Getting to Know Rossini

By Michael Walsh

Opera's great comic composer had a serious side

The popular impression of Rossini as a composer of comic operas has not changed much since Beethoven. "Give us more Barbers," the mighty German is supposed to have advised the young Italian, and succeeding generations have endorsed Beethoven's opinion. The creator of Barber of Seville, La Cenerentola and L 'Italiana in Algeri is usually considered a deft musical comic whose work sparkles with wit and high spirits.

There is another side to Rossini, one that his contemporaries knew well but that is now being rediscovered. This is the serious Rossini, the composer of such dramas as Semiramide, Otello, Tancredi, Mose, La Donna del Lago and Guillaume Tell. Several of these works have returned to the repertory in recent years; in the U.S., two of them were given new productions last week. Mose and La Donna del Lago--produced, respectively, in Philadelphia and Houston--have not been seen in this country for more than a century.

Mose does not deserve its obscurity.

Rossini treats the story of Moses and the Israelites in Egypt (with an improbable love interest between Moses' niece and the Pharaoh's son) in a serious, restrained way.

He lavishes some of his most beautiful music on it, including an exquisite canonic quintet in the second act, and, more noteworthy, an extended instrumental section at the end that wordlessly depicts the parting of the Red Sea and the Pharaoh's despair. The Philadelphia production has a solid cast, though Bass Jerome Hines, looking suitably Hestonian as Moses, no longer has the weight of tone to allow him to sing the part with authority.

Whereas Mose is a nearly static drama--Rossini at times referred to it as an oratorio--La Donna del Lago (The Lady of the Lake) is an atmospheric treatment of Sir Walter Scott's poem. It is a bucolic score, with harps and hunting horns highlighting the composer's landscape painting. Donna, full of infectious melodies, is closer in spirit to the great comedies.

The opera calls for two mezzos with a command of the bel-canto style. The Houston production is fortunate to have Marilyn Home in the role of Malcolm and equally lucky to have Frederica von Stade as Elena.

Both are mistresses of bel canto and equal to its cascading vocal fireworks.

What has brought operas like Donna back? Several things. One is the incessant search--in an age that largely ignores the operas of its own time--for new repertory.

Another is the remarkable flourishing of regional companies in the U.S., which lack the resources to put on, say, Wagner's Ring.

A third, and perhaps most important, is the presence of masterly singers like Home, who also starred last month in a new production of Semiramide in San-Francisco.

La Donna del Lago is Home's seventh Rossini opera. Although she has sung such disparate roles as Carmen and Marie in Berg's Wozzeck, it is with Rossini that she has had her greatest triumphs. In 1964, she first came to attention in the "pants" role of Arsace in Semiramide. Home has stayed at the top of her profession for 20 years by taking care of her voice. Says she:

"I cannot stand to sing when I feel I'm fighting it. Whenever I hear a new record, the first thing I always listen for is: Does my voice sound fresh?" An avid baseball fan--she roots for the Yankees and carries a Yankee cap on tour--she believes that divas are like pitchers. Home will sing only with two or three days' rest between starts and refuses even to vocalize (the musical equivalent of throwing batting practice) on off days.

At 47, she has begun to think of a life after singing, even though her voice shows no signs of serious wear. Having long been wooed by top conductors to sing Dame Quickly in Verdi's Falstaff, she has now agreed to perform it in San Francisco in 1985. Says she: "I decided that I would save it until I had turned 50, as a little treat for myself."

Rossini continues to figure prominently in Home's career. In the next few seasons, there will be a new Semiramide in Paris, Tancredi in Venice, L 'Italiana at La Scala and The Barber at the Met. The challenge of Rossini operas still excites Home. "You really must project the text," she says. "And you have to sing the hell out of it."

--By Michael Walsh

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