Alessandra Premoli

REVIEWS

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• Pierluigi Panza, Corriere della Sera

[translated from italian]

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In the summer of Italian successes, which began with Maneskin and continued with sporting triumphs, we also include that of a very Italian ensemble of young women who brought an opera from 1680 entitled 'L'Idalma. He who endures, wins'.

Premoli, who was born in 1984, originally had the protagonists act in period costumes while, metaphorically, she had the aristocratic villa in which they live reconstructed behind them. The subtitle of the work, a love story, is "he who endures, wins" and "I feel perfectly represented in it", says Premoli.

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• Alan Neilson - OperaWire

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As the Tiroler Landestheater is undergoing renovation work, this production of “Idalma” for the Innsbruck Festwochen der Alten Musik took place in the recently built Grosser Saal of the Haus der Musik. Unfortunately, it does not possess a purpose-built stage for theatrical performances, but rather a raised platform as found in a concert hall, which limited the possibilities for the staging. However, such was the skill and imagination of the director Alessandra Premoli and her team, comprising scenographer Nathalie Deana, costume designer Anna Missaglia and lighting designer Antonio Castro, that the restricted circumstances had no noticeable negative impact. In fact, it proved to be a very effective production indeed.

Premoli updated the drama to the present day, with the stage transformed into an abandoned house, in which the furniture is covered with dust sheets. Workers and architects wonder about, either preparing the house for sale or readying it for extensive renovation. However, and unbeknownst to them, the house is already occupied. Lindoro, Idalma, and the rest of the cast are the resident ghosts, who trapped in the 17th century, act out the drama whilst also amusing themselves by confusing and frightening the workers.

It was a great idea as it side-stepped the need for scenery changes, and at the same time, the presence of the workers going about their business added to the comedic possibilities, as did the mod cons found in the house, of which Premoli took full advantage. Act two, for example, is brought to an abrupt and amusing end by Celindo cutting through an electric cable when threatening to kill Irene, much to the ghosts’ shock. And having the wall lights flicker brightly in time to Idalma’s excited high pitched coloratura added another humorous touch. It was not slapstick, but it was always amusing and provided the drama with an engaging dynamic.

Missaglia’s colorful and flamboyant cavalier 17th century costumes were perfectly matched to the nature of each individual character and brought color and contrast to the staging.

 

• Franziska Stürz  - BR Klassik

[translated from german]

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In Alessandra Premoli, the musicians have also found a congenial director. An excellent idea to present the entire opera on two temporal levels! As in "Wirtshaus im Spessart", Pasquini's opera characters dwell as ghosts in a palazzo to be restored. The extra roles of the construction workers and the architect allow for an entertaining parallel play with the soloists, in which the historically dressed opera characters are allowed to do their mischief with witty effects: The lamps flicker to emotional coloratura outbursts, or stolen beer bottles and broken dishes cause confusion on the construction site. In the baroque opera spirits, everything revolves around love, honour, life or death, but the winking director's eye also allows surprisingly cheeky lyrics to come to the fore alongside love's melodiousness and revengeful furore. This Pasquini was obviously a savvy theatre person and still knows how to touch and entertain. Who would have thought that his "Idalma" would last so long and win!

 

• Jean-François Lattarico - ClassiqueNews

        [translated from french]

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In the smaller auditorium of the Haus der Musik (the Ländertheater is under construction), Alessandra Premoli's refined and perfectly readable staging hits the nail on the head, as do Anna Missaglia's sumptuous costumes, worthy of Van Dick paintings, and Nathalie Deana's neo-classical sets (sections of the walls of a palace under construction, a few antique statues and sliding platforms, a cupboard and a chest serving as exits), aptly convey the atmosphere of the closed-door theatre of mixed emotions.

 

• Luc Henri Roger

        [translated from french]

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The director Alessandra Premoli had the ingenious idea of bringing two eras together by adding a contemporary setting to the action of the libretto. All the action takes place in the unique setting of a late 17th century Roman villa that is being restored: the period furniture has been covered with protective plastic, the paintings have been taken down and sent to the restorer, and a marble bust also needs to be repaired. Helmeted workers walk around the building site where strange things are happening. The villa seems to be haunted and we soon realise that Idalma's characters are circulating under the ghostly sheets. These two worlds interfere here and there. A sword disconnects the electricity as soon as it is installed, the architect restorer finds a plan she thought was lost torn into a thousand pieces, when she wants to light a cigarette, one of the characters has fun blowing out the flame... Dorillo finds a mobile phone and uses it as a mirror, or is it to take a selfie? The restoration evolves during the action and the villa is ready to receive its owners at the end of Act 3. Moving boxes have been unpacked, furniture installed, the broken statue has been glued back together, everything has been cleaned and the restorer is satisfied with the work. At the end of the opera, the paintings were returned to their frames: the characters of Idalma were represented. Nathalie Deana's progressively dust-free sets perfectly capture the atmosphere of a 17th-century patrician villa, with ingenious sets of movable panels that are installed when, for example, the action takes place in the countryside. Anna Missaglia's highly successful costumes contribute to the same historical accuracy.

[…]These difficult working conditions undoubtedly inspired Alessandra Premoli, who installed corridors of time in her staging of Idalma, a work also literally resuscitated by Alessandro De Marchi and whose libretto also evokes the reconstruction of a love.

 

• Helmut Christian Mayer - Opera Online

         [translated from german]

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For Alessandra Premoli directs at Innsbruck's Haus der Musik with a light hand, lots of wit, ideas and allusions. In addition, the Italian director mixes the past with the present and has an old salon of a palazzo (stage: Nathalie Deana) restored parallel to the actual action by construction workers who appear again and again. Although this concept soon wears out, the two time levels intermingle and give rise to many a ghostly as well as comic situation, combining lush, splendid old costumes (Anna Missaglia) with modern ones.

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• Manuel Brug - Welt.de

[translated from german]

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Director Alessandra Premoli has very skilfully brought the varied, only rarely convoluted story of a kind of vest-pocket Don Giovanni between two women to the technically limited concert hall platform. Takes four hours, it doesn't get tough.

Premoli's basic idea: as mute extras, a stylish architect and some construction workers renovate a neglected classicist palazzo, which in the end shines in new splendour as a museum. In the end, all of the ghostly participants, raging through the plot as shadows of yesterday, sometimes interacting with the play's present, which they do not see at all, appear as a family painting in the hitherto blind frame. La Commedia è finita! And we as spectators were witnesses to it.

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• Renato Verga - L’opera in casa

         [translated from italian]​

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Alessandra Premoli's direction is delightful, imagining the characters as ghosts waking up from their portraits to spite the workers and the architect in charge of restoring a building suggested by the sliding panels of set designer Nathalie Deana.

 

• Salzburger Nachrichten

        [translated from german]

 

The directing concept of the young director Alessandra Premoli works - as a prime example of dusting off an old masterpiece, but also as a reflection on this year's leitmotif of the Innsbruck Festival: “Perspectives”

 

• Christa Dietrich - Voralbreger Nachrichten

        [translated from german]

 

Director Alessandra Premoli and set designers Nathalie Deana and Anna Missaglia perfectly handle the limited possibilities of a concert stage and set Idalma in a museum that is being adapted for an exhibition. As long as everything is ready for the visitors, the figures of the paintings on the wall come alive.

A good idea, because the confusion, joy, anger and disappointment that are at play here, when Lindoro simply does not want to be faithful, could of course be shown more explicitly.