Janowski balances its brooding immediacy, dark, character-centred narrative and sweeping lyrical grandeur with an altogether becoming dramatic boldness and emotional directness.
“Puccini: Il Tabarro,” performed by Melody Moore, Lester Lynch, Brian Jagde, Dresdner Philharmonie, MDR Rundfunkchor Leipzig and conducted by Marek Janowski, was reviewed by Limelight! Read the full review below:
Marek Janowski began 2020 with a revelatory performance of Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and ends the year with another remarkable re-minting of a one-act opera, Puccini’s Il Tabarro. A dark and brutal tale underpinned by Puccini’s most sophisticated score, one shot through with borrowings from his own operas and infused by impressionist-leaning harmonies and references to Stravinsky, Il Tabarro stands in stark, verismo contrast to its Il Trittico siblings – the delightfully farcical Gianni Schicchi and reverential tale of religious redemption, Suor Angelica.Shrewdly assembling the same forces – the MDR Leipzig Radio Choir, alertly involved soloists and firing on all cylinders Dresden Philharmonic (where Janowski’s tenure as chief conductor has just been extended) – the result is as vivid and visceral a performance of Il Tabarro as any on disc. Janowski balances its brooding immediacy, dark, character-centred narrative and sweeping lyrical grandeur with an altogether becoming dramatic boldness and emotional directness.
He is immensely aided by the powerfully sung, slowly unravelling Michelle of baritone Lester Lynch, who delivers Verdian heft to the role even while accommodating Puccini’s signature heart-on-sleeve hyper-theatrics. Melody Moore brings a vocally voluptuous quality to Giorgetta, whose duplicitous scheming she has the measure of to a tee, as does Brian Jagde with his ardently realised ill-fated lover, Luigi.
Pentatone’s vivid Hybrid SACD sound in Dresden’s Kulturpalast comes into its own when experienced on headphones. Janowski and his Dresden band have reportedly recorded Fidelio. On present form, it promises to be a highlight of 2021.
