Norma's Preview at the Teatro Real, Madrid: Youth meets Italian Romanticism and the old way of doing opera.

Norma is one of the heights of bel canto style, or romantic Italian opera. And one of the heights of operatic history. Indeed, it's called the "Bel Canto Cathedral". The story of a tragic love triangle demanding three accomplished singers, three authentic divos, able to cope with the extreme difficulty of the score. Maybe this titanic score has been the reason of Norma's absence in the new Teatro Real until 2010,with two performances in concert. But the actual comeback came with in 2016 with a production from the Valencia Opera, with three major casts, featuring stars like Gregory Kunde or Mariella Devia, who sang just in one and glorious performance. Five years later, the opera house premieres a new production of its own.

To introduce a younger audience, the theatre released free tickets for people under 35, to attend the preview on February 28. As a result, the theatre was full of newcomers, usual young audiences and young members of the theatre friendship. This review will speak about this preview, so results are expected to improve.

This new staging is directed by Justin Way, production director of the Teatro Real. This new production will delight the lovers of old, classic productions, but it is not precisely a faitfhul reconstruction. Way has chosen to give a vision of theatre inside the theatre, setting the action in Bellini's time, during the Austrian occupation of Italy. In an old, ruinous theatre, an opera company is rehearsing Norma. Pollione is an Austrian officer, who has a clandestine affair with Norma, the primadonna of the company, and with Adalgisa, a young singer. Italian people during the Risorgimento era shares with the old Gallic peoples the sense of defense against the enemy. In the first scene, a beautiful set of the forest, the moonlight and chorus dressed like in the ancient Gaul makes me wonder if it was performed that way in this same stage in the 1860s, when Giulia Grisi herself sang Norma in Madrid. In the second scene, after seeing the technical staff to change the set, the action moves to Norma's house, or dressing room.  

In Act 2, action on and outside stage seems to mix and confuse, and the stage is omnipresent, with limelights. The first appearance of Oroveso in this act is done in 19th street clothing, like they were rehearsing or arriving to the theatre. After Norma hits the gong, the choir sings Guerra, Guerra while holding a big banner with the colours of the Italian flag and the words "Unione, Forza e Libertà". In thos days, opera used to serve to send political messages too. The last scene resumes the classic forest set with the trees and classic dressing, but at the end, the set raises to show a street burning, a symbol of the war, and to that destruction Norma and Pollione seem to go, instead to their death pyre.

Marco Armiliato replaced Maurizio Benini in the orchestra pit. Armiliato's conducting seemed in the first act going a bit fast and strong-volumed, even lost. But from the second act onwards, the orchestra gave a better performance, with a beautiful rendition of the Act 2 prelude and the strings in the Finale. The chorus (which wore masks) reserved itself for the second act, with magnificent performances and a breathtaking pronounciation of the line "Squilla il bronzo del dio".

Norma is a primadonna role. Great singers in the past, operatic legends like Maria Callas, Montserrat Caballé or Joan Sutherland have given their own version of the tormented priestess, divided between her duty and her love to Pollione and her children. She had to convey vocally, and to perform as actress the complex profile of the role, with its extremely difficult score. In this occasion, the title role is sung by Yolanda Auyanet. After her successful Imogene in Il Pirata in 2019, second cast to Sonya Yoncheva, she returns leading the first cast. Auyanet has been doing a successful career, singing great renditions of Vitellia or Liù. Maybe because it is a rehearsal, she reserved her forces for the second act. In the Casta Diva she seemed to sing a bit shy. Her high notes were remarkable in the O Rimembranza. It was during the second act when she finally show her lyricism, a beautiful, shining high-register, and good acting, really moving in the scene in which she is about to kill her children. The Mira, o Norma was at a great level, and her low notes were amazing in the terrible line "Guerra, strage, sterminio". In the Finale, she her singing was dramatic, elegiac, even tender, again with a great high tone in Deh, non volerli vittime.

Michael Spyres as Pollione started also reserved, lacking some volume in his entrance with Meco all'altar di Venere, but impoved as the performance went by, specially from Va, crudele al dio spietato. His voice has a nice tenor high-register, but as baritenor his low zone is astonishing, sometimes having the sensation to listen to a true baritone in his scene with Norma and Adalgisa. 

The real surprise of the night was the Adalgisa sung by Clementine Margaine. The French mezzo-soprano astonished the audience with her powerful, big voice, heard throughout the hall and surpassing the orchestra and her fellow singers. Her singing has a dark, seductive, fascinating contralto-like tone, beautifully sounding. She gave a fantastic rendition of Sgombra è la sacra selva, and moving in Mira, o Norma, sung exquisitely. At the end, she got a big ovation from the audience.

Roberto Tagliavini sang Oroveso. As his fellow singers on stage, he started singing reservedly in his entrance in Ite sul colle, but in Act 2 he gave a well sung, with his usual delightful lyric bass voice with nice low notes in his aria  Ah del Tebro. In the Finale he was excellent too.

Fabián Lara has a good voice for Flavio, surpassing Spyres' one in volume.  Berna Perles was a correct Clotilde, but her dark tone was more remarkable in Act 2.

The presence of a majority of young people in the audience created a visible athmosphere of enthusiasm, resulting in an outstanding ovation for the cast. Whistling and woo-hoos from pop concerts replaced the more usual, traditional bravoes. Times are changing? Who knows? Maybe these youngsters could become operagoers in some years, but what remained clear was their eagerness to enjoy and praise opera, what is hopeful for the future. Let's hope the actual performances, now with experienced old conoisseurs, welcome the show with the same passion.

My reviews are not professional and express only my opinions. As a non English native speaker I apologise for any mistake.

Most of the photographs are from the internet and belong to its authors, to whom belongs any copyright. My use of them is only cultural. If someone is uncomfortable with their use, just notify it to me. Any reproduction of my text requires my permission.