Puccini - Turandot (Paris, 2023)

Giacomo Puccini - Turandot

Opéra National de Paris, 2023

Marco Armiliato, Robert Wilson, Iréne Theorin, Brian Jagde, Ermonela Jaho, Carlo Bosi, Mika Kares, Florent Mbia, Maciej Kwaśnikowski, Nicholas Jones, Guilhem Worms, Hyun-Jong Roh, Pranvera Lehnert, Izabella Wnorowska-Pluchart

Paris Opera Play - 13th November 2023

Such is the very distinct character and experience of a Robert Wilson production that you imagine that it can't be suitable for every kind of opera, but it's not such an easy thing to fit that into clear dividing lines, and where the line does fall is of course going to be be subjective. You would think that it would be better suited to more abstract work like Einstein on the Beach, where he first made his mark in the world of opera as co-creator with Philip Glass, or Pelléas et Mélisande and the spiritual content of Arvo Pärt's Adam's Passion but his style also seems to chime with baroque very well (Gluck and Handel), except when it doesn't (Monteverdi). You couldn't see his coolness work with the beautiful warm humanity of Mozart, but who knows? I would love to see him direct a Die Zauberflöte, and could someone commission a Robert Wilson Ring Cycle please?...

I wasn't convinced either by his work on Verdi's Aida, even though it looked stunning on the stage, and I was surprisingly impressed with his take on the high drama of the French version of Il Trovatore, so it's not so clear cut. Puccini is another that it's hard to imagine Robert Wilson being suited, but we have already seen Madama Butterfly and this Turandot (seen previously in Madrid) prove otherwise. In the case of Turandot, now playing in Paris and available to view in a brief window though their Paris Opera Play service, the reasons are worth exploring again, although Puccini's opera, the cast here and the spectacle of a Wilson production are reason enough to watch this again.

Like any good opera production its success relies on how well it works with the score and the intent of the opera. That doesn't necessarily mean that the direction has to be sympathetic towards the original intentions of the work (few if any productions match to the letter or even closely adhere to stage directions nowadays), nor even in matching or working with the tone of the music score. There can be as much of interest in contrasting the heat and passion of a music score with a coolness in the direction as a means to examine the potential of a work and perhaps illustrate an hitherto unexplored aspect of a work. I'm not saying that Wilson does this in the case of Turandot, but he certainly brings an uncommon and you would think counterintuitive approach to Puccini's final unfinished masterpiece.

There actually is a cold menace at the heart of this dark fairytale with its authoritarian regime ruled with cruel laws, and that is reflected in the sinister undercurrents of Puccini's score. Calixto Bieito showed one way of bringing that aspect out in his production, but Wilson shows that there is more than one way, and it is if course in his own very distinctive way. The restricted highly controlled movements of the cast, the darkness of moving black panels blotting out the light at the back of the stage instead of thunderclouds. The situation is not natural, so Wilson doesn't resort to natural phenomena for this. When something of nature does appear, such as a bird a stork making a flight across the sky during the mourning of the latest victim to lose his pale bloodless head, it's in response to the sorrowful warmth of the score. Even the bird's movements however are Wilson stylised.

Where Wilson best serves Turandot is in the epic fantasy of the fairytale, not making it a colourful exotic drama (like Andrei Serban at the ROH), but a colourful spectacle of a different hue nonetheless, working primarily with light. It's a superb match for the huge orchestration, the limited movements providing counterpoint rather than a conventional illustrative decoration. It also has the effect of simply gluing you the visuals, really connecting with them, even if they seem occasionally jarring and disruptive to the tone at times with bizarre comedy characters (not just Ping, Pang and Pong). It's visually stunning and despite the impression of it being static there is always something happening, even if it's just the fading and brightening of the light adjusting the whole appearance of a scene.

Credit to conductor Marco Armiliato for matching the lushness of the score with the intent of stage production, rather than feeling a need to present a cold and clinical reading, which would be a disservice to Wilson and Puccini. It's majestic. There are serious singing challenges in this Puccini opera without having to adopt unnatural posture and deliver gestures in the Robert Wilson fashion. Although rightly celebrated for her Puccini roles as Madama Butterfly and Suor Angelica, Liù appears to be less comfortable range for Ermonela Jaho. Iréne Theorin is also a little bit strained here. She's an excellent powerhouse Wagnerian, somewhat inconsistent, but is gloriously imperious in the final scene confronting Liù and Calaf. Turandot is not a large role but it is a very challenging one. Brian Jagde is a fine Decent Calaf, and soars through 'Nessun dorma'. Carlo Bosi is very capable for the role of the old man Altoum.

Whether Turandot has something deeper political to say about love being the answer that will topple a totalitarian regime is debatable, although in its unfinished form without resolution Calixto Bieito certainly made a convincing case for it being a powerful critique of the crushing boot of fascism, but the inherent power of the work, whether for its depiction of a reign of terror or its belief in the healing power of love, is undeniable. His mannerisms will irritate some but the power of Robert Wilson's distinctive vision for this and for the world of opera can't be denied. His Turandot is spectacular, unlike anything else, capturing the otherworldly quality of Puccini’s fairy tale opera, its power, its majesty, and its beauty as a final unfinished testament from this composer.

