I would not have scheduled Luisa Miller without Petean and Cristina Damian!

I admit, I have placed Luisa Miller in the category of three, four scores by Verdi which I am not willing to listen to wholly again, unless I am very interested in that particular performance . Otherwise, I would rather listen for the hundreth time to La Traviata or The Troubadour; and into the "I would listen to as much as I can, anytime" category, I would set without a blink Aida, The Force of Destiny and A Masked Ball.

Why I did not like Luisa Miller from the beginning is something I understood only in 2013 when I produced the VERDI/WAGNER - 200 series: by listening to it with the score in my hands again and after I had become ashamed when confronted with the obvious compositional details recently discovered in it. The harmony - was something I had utterly disliked in this opera! And, it seems to me, it appears common to me even now; or anyway, with very few moments filled in with true inspiration. I hope you forgive me! A harmony - in my opinion - not strikingly heroic so I should feel my heart leaping at its spurs and whose themes should be carved in my memory, as in Ernani, for example - another workof Verdi's youth ! - and also, not as lyrical as to offer me the emotions I relive every time I listen to La Traviata or Aida; as if Verdi were not himself anymore: Luisa Miller not succeeding in producing too much of an impression as a performance, as long as it could not take pride either in the overwhelming thrill from Rigoletto, nor in the spectacular effect generated by Nabucco and Simon Boccanegra.

As a consequence, if the Luisa Miller cast in had not included the name of baritone George Petean, for whom I foster great admiration - and that of another artist, Cristina Damian - the mezzosoprano from Alba-Iulia, recently discovered in the German artistic space - I would have passed quite flippantly over the "offer" of the Hamburg State Opera, but with them being cast in the performance, I started listening...

A "velvety" Miller!

I saw George Petean onstage in three performances (The Barber from Seville in Hamburg in 2012 - Rigoletto and La Traviata in Zurich in 2013 and 2014) and in two concerts of arias ("George Enescu International Festival" and "Do you like opera?"). But I had never had the chance to listen to him performing in a whole concert: a live one where I could sit and just listen to him. And most likely, you, too! So I cried quits with the situation/bad luck of discovering Petean in an opera I did not enjoy and... here are the reasons why I programmed at last, with great enthusiasm Luisa Miller performed at Staatsoper in Hamburg on 16^th November, 2014: the performance in Hamburg is a perfectly relevant example of the "it's the tone that makes the music" expression. In the situation of Luisa Miller, the "tone" is synonimous with "the quality" of the performance, especially the quality of the voices, thus saving an "An Evening at the Opera " show less touched by Verdi's genius.

The cast proposed by Staatsoper in Hamburg is - auditorilly speaking - one of the most appropriate and balanced: with Luisa performed by the Georgian soprano Nino Machaidze - as sensitive in the Prayer in the first tableau of the second act, as it was equally dramatic in the end, but also capable of sustaining with no problem that canto fiorito of the"A brani, a brani, o perfido!" Cabaletta; with an admirable Rudolfo impersonated by the Sicilian tenor Ivan Magri, presenting a powerful vocal italianita; a Wurm - well defined vocally by the German bass-baritone Oliver Zwang and a "luxurious" Federica impersonated by Cristina Damian.

First of all, this concert is our chance of discovering George Petean's "secret" of success, his artistic qualities, as well as the artistic level he has reached. "George Petean - permanent soloist of Hamburg's Staatsoper between 2002-2010 - offered us a "velvety" Miller, filled with intense feelings (...), not even for a moment, lacking in artistic meaning" - a reviewer wrote in Spiegel Online about the performance of our baritone, while another emphasized the beautiful dramatic accents with which Petean adorned his voice when interpreting this character...

Velvety voice, impeccable technique and powerful expression

For Petean - the lyrical baritone par excellence - Miller was the fifth Verdian part he approached, apart from Germont - the father, Rigoletto, Count di Luna and Simion Boccanegra. A father's part whose dramatic accents merged perfectly with the warmth of his voice right from the first aria with the Andante "Sacra la scelta e d'un consorte" up to the last moment. One of the most successful parts of the performance being - in my opinion, the great Miller - Luisa part, at the debut of the third act, the scene that comes before "the letter aria".

The beautiful sound and the homogenous performance, the right phrasing and the impeccable technique - underlined especially by the "Ah, fu giusto il mio sospetto" Cabaletta, were Petean's both arguments and artistic pluses, on 16^th November last year, which I invite you to discover by yourselves.

So, I invite you to listen to The Evening at the Opera on Saturday, 16^th May, at 19:00.