Rossini Ricciardo e Zoraide opera to libretto by Francesco Berio di Salsa. Directed 2018 by Marshall Pynkosky at the Rossini Opera Festival. Stars Pretty Yende (Zoraide), Juan Diego Flórez (Ricciardo), Sergey Romanovsky (Agorante), Victoria Yaravaya (Zomira), Nicola Ulivieri (Ircano), Xabier Anduaga (Ernesto), Sofia Mchedlishvili (Fatima), Martiniana Antone (Elmira), and Ruzil Gatin (Zamorre). Giacomo Sagripanti conducts the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Della RAI and the Coro del Teatro Ventidio Basso (Chorus Master Giovanni Farina). Set design by Gerard Gauci; costume design by Michael Gianfrancesco; lighting design by Michelle Ramsay; choreography by Jeanette Lajeunesse Zingg. Directed for TV by Ariella Beddini. Sung in Italian. Released 2019, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA
Here we have another buried treasure now being unearthed and setting off a small torrent of debate. Richard Osborne, writing in the January 2020 Gramophone at pages 88-89 condemns this disc saying, “ Marshall Pynkosky’s staging of Ricciardo e Zoraide is a complete turkey, one of those old-fashioned amateurish productions in which the players are not so much directed as randomly moved or grouped in tableaux.” He goes on to state that the signing is good, “but sound and image are poorly married in a recording where singers often sound closer than they look.” But other critics have focused on the glorious bel canto singing. For example, Patrick Dillon says in the April 2020 Opera News, page 54, that the music here is “beautifully rendered” and the director and choreographer, “prettied up the opera with storybook sets and costumes, gamboling dancers and a general sunniness that assures us nothing need be taken too seriously.”
Our own Wonk Lewis sums up the furor as follows: “The singing was incredibly difficult and perfectly executed, but I rolled my eyes at so many occasions. The production (and the story) was . . . high schoolish.” This is the only authorized video ever made of Ricciardo e Zoraide. For one who is thirsty, it appears the glass half-full should be more than welcome.
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