One can even hum the tune to "Romanzo criminale": It all works, perhaps a bit too well.

Adapting an opera from Giancarlo De Cataldo’s Romanzo criminale – following the bestseller, the film and the TV series – is not only a clever idea, but also a shrewd one: indeed, it was Carlo Fuortes who came up with it. The music was composed by Nicola Piovani and the opera made its debut, to great acclaim, at the Maggio Fiorentino (by the third performance, however, the theatre was half-empty, albeit with a very warm atmosphere)There is no shortage of merits, starting with the text. Adapting one’s own work into a libretto is far more difficult than adapting someone else’s: De Cataldo did so with great theatrical instinct, without the Roman dialect and mostly in rhyme, which contributes significantly to the overall retro feel of this melodrama. It is obvious that something of the novel is lost in the process – in this case, the intertwining of crime with corrupt politics, the powers that be and the secret powers; in short, the whole atmosphere of a corrupt capital and an infected nation. Yet the medium demands conciseness and brooks no digression. Thus Romanzo criminale becomes the ‘simple’ story of four criminals who decide to take over the city, recounted in retrospect by the prostitute Patrizia, who knew them well – a cynical but not unloving Roman mother who also knows how the world works (badly, incidentally).

Ultimately, the dramatic structure works. And Piovani’s music works too: thoroughly traditional, comfortably tonal, full of echoes of Puccini and the ‘young school’, of Rota (a great deal of Rota), of musicals, and of Bernstein. It has two merits, and they are by no means minor. The first is the melody, which has already been ostracised – who knows why – as the only truly unforgivable musical sin. Here there are several, and at least two stand out: the duet between the Lebanese man and his mother – a less hard-of-heart but equally ill-omened Azucena – which could well have been developed further; and the ‘moon aria’ (as in *Rusalka*!) which really does have you humming it as you leave the theatre, something we *coeurs simples* rather like. In fact, there were even a couple of bursts of spontaneous, limited applause – a rarity in new operas, as rare as a train arriving on time. A second merit is that this old-fashioned style of composition resolves the most classic problem of contemporary opera: that of vocality. For once, the trained singing doesn’t feel out of place (though some of the tenor parts, especially the Lebanese man’s, seem a bit low. ‘Go for it’, shouldn’t they? In the nineteenth century, that’s what they would have done). Piovani is skilful, perhaps too much so. The real problem with his score is that everything is pleasant, but nothing is new. The usual stumbling block of language, in short: which works here, of course, and is at times captivating, yet always sounds like déjà vu – or rather, déjà écouté. The ‘young school’, in short, has become old-fashioned. Taking a few more risks, for example with the harmony, might have made the opera perhaps less pleasant and certainly less crowd-pleasing, but more interesting.

The sense that everything is, how shall I put it? a bit too glossy – all the more so given these rather pulp-style stories – is confirmed by Massimo Popolizio’s direction, with set design by Margherita Palli, costumes by Silvia Aymonino, lighting by Pasquale Mari and so on; all of it relevant, professional, well-executed and of the highest quality. Yet at the moments when a punch in the stomach is expected, the audience instead receives a gentle caress. The excellent Florentine orchestra and choir are conducted by the composer, and the cast is truly outstanding, though too large to mention everyone. The praise therefore goes solely to Vanessa Goikoetxea, playing Patrizia, of course, who, whilst not always vocally flawless, radiates buckets of charisma on stage, whether she is evoking the moon or teaching the world’s oldest profession to the young novice – and even whilst doing both at the same time.