Four Hands at the Opera

Pianists Antonella Vitelli and Luciano Bellini

Featuring:

Luciano Bellini, piano

Antonella Vitelli, piano

Programme:

Gaetano Donizetti Lucia di Lammermoor

Giuseppe Verdi

     Romance sans paroles

     La Traviata

Gioachino Rossini Il Barbiere di Siviglia

Giacomo Puccini Tosca

Giuseppe Verdi

     Waltz in F major

     Overture from La Forza del Destino

My exposure to the opera for the past year and half finally paid off. My growing knowledge of this form of live entertainment and its vast repertoire was very much responsible for my appreciation of the recent Four Hands at the Opera held at the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino (CCP Little Theater). This concert, featuring the Italian piano duo of Luciano Bellini and Antonella Vitelli gave the spotlight to four Italian opera composers especially Giuseppe Verdi who is celebrating the bicentennial anniversary of his birth this year.

If not for my recent opera exploits, I would be so lost during most of the concert where the piano duo played Bellini’s arrangements of various fantasies taken from works by Gaetano Donizetti, Giuseppe Verdi, Gioachino Rossini and Giacomo Puccini. My familiarity with the arias made it a lot easier for me to appreciate not just the music but also the transcriptions and the performances as well.

It was indeed very interesting and enlightening to hear how Bellini transcribed the music which was originally intended for vocalists accompanied by an orchestra. With four hands and one piano, it is possible to have 20 notes played at once. But the arrangement managed to retain the levels and it made the vocal lines float while maintaining the orchestral textures and colors even if there was just one piano. It wasn’t easy to fall into reverie and imagine the actually opera in my head.

Luciano Bellini and Antonella Vitelli at the cocktail reception

Highlights of the performances for me were the Spargi d’amaro pianto from Lucia di Lammermoor by Donizetti which is a song I usually associate with French singer Mado Robin. Hearing Bellini and Antonelli play the opening notes of the overture from Verdi’s La Traviata made me reminisce at CCP’s production of it. And if I’m not mistaken, Bellini opted to have the music arranged in a chronological manner. I regretted once again missing Il Barbiere di Siviglia by Rossini when I heard Largo al factotum and Una voce poco fa. And it always pleases me whenever I hear Puccini, so I was delighted to hear Vissi d’arte and E Lucevan la stelle from Tosca.

Since this concert was also a tribute to Verdi, Bellini also played two solo piano pieces by Verdi that are rarely performed. The Romance sans paroles and Waltz in F major are two short pieces that served as interludes in between the fantasies and while not that technically demanding, these two pieces could be nice pieces for some pianists to learn. To cap the concert, the duo performed Verdi’s Overture from La Forza del Destino. For their encore, they played a Bellini composition entitled Corteo dai Carpazi al Pireo which took music from the Carpathian mountains in Central/Eastern Europe down to Piraeus, the port city in Greece. I was able to hear Zorba the Greek music which is the Pireo part but I wasn’t able to grasp what kind of music the Carpazi represented.

After the concert, audience members and guests were able to interact with Luciano Bellini and Antonella Vitelli during the cocktail reception at the CCP’s Silangan Hall. As much as I want to watch what I eat, the gelato served there was too tempting and I just had to indulge myself. I was hoping to meet at last the new Italian Ambassador, Massimo Roscigno during that night but he wasn’t present. Instead, it was Alfonso Tagliafferi, the Italian Embassy’s First Secretary and Deputy Head of Mission who delivered the opening remarks at the concert.

Alfonso Tagliaferri, RAd and Nino Quartana

The Four Hands at the Opera was presented by the Cultural Center of the Philippines, the Philippine-Italian Association, Rustan’s, the Embassy of Italy, in cooperation with the Peninsula Manila, and Ralph’s Wines & Spirits and was staged for the benefit of the PIA Endowment Fund.