombest), Marcello Nardis (Hondedisky), and Stefano Gentill (Notario). Rinaldo Alessandrini conducts the Orchestra Gli Originali and the Coro Donizetti Opera (Chorus Master Fabio Tartari). Costumes by K.B. Project; lighting design by Marco Alba. Directed for TV by Matteo Ricchetti; sound recording by Rino Trasi, Giuseppe Famularo, and Vera Zanotti; sound editing and post production by Rino Trasi. Sung in Italian. Released 2019, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA
In what may have been the first case of big-time industrial espionage, Peter the Great in 1697 (at age 25) used a stage name to travel to many countries in Western Europe (the “Grand Embassy”) to learn more about the economies and technical prowess of the West. He even worked for 4 months as a sort of super-apprentice in a shipyard learning about the construction of large vessels. Donizetti was inspired by the Grand Embassy to write two comic operas: Pietro il grande in 1819 and Il borgomastro di Saardam in 1827. Both these “Peter” operas are among the most obscure of Donizetti’s 70 operas. But we now have Blu-rays of both of them from Dynamic.
Look now at the video trailer below and consider what you think of the designs used in this production. Here’s what Patrick Dillon has to say (in the June 2021 Opera News at page 62) about the Ondadurto Teatro mise-en-scène: “Throughout, the show resembles a hyperactively hallucinogenic plummet into the oeuvre of Kazimir Malevich and his fellow early-twentieth-century suprematists, with kaleidoscopic light-show effects gratuitously thrown in.” Dillon goes on to recommend the Il borgomastro di Saardam title over Pietro il grande as a better composition from the more mature Donizetti. Gramophone took a different view giving this Pietro il grande its “Blu-ray of the Month” designation in the April 2021 magazine. So if the trailer below from Dynamic appeals to you, this is probably a good bet:
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