Giordano: Fedora – Daniela Dessi

   in Opera Now (Mar, 2018)
Daniela Dessì (1957- 2016) stars as Fedora, filmed in Genoa in 2015, a year before her death. She is consummate in the role, by turns imperious, tender, passionate and conflicted. Her soprano suits Giordano’s music wonderfully, with its idiomatic phrasing, colouration and thrust. Her tenor is Fabio Armiliato (who was her real-life partner), offering vivid and forthright singing in a generally ungrateful role. Valerio Galli’s conducting is sensitive to his singers, and he draws maximum effect from the score. Rosetta Cucchi’s production shows the aged tenor Loris onstage throughout, looking back over his life. Scrims and gauzes are used to divide the stage into different visual depths, allowing a blend of …