Conceived as a ‘concert opera’, with a libretto by Respighi’s friend and collaborator Claudio Guastalla, Maria Egiziaca is more like a twentieth century mystery play than a conventional work for the stage. Although none of the composer’s eleven operas are often performed, this short work, lasting just over an hour, has apparently retained a place in the Italian repertoire, where perhaps there is greater receptiveness to its religious mysticism.
The story is a simple parable based on a 13th-century legend: the Egyptian prostitute Maria pays boatmen with sex for a voyage to Jerusalem, where she repents her former life, is converted to Christianity and spends the rest of her days in the desert in atonement.
There is no gradual process of enlightenment—an encounter with a blind girl, symbol of faith in adversity, seems to effect an immediate transformation in Maria. But in this production at least, her passion is not extinguished, but rather redirected.
Francesca Dotto is a flagrantly sexy Maria, enticing each and any of the boatmen, later sensually caressing the cross of the redeemer, almost like a pole dancer, and which her ballet-dancing double enthusiastically embraces. Dotto gives a brave (entering the desert topless) and sensitive performance, the strident manner of the first of three episodes in the work giving way to the warmer tones of the second, particularly in the dreamy, spiritual aria “O bianco astore”.
Unfortunately, the duet with Simone Alberghini’s Abbot Zosimo in what should be the epiphany of the third episode is spoilt by the baritone’s excessive vibrato, which blurs their vocal interplay. Two tenors in lesser roles give good accounts of themselves, with a pleasant buzz in the voice of Luigi Morassi as the Poor Man, and a silky smoothness in that of Vincenzo Constanzo as the Leper.
A chamber orchestra, without bassoons or percussion, and choir are drawn from La Fenice, sprightly conducted by Manlio Benzi. The score, completed in 1931, has hallmarks of the anti-modernist Respighi, with choral lines in Gregorian unison, and occasional echoes of Richard Strauss, Mahler or the neoclassical Stravinsky. Except in a second intermezzo, there is little however of the romantic sweep or richness that characterises the composer’s better-known Roman symphonic poems.
The composer and librettist envisaged the piece as a musical triptych, with instructions on a matching stage design of three panels. There is little sign of that here.
I have much admired the imaginative work of director Pier Luigi Pizzi for opera houses in northern Italy and beyond, and here as usual he takes responsibility also for the set and costume (or lack of it). Unfortunately, the modest stage area of the beautiful Teatro Malibran and probably a limited budget, contribute to a production lacking visual excitement.
The presentation is simple, essentially a couple of steps flanked by two walls at either side and dominated by a large video screen which, heralding the moment of Maria’s entry into the wilderness, displays a Wagnerian ring through which passes an explosion of fire. Its significance escaped me.
Reviewer: Colin Davison