What does Fiorilla do? Guess.In rep to 11 June (020-7304 4000; ). A total of 33,421 readers have so far responded to The Independent's Campaign for Democracy and the number is still rising by 1,000 a day. We have received 19,533 forms through the post, while 13,708 readers have signed the petition via the internet. Present the case for a fairer voting system directly to the Prime Minister by filling out the form at name will be added to the list which will be delivered to Downing Street.. The voice may not be what it was (too much pumping on the pyrotechnics) but the artistry is untarnished.So quite a handful, this Fiorilla The men in her life do well to hold their own. There's the obsessive "rocker" Don Narciso whom Barry Banks fires up with unrelenting desperation, inhaling the scent from a pair of Fiorilla's shoes before wacking out his top C. There is her relish for the words, her rapturous way of making magic with the tender application of a single phrase, which she'll lift and nurture for a moment longer than others might Her personality is irresistible.
But such is our fascination with the fact that she can do it at all, to say nothing of the zest with which she deploys it, that we buy it wholesale as authenticated Rossini style Hers is an offer we can't refuse. In the film, the characters - grotesque inhabitants of the made-up town of Royston Vasey - have become aware that they are fictional creations. The spirit was infectious and in the case of Cecilia Bartoli positively contagious. As Fiorilla, a flighty housewife with a frumpy husband, she was the sunny, smiling, and all-too-acceptable face of adultery, flirting as insatiably with the cartoonish contortions of Rossini's coloratura as with Ildebrando D'Arcangelo's swarthy Prince Selim.Bartoli's pneumatic way with that coloratura is now apt to sound like a parody of itself, a cross between yodelling and gargling. If Turkish coffee is a euphemism for sex, play it to the hilt, so to speak, in a pink satin bedroom where the wall is adorned with a lurid print of Vesuvius erupting From Naples with love It's that kind of show Overstate the obvious, embrace the absurd, tickle the fancy. If the ratio of wit to slapstick had been a tad higher, then so too would my rating.But Rossini isn't often this much fun. If the libretto calls for a band of gypsies, make them all-singing, all-dancing gypsies.
But even he (the librettist, that is) didn't reckon on Leiser and Caurier.Think 1960s - Vespas, cool cars, quiffs and drainpipes; think Fellini; think saucy seaside postcards And bring sunglasses. Christian Fenouillat's sets and Agostino Cavalca's costumes overdose on primary colours, which is precisely what Leiser and Caurier prescribe. They might just as well hang out a sign above each scene saying "wish you were here". But you are, and on the whole you are rather glad.Rossini's controlled anarchy needs to sail close to the wind This staging gives it a stiff following breeze. No one's looking for method in the madness, just madness in the method. Well, you could if you did as Rossini's librettist Felice Romani did and wrote yourself into the scenario.