External links: Opéra National de Paris, Paris Opera Play

Photo credits: Agathe Poupeney / Opéra national de Paris

Bellini - I Puritani (Vienna, 2015 - Webcast)

Vincenzo Bellini - I Puritani

Wiener Staatsoper, 2015

Marco Armiliato, John Dew, Jongmin Park, John Tessier, Carlos Álvarez, Olga Peretyatko, Sorin Coliban, Carlos Osuna, Ilseyar Khayrullova

Wiener Staatsoper Live at Home - 10 March 2015

No-one goes to see Bellini's I Puritani expecting a history lesson. I think you'd find it hard to recognise any realistic treatment or situation between the opposing Puritan and Royalist forces, and certainly not any great depth of insightful characterisation of their lives and motivations. If however you come to see I Puritani for a lesson in how to construct and put across a bel canto opera of a Romantic nature with all the trimmings, well then you're in the right place. The Vienna production of Bellini's final work is given an outstanding interpretation here, with Olga Peretyatko in the leading role showing what the real value of this work can be.

You might not get much of a history lesson, and the plot of I Puritani might appear ludicrous to the casual viewer, but there is - quite literally - method to the madness. I Puritani isn't about the English Civil War, but the setting is as good as any for an epic drama between two opposing forces. And it's not so much a conflict between Roundheads and Cavaliers here, as a war between men and women. This aspect is particularly marked in the Vienna production. In bold strokes certainly, but bold strokes that depict a greater subjective reality.

Essentially, I Puritani must be seen from the perspective of Elvira if it is to engage the audience and make any sense at all. Yes, there's a dramatic plot point that sees the Royalist Arturo risk the delicate alliance that he has established wth the Puritan Parliamentarians, by helping a Royalist prisoner escape. This moreover is not just any prisoner. Arturo has recognised that the captive is the queen herself, Henrietta. Although he is about to be married that day to Elvira, Arturo's loyalty to the queen and his sense of duty is more important. Using the veil from Elvira's wedding gown, he helps the queen escape past the guards, and leaves his bride-to-be in a bit of a state.

In broad strokes then, I Puritani is about the clash of love and duty, but specifically in the different values that that men and women attach to them. Arturo knows that his actions are not excusable, but they are credible in that they are determined by his sense of duty. In his mind, his duty towards his queen must take precedence over any personal consideration - there's no other choice he could have made. Seen in that light, Elvira's response to the masculine view towards duty and honour over private sentiments - the jilted woman disintegrating into full-blown insanity - would seem to be a bit of an over-reaction.

It's vital however to see things from Elvira's perspective. She doesn't know it was Queen Henrietta that Arturo has rescued, but even if she did know, the fact is not really relevant. She's not experiencing events in a political or historical context, but from an emotional one. In her mind, her husband-to-be, the man she loves deeply, has absconded with another woman, a woman who - in the ultimate betrayal - he has helped escape using her wedding veil. The historical background and fact that it is the Queen is relevant only to the audience in terms of scaling the enormity of this betrayal to Elvira's mindset. With the stakes set so high, it's not surprising that she goes mad.

The trick to making such a drama work is to completely draw the audience into that mindset. Bellini is able to score the work to elicit the necessary emotions and go some way to making it credible, but it must work on the stage as well. That means that you need an exceptional singer for Elvira - who is the primary focus and emotional barometer for the work - but you also need it to work in complete conjunction with a sympathetic musical interpretation and good stage direction. You can see that the cast are fully behind those personal dramas. They never appear to be larger-than-life historical figures, but creatures of delicate sensibilities and a firm sense of duty for what is right. It might not tell us much about the period, but it tells us a lot about the depth of human feeling. That's all there in Bellini's musical expression.

The stage itself them doesn't get bogged down in unnecessary historical accuracy either. Simply dressed, mostly dark, with only a few bold touches - huge beheaded statues - Heinz Balthes' sets speak of the conflict and give a sense of the scale that I Puritani works on. Bold colouration - usually associated with Elvira - is used to similar effect, while Olga Peretyatko, appears in the midst of all this in her white wedding dress a vision of perfection. That perfection becomes swallowed up in what is the only real expressionistic gesture in the stage direction. Evidently, that's during the 'mad scene' at the end of Act I, when Elvira's sense of order falls apart and she is caught up in a swirl of violent emotions.

The appropriateness of the stage direction and its ability to follow the mood becomes even more evident in Act II. There's no attempt to force the message home either in the stage direction or in the management of the orchestra. It takes its time and settles into the moment, letting it all just sink in. Sir George's description of the poor mad Elvira is just beautiful; sensitive to her plight, distraught at the cause of it (Arturo), highlighting in its own way the different male and female responses to the events that have occurred. Nothing significant happens in Act II, but between them Giorgio, Riccardo and Elvira make it really feel like it is the heart of the piece, which is what it ought to be.

