Florence Pops at the Teatro Verdi

The Teatro Verdi, at just over one and a half centuries old, is a youngster compared with the Teatro di Pergola down the road at three and a half centuries. It’s much bigger than the Pergola seating about 900 in the stalls and with six levels of boxes. It ‘s comparable with Covent Garden except that there are about seven rows of seats where the Grand Tier and the Royal Box go in the London theatre.

The entrance, like the Pergola, is in a narrow lane. For a theatre of such size, this seems rather strange when we realise it was built in the age of large carriages. However, the large doors, now used only as an exit, open on to the Via del Giuseppe Verdi where there is a little extra space.

I’m in the theatre for a concert of ‘pops’ conducted by Gabriele Ferro. Two orchestras have joined together for this evening’s event and it is being broadcast by RAI. The Brahms should sound good with a seventy strong string section. But I’m looking at eight contrabassi and twelve ‘celli sending sound down into a very flexible stage. The string sound will have a very strong bass.

It’s interesting to realise that, because of our differing physical hearing equipment and psychoacoustic brain responses, each one of us experiences a different sensation when we listen to music or any sound. The present high levels of disco music and those earplug hearing systems may make that difference even greater in the future. Add to that the fact that each seat in a theatre experiences a different reception of the music, and you begin to wonder what a building with so-called “good acoustics” really does.

I’m a believer in as much direct sound as possible so the box seats I have been getting in the Pergola and the box seat I have in the Verdi is just perfect for me. It is on the second level of boxes ‘PALCO SECONDO ORDINA, PALCO N23 ORDINE SECONDO Fila 2 Posto C”. This means that I’m in Box 23 with the third seat from the best seat in the box. The sound comes to me at about thirty degrees from the ground level so it’s almost ideal. The seat cost me 10 euros and the concert is a sellout.

The Florence ‘Maggio’ orchestra can be one of the world’s best especially when it is conducted by Mehta. The ‘Orchestra della Toscana’ is not and they don’t have Mehta. They are very keen but the conductor seems to trade continuity for precision articulation. He restrains the brass and horns so they underpin rather dominate the Brahms Second Symphony until the very end. So it’s Brahms differently once again. a different balance, a different phrasing and a more transparent sound than usual in my box. Seventy strings playing long bows makes a wonderful sound and we all relish it in this nice comfortable theatre. The first horn plays with no vibrato at all and the contrabassi do not use the German bow so the result is a familiar texture overall.

Ravel’s ‘Pavane pour une infante defunte’ comes over very well. It’s scored for a small orchestra but the conductor, Gabriele Ferro. keeps all strings on board. The sound is extraordinarily lush and we once again enjoiy a different experience with our Faure.

But the Ravel Bolero is not so good. How can anyone mess with this potboiler? Ferro makes the classic mistake of not thinking first about his players. He starts the piece too slow and far too soft a dynamic for them so that the exposure afforded to each of the soloists is simply too much. One by one they struggle to achieve a good performance but a feeling of sheer terror seems to pervade their playing. I would NOT have liked to be at their rehearsals!!! The only soloist to actually falter badly was the trombone while the others reached home with an almost audible sight of relief. In the circumstances, I suppose, a series of excellent solos.

The bit we all wait for is where the whole orchestra is going at it hammer and tongs and we see the percussionists hit that huge gong and that big ‘Verdi drum’ to cap off all the terror the players have endured. But this rotten old conductor wouldn’t play it again as an encore – and after we’d waited all that time!!!