Riddled with paradox, La Gioconda (1876) was a triumph at its premiere for its Italian composer, Amilcare Ponchielli, but is now seldom staged. The music is hardly known but contains a ballet, the Dance of the Hours, so famous through appropriation and parody that Ponchielli’s name lives on. (Think of hippos en pointe in Walt Disney’s Fantasia.) All praise to the Salzburg Easter festival for assembling an illustrious lineup for this four-act grand opera, led by the soprano Anna Netrebko and the tenor Jonas Kaufmann, conducted by Antonio Pappano.
They were joined by the all-Italian forces of the orchestra and chorus of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Rome, who displayed their affinity with opera – a departure from their usual concert hall activities – with buoyant and unerring skill, both in the pit and on stage. Pappano is Santa Cecilia’s conductor emeritus, after 18 years as music director. (His British successor, Daniel Harding, takes over next season.) The warmth of this established relationship was palpable, both in La Gioconda and in concerts they gave as resident ensemble elsewhere in the festival.
