Edinburgh festival

Edinburgh: opera

Adelaide di Borgogna

Usher Hall, Edinburgh
4 out of 5 4

First performed in 1817, Rossini's Adelaide di Borgogna is a questionable effort. A product of the confusion of post-Napoleonic Europe, its subject is monarchical legitimacy and individual fitness for government. The opera deals with the eponymous medieval Italian queen, who requested military assistance from the German emperor Ottone when the brutish Berengario usurped her throne. Berengario, in his turn, was determined to legitimise his dynasty by forcibly marrying Adelaide to his son Adelberto.

The issues are not always clear-cut: the Italians want Berengario out of the way; Ottone's intervention has tragic consequences for Adelberto, who genuinely loves Adelaide and has gradually come to question his father's ideals. Even so, the opera supports the idea that imperial absorption is preferable to mishandled home rule, and is consequently suspect.

The score, though, isn't as bad as many of its critics have claimed. There are some fabulous duets for Adelaide and Ottone, which deploy vocal extravagance and twining coloratura to equate power with sexiness. Guilt-ridden, father-fixated Adelberto is one of the most complex figures in the entire Rossinian canon. The only major musico-dramatic musical flaw is an over-protracted denouement, the product of Rossini's need to give each of his central characters a big, show-stopping aria in turn.

"Show-stopping" is also the only way to describe the performance, fierily conducted by Giuliano Carella, and dominated by Majella Cullagh's Adelaide and Jennifer Larmore's Ottone, both of them flinging out their music with a combination of thrilling abandon, perfect control and dramatic exactitude. Bruce Ford was a compelling Adelberto, even though his voice is now way past its best. There were also a couple of mightily impressive performances from Mirco Palazzi as Berengario and Rebecca Bottone as his put-upon wife Eurice: both comparative newcomers with the potential to develop into great bel canto singers.

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