Conductor/orchestra: Lamberto Gardelli; ORF (Austrian Broadcasting) Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
Cast: Katia Ricciarelli, José Carreras, Matteo Manuguerra, Nicola Ghiuselev, Hannes Lichtenberger, Dimitri Kavrakos, Jonathan Summers, Franz Handlos, Ann Murray
Verdi’s music and a terrific cast go a long way to compensate for Salvatore Cammarana’s not especially inspiring libretto. (This is the same individual responsible for the libretto to Il Trovatore.) Like a number of 19th century librettists, Cammarana wasn’t about to let historical fact get in the way of a good story, and has the hero Arrigo slay the Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa at the Battle of Legnano. The text is closely tied to the mid-century struggle for Italian independence, and the characters spend most of their time in a lot of patriotic posturing. There is a stereotypical love triangle between Arrigo, his best pal Rolando, and Rolando’s wife Lida, who was romantically involved with Arrigo earlier but, believing him to have been killed in battle, married Rolando at the behest of her dying father. Rossini’s Guillaume Tell also deals with a populace battling an oppressive foreign power, and yet the figures seem to have more depth to them than do the characters in La Battaglia di Legnano. I find myself caring much more about the former. Still, Verdi’s music is fabulous, and it’s a pleasure to listen to Carreras, Ricciarelli, and Manuguerra.
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