#flavio bertarido

[unulf0]

had a dream where my hypothetical prod of flavio bertarido/flavius bertaridus was a real thing and got broadcast on the television, and i distinctly remember seeing bertarido in this outfit. i don't know what scene it's from ( bert wears different costumes in different scenes, but nowhere does he dress like a typical 18th-century opera star ), but i'm taking it.

text is his act 3 scene 12 aria :)

[unulf0]

so far, flavio bertarido feels like an absurd version of rodelinda i'd see in a dream ( shoutout to the nightmare i had where certain people had the ability to naturally time-travel, and i had to go back and apologise to garibaldo for killing him but inadvertently made him the cute himbo protagonist of a YA novel series instead )

flavia ( eduige ) encounters bertarido and mistakes him for gundeberto

also she's having an affair with prime minister oronte, who seems to be taking garibaldo's place while garibaldo is the guardian spirit of lombardy. and it just so happens that guardian spirits are a staple of my dreams.

a lot happens in the woods. also a staple of my dreams, also very much attributed to my upbringing in the country.

unulfo is called onulfo

un- sorry, onulfo in act 1 scene 6. daaaaaaamn.

the abbreviation for bertarido's name randomly switches from "ber." to "bert." sometime in act 1. bert. my good friend bert.

there's something incredibly unsettling about seeing cuniberto ( flavio ) speaking

[unulf0]

to me, rodelinda in flavio bertarido/flavius bertaridus is trans in every direction at once.

[unulf0]

reconsidering casting choices for flavius bertaridus/flavio bertarido since the former has slightly different voicing.

once again, either iestyn davies or tim mead as onulfo, since he can be either a soprano or an alto. i've been leaning more towards iestyn, though.

if we're going for soprano nulf, though, i'd suggest ying fang

kearstin piper brown as flavia ( i've only seen her in a few productions, but i'm already a fan. seeing her as poppea in the comet/poppea was what did it for me, i think. )

and speaking of the comet/poppea, i think julia's dad would also do well as cuniberto's mum. anthony roth costanzo as rodelinda :]

not too sure about oronte. my only consideration as of now is topi lehtipuu, who i've only ever seen as lurcanio in ariodante.

regimberto's only got a tiny little part, and once again i have no idea who i'd cast as him

garibaldo/guardian-spirit/mysterious voice. hm. if i said vince yi...

[unulf0]

grimoaldo and bertarido's duet is simultaneously the gayest and straightest duet i've ever heard ( and so, so catchy ).

also, after listening to the german version, i stand firmly as ever by my point that i neeeeeeed to see those two played by shenyang and danielle de niese, respectively ( and since rodelinda here is an alto, i've become quite partial to the idea of anthony roth costanzo as her... )

[unulf0]

twice. twice, now, i've heard david dq lee in the role of bertarido's gay little sidekick. and i love the energy he puts into the character in both instances.

[unulf0]

tangentially related to my last post- some time ago, i discovered that bärenreiter, the company that put out the vocal scores i use, also published the score of flavius bertaridus ( telemann's german-language version of flavio bertarido ). more recently, i learned that a full autograph MS is being held at the berlin staatsbibliotek, so i went on the library's site to look for it, and...

there is a recording. of german bert. and, shortly after writing this, i thankfully found it! ( and i hope to the heavens above that they don't change the vocal range of any of the male sopranos, though given that it's a co-production of the innsbruck festival of early music, i'm fairly confident they'll leave our beautiful sopranos alone :] )

the RISM page lists the roles as follows:

telemann changes rodelinda into an alto ( oooo ), onulfo and flavia into sopranos ( awww! the besties are matching! okay, they're not besties in flavio bertarido, but i still think ed and nulf would be friends in every universe <3 ), and oronte into a tenor ( hmmm ).

regimberto and garibaldo ( i don't know why the "voice" is listed as a separate character from garibaldo when i'm fairly certain they're one and the same ) are both sopranos as well. i'm quite interested by what regimberto's part may be, seeing that he was originally a silent role.

[unulf0]

on the off chance that the music for flavio bertarido is still floating around somewhere and someone decides to pick it up, here's my ideal cast:

danielle de niese as either bertarido or rodelinda. she could pull off the energy for both, i think. and, on second thought, oronte as well.

if we're going with danielle as bertarido, then i'd say vince yi should be rodelinda. have them both in drag. hell yeah.

alternate casting choices for oronte: renata pokupić or núria rial

shenyang as grimoaldo. when i first saw met opera rodelinda, i was like "funny how in my adaptation, grimoaldo's chinese, but here garibaldo's chinese." and so.

unfortunately, this means i cannot have him as fairy godmother garibaldo. but you know who i could have? literally anyone, because he's a spoken role... alright, alright. zachary james would be my ideal garibaldo here ( this was mostly informed by seeing him as amenhotep in akhnaten ).

as for the other non-singing character, regimberto... he's a small child. i really have no idea.

randi stene or ann hallenberg as flavia

either iestyn davies or tim mead as onulfo

part of me is saying samuel mariño as cuniberto... not entirely sure about that. but i also can't really think of anyone else.