IN this splendid concert version of Giordano’s most widely performed opera, Sir Richard Armstrong, the orchestra and chorus of Scottish Opera and an outstanding team of soloists provided some of the best moments of operatic verismo I have heard in an age.
Andrea Chenier, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
CONRAD WILSON [The Herald, 16 Mar 05]
GIORDANO'S advice to aspiring Italian composers was simple. "Find a good song and then build an opera around it," he told them. In his own Andrea Chenier, he proved his point. It may not be nineteenth-century Italy's greatest opera, but it does contain a good song. Indeed, it contains more than that. Luigi Illica, Puccini's favourite librettist, wrote the words. The French Revolution provides an inspirational context. The doomed lovers give it romantic focus. There is a passionate, complex villain who repents too late. The secondary roles are clearly etched, and the chorus is allotted some stirring music.
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Fact and fiction in glorious collision
Live Classical By Frank Carroll [The Herald, 20 Mar 05]
IN this splendid concert version of Giordano's most widely performed opera, Sir Richard Armstrong, the orchestra and chorus of Scottish Opera and an outstanding team of soloists provided some of the best moments of operatic verismo I have heard in an age.
A concert performance of a late 19th century grand opera may seem a bit of a contradiction in terms, but the torrid intensity of Giordano's score was played and sung with such commitment that as the drama developed, sets, lighting and costumes in the end were hardly missed, while the music itself was heard in perhaps a more concentrated, closely focused form. It is quite remarkable that the members of the chorus (who are soon to lose their jobs), can sing at all, let alone muster so much enthusiasm for their work.