Lavish and Effective

Marco Tutino's 'La Ciociara' comes to Italy
and impresses GIUSEPPE PENNISI

La Ciociara by Marco Tutino was premiered in San Francisco in Summer 2015. At the time, the title used was Two Women, the same title as Vittorio De Sica's Oscar-winning 1960 movie. On its own account, the movie was based on Alberto Moravia's successful 1959 novel. It is noteworthy that La Ciocaria / Two women is the first opera commissioned from an Italian composer by a large and prominent American opera house since Puccini's Il Trittico by the Metropolitan Opera House, premiered in 1920.
In San Francisco, Tutino's opera was reportedly a great success: the audience applauded for nearly fifteen minutes. However, the reviews were mixed. A balanced review by James Sohre was published in this magazine — 'Taking Flight', 6 July 2015. The production is the same, even though there are some cast changes, so this review is only intended as an addition to Sohre's 2015 article.

Anna Caterina Antonacci as Cesira and Lavinia Bini as Rosetta in Marco Tutino's 'La Ciociara'. Photo © 2017 Priamo Tolu

There are two preliminary questions. Why was the Italian premiere in Cagliari on 24 November 2017 — I was in the audience — and not in Turin, shown as a co-producer when the opera was staged in San Francisco? And why did many American reviewers consider La Ciociara to be a late verismo opera? See 'Autumn Trilogy', 23 November 2017.
The answer to the first question is trivial: in-fighting within Turin's opera house caused never-ending delays until the management sold the Teatro Regio co-production rights to Cagliari's Teatro Lirico. Turin embarked on a major internationalization program, but lost the opportunity to premiere in Italy the best Italian opera since the beginning of the twentieth century.

Anna Caterina Antonacci as Cesira, Aquiles Machado as Michele and Nicola Ebau as John Buckley in Marco Tutino's 'La Ciociara'. Photo © 2017 Priamo Tolu

The second question raises more complex issues. On the one hand, most Italian opera composers are devoted to experimental music, with a few performances in small theatres. Only a few — Marco Tutino and Giorgio Battistelli — work on traditional large-scale operas which can be appreciated by vast audiences.
La Ciociara has little to do with verismo, even though the vocal writing for the villain Giovanni — Sebastian Catana in the Cagliari production — has echoes of the role of Scarpia in Tosca and the final aria of Michele (Aquiles Machado), 'Come faranno i boschi', resembles 'E lucevan le stelle' and 'Ella mi creda' — two war horses for Puccini tenors.

From left to right: Lavinia Bini as Rosetta, Anna Caterina Antonacci as Cesira, Aquiles Machado as Michele and Sebastian Catana as Giovanni in Marco Tutino's 'La Ciociara'. Photo © 2017 Priamo Tolu. Click on the image for higher resolution

However, Tutino's work is a verismo blood and guts drama. Its basic theme is the horror of wars as they influence interpersonal relationships, and an accentuation of violence against women. In this two act six scene opera, four magnificent interludes sublimate the plot and take it to a philosophical level. The orchestra, conducted by Giuseppe Finzi in Cagliari, gave evidence of expertise, especially in merging the moments where the timbres prevail with those where the strings and brass have the dominant roles. The orchestra reminds us that we are dealing with universal and transcendental themes, not with one of World War II's violent episodes. The similarities are more with Zandonai, Previn, Janáček, Prokofiev's Semyon Kotko and recent American and British operas such as Dead Man Walking by Jake Heggie and The Exterminating Angel by Thomas Adès than with Puccini or Mascagni.
A few words on the two women who are the real protagonists. The part of Cesira was conceived for Anna Caterina Antonacci, and she is as perfect for the part in Cagliari as she was in San Francisco. Lavinia Bini as Rosetta is a sweet light soprano.