The Lovers' Garden ballet. Choreography by Massimiliano Volpini. Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In 2016 Mauro Bigonzetti directs the Ballet Company of Teatro alla Scala at La Scala. Stars Nicoletta Manni (A Woman), Roberto Bolle (A Man), Marta Romagna (The Night’s Queen), Claudio Coviello (Don Giovanni), Christian Fagetti (Leporello), Mick Zeni (Il Conte di Almaviva), Emanuela Montanari (Contessa Rosina), Walter Madau (Figaro), Antonella Albano (Susanna), Valerio Lunadei (Guglielmo), Angelo Greco (Ferrando), Vittoria Valerio (Fiordiligi), and Marta Gerani (Dorabella). Features the following string quartet members and soloists of the Orchestra of Teatro alla Scala: Francesca Manara and Daniele Pascoletti (violin), Simonide Braconi (viola), Massimo Polidori (cello), Andrea Manco (flute), Fabian Thouand (oboe), and Fabrizio Meloni (basset clarinet). Set and costume design by Erika Carretta; lighting design by Marco Filibeck. Directed for TV by Lorena Sardi. Released 2018, disc has 5.0 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: B-
A crazy ballet mash up of Mozart opera characters to 90 minutes of rather formal and severe Mozart chamber music—can Volpini and Bigonzetti pull this off? Well, not really, but it’s still amusing to watch them try. In our first screenshot we see the chamber group in the pit is illuminated and sort-of incorporated into the ballet in its own mini-garden:
On stage there’s a party going on in a lavish garden with a hedge maze. After getting tipsy, who can resist a chance to get lost in a maze with a beautiful partner?
The couple above dressed in dark blue and black is The Man (Roberto Bolle) and The Woman (Nicoletta Manni). Below is a closer shot of The Man and Woman:
Everybody gets lost and separated in the maze. Below The Man encounters some strange inhabitants: Count Almaviva (Mick Zeni) dressed in wine, Figaro (Walter Madau) dressed in chartreuse, Countess Rosina (Emanuela Montanari) dressed in wine, and Susanna (Antonella Albano), dressed in chartreuse, all from The Marriage of Figaro. They are as surprised to see The Man as he them:
I know I’m right the identity of the guys above because I read it in the synopsis in the keepcase booklet. But when I first watched this cold, I couldn’t figure it this out on the fly even thought I’m an opera fan and know all the big Mozart works fairly well (all of which have at least 2 important male and 2 important female roles). Next below is a near shot of Suzanna and Figaro; this is the only sneeze I’ve seen in a ballet:
Next we have Rosina and Suzanna changing clothes and pulling tricks on the Count as they are want to do the opera:
The Woman is lost in a different part of the maze. She encounters two guys, Don Giovanni (Claudio Coviello) and Leporello (Christian Fagetti):
This time I was able to figure it out when Don Giovanni immediately starts hitting on The Woman:
With great immediate success. Did you know there really are people in the world who can pull off something like this?
The Man runs into a mob of jilted women and angry boyfriends looking for the Don:
In the next image below, I knew instantly that we had moved to Così fan tutte and the Albania mustaches. But I never could guess who is who:
Later we get into The Magic Flute and The Man takes up with The Night’s Queen (Marta Romagna):
The Night’s Queen has beautiful daughter named Pamina who looks just like The Woman:
In the next shot below, I first thought that Volpini had included Lohengrin as guest artist (by kind permission of Richard Wagner). But no, this is The Man as that wimp Tamino! If Bolle could sing, he would be the greatest Tamino (or Lohengrin) in history:
Tamino and Pamina get together:
They mug for the camera:
The Dream concludes as Don Giovanni is called for by the Commendatore (uncredited shadow):
Well, these screenshots will give you some idea about this title is about. The dancers, the choreographer, the set, and costumes are all pretty. But there’s really no story—no problem to be resolved—so there’s not much to hold your interest as the images flash by. The formal, classical, exquisitely formulated music is beautiful, of course, but it operates on a level of refinement that has little in common with the happy high-jinks of the characters. After a while, the evenness in tone and lack of dynamic contrast in the music starts to drag. Print critics mostly ignored this live in 2016 and the video when it came out in 2018. Our own Wonk Zack Farr sums this up well as “pleasant but forgettable.”
More about the music. Since the era of HDVD began in 2008, we have had very little chamber music to enjoy in the HT. So even Mozart music here has been cut up into fragments strung together to support a dance libretto, I listened to the sound tract from start to finish with no picture. Very pleasant. Old Hi-Fi gear heads or professional musicians might scorn this. But you might find the music here more valuable than the dancing. SQ is good.
Lorena Sardi’s video is tolerable, but not as sharp as on would expect in 2016. Also she tends to scan from side to side too much with noticeable imaging blurring. I wanted to grade this C+, but this is La Scala and Roberto Bolle! So I’ll call it a B-.
The clip below may help a bit—but the color is oddly washed out. The image in the HT is much better.
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