Argentina - Teatro Colon Season
Buenos Aires
Friday 22nd April 2020
by: Carlos Ernesto Ure
After almost two years of virtual inactivity, the TEATRO COLÓN opened its new season with an inconsequential (non transcendent) edition of "La Bohème" (March 15). Let us point out to begin that the French maestro Alain Guingal conducted the Stable Orchestra in a neat way, but with difficulties in the concertation of the wonderful second act and a certain weakness in the marking of the accents. In another aspect, elaborated from very appropriate sets, realistic, already known, belonging to Enrique Bordolini, the "régie" of Stefano Trespidi, while still being handled within the framework of a correct routine, lacked grace, emotion, in a word: swing.
In the vocal picture, the Albanian tenor Saimir Pirgu, without prejudice to his important flow and homogeneous placement, exhibited exaggeratedly stentorian passages and a linear phrasing, stripped of nuances, while the Uruguayan baritone Alfonso Mugica showed an uneven singing, of little interest. On the other hand, the young soprano Tarantina Giuliana Gianfaldoni (Musetta) disappointed due to her lack of scenic grace and voice at times if you want innocuous, while her colleague from Mendoza Verónica Cangemi (Mimì) showed that at this point in her career she is not in position to assume roles of this type as a result of her emission irregularities.
The choir of the house (Miguel Martínez) and the children's choir (César Bustamente) fulfilled instead a very lucid task. Things were somewhat better with the second cast: the Mexican Galeano Salas (Rodolfo) credited beautiful sound, accompanied by the Romanian Alexandra Grigoras.
The great expectation that floats in the Argentine musical environment revolves around this question: Anna Netrebko will come in mid-November to sing "Tosca"? The rest of the "stagione" is completed with "The consul", "Nabucco", "Elisir d'amore", "Bluebeard castle" and "Les pecheurs de perles". At the moment María Victoria Alcaraz was replaced as "general intendant" by Jorge Telerman, both figures of our cultural world, extranges to opera movement.
Carlos Ernesto Ure