A little less than 24 hours ago, Omni on-Location released its latest video, entitled simply A Guitar in a Castle. If my archives are correct, this is the latest video performance of music by the Swiss-born composer Giulio Regondi since the screening of David Russell playing the composer’s Opus 21, the first of two compositions given the title “Air varié.” That video was released near the end of December of 2024, and a video of the second composition, whose full title is “Air varié de l’opera de Bellini,” was released yesterday morning.
Orlando Pellicori performing in an “acoustically friendly” area in the Castello Ducale di Corigliano Calabro
The guitarist on the new video is Orlando Pellicori, and it would be fair to say that his performance skills were perfectly conducive to the bel canto repertoire. The advance material I received credits Pellicori with bringing “Regondi’s operatic imagination, lyricism, and virtuosity to life in a striking historic setting.” That setting is the Castello Ducale di Corigliano Calabro in Corigliano-Rossano (Cosenza), which is in southern Italy. That said, it is worth noting that the video work by Alessio Falbo paid more attention to Pellicori than to the location he selected in that castle. (In the title frame, the size of the guitar is almost twice that of the castle tower!)
I appreciate that Russell’s past performances prepared me well for Pellicori’s approach to Regondi. Nevertheless, since this is basically a “bread-and-butter” approach to variations on a theme, those encountering the composer for the first time are likely to “tune in” to his rhetorical style very quickly. As a result, the new video provides the latest perspective on the virtuoso rhetoric for solo guitar that thrived during the nineteenth century.
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