As good as all this is, what really elevates the production and convincingly takes you into the heart of Elvira's dilemma and madness, is the outstanding performance of Olga Peretyatko. Peretyatko really is up there among the best in the world in some of the most challenging roles in the bel canto repertoire at the moment. Her delivery is confident but sensitive throughout. In the critical mad scene - where you really have to feel Elvira's predicament and her reaction is justified - she is not just technically accomplished to the highest level in her ornamentaion, but retains a wonderful lyricism in that lovely songbird quality that Peretyatko posesses in her voice. Demonstrating incredible control, she never overstretches or tips her performance over into full-blown hysteria.

Peretyatko's comanding central performance is, as demonstrated in Act II, well matched with solid and sensitive performances from Jongmin Park as Sir Giorgio and Carlos Álvarez as Sir Riccardo Forth. John Tessier is a little less steady as Arturo, but he has a bright timbre that is well-suited to the role, even if the high notes are a little beyond his range. It is an extremely difficult role, and not a sympathetic one, but Tessier does well to make his position credible. With such strong casting, good direction by John Dew, and the musical performance in the very capable hands of Marco Armiliato, the Vienna State Opera's production of I Puritani might not have been much of a history lesson, but it was a masterclass of Italian bel canto.

Links: Wiener Staatsoper Live Streaming programme; Staatsoper Live at Home video

Verdi - Don Carlo (Vienna, 2015 - Webcast)

Giuseppe Verdi - Don Carlo

Wiener Staatsoper, 2015

Marco Armiliato, Daniele Abbado, Ferruccio Furlanetto, Stefano Secco, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Maria Pia Piscitelli, Béatrice Uria-Monzon, Eric Halfvarson, Ryan Speedo Green, Margaret Plummer, Jinxu Xiahou, Simina Ivan

Wiener Staatsoper Live at Home - 25 February 2015
 
There's not really any room for half-measures in Verdi's Don Carlo. You're already at a disadvantage when you produce the 4-Act Italian version, losing the whole of the First Act love story at Fontainebleau, which means you have to gain emotional involvement for Don Carlo's romantic inclinations for his step-mother via other means. Verdi's terrific writing and characterisation goes some way to making this work, but it needs very strong singers indeed for both Carlo and Elisabeth to get it fully across. Vienna's 2015 revival of Daniele Abbado's production has that, and even more besides on the singing front. Unfortunately, it's somewhat lacking on the set design and stage direction, and in a work of total opera like Don Carlo, a weakness in any area can undermine the whole.

The fact that this doesn't prove to be the case in Vienna is a testament to just how good the singing and musical performances are here. That's no mean feat in Don Carlo, which has any number of critical roles, each of them with complex personalities that show different sides of that personality depending on the person that they are with at any given time. It doesn't just place demands on individuals, it requires them to interact well in the various relationships and situations with the others around them. Being a father to Carlo, King Philip II shows a different side of his personality from the one that he shows to Elisabeth as a husband, and a different one again from how he interacts with the Grand Inquisitor. As you might expect. It's how those other people relate to the king in those situations depends in turn on their relationships with each other, and that creates a complex web of conflicts between public and private faces, between love and friendship, when those boundaries become blurred by situation and circumstance. This is where the real drama of Don Carlo lies, and Verdi's remarkable writing lays them bare.

In theory then, the decoration of the set should really be neither here nor there. If you can get across the multi-faceted nature of the situations and the characters, and have singers of sufficient skill and experience to do that, you would think that would be enough for Don Carlo. It isn't nearly enough. Usually. A simple stripped-back set might work well for Simon Boccanegra, as in Vienna's recent production (although, as here, it also had the secret weapon of Ferruccio Furlanetto alongside the incomparible Leo Nucci), but the stage direction there was a lot more subtle than it appeared. Don Carlo however is not a work that benefits from a less-is-more approach. Even in its lesser 4-Act version, it's still grand opera, and it should be grand on every level. That doesn't preclude subtlety, but bold flourishes are required in the characterisation as much as in the setting.

The first half of Daniele Abbado's production for Vienna fails to hit those big dramatic points, for all the fine efforts of the cast. The first two acts are very much about the public face, opening with religious rites and funeral, with the added flourish of the ghostly 'Friar' who turns out to be the spirit of Charles V. There are big royal ceremonies, proud displays of friendship and loyalty, stirrings of rebellion and even a showpiece auto-da-fé scene, all of which should give the impression of great political, regal and religious forces. If nothing else, the grandeur of the first half should at least provide a strong contrast to show the more human side in the second half, where personal weaknesses and conflicting interests and murmurs of rebellion cause huge fractures that threaten to expose the weaknesses of those institutions and bring down the whole delicately woven fabric of Philip's reign.

There's very little that impresses about the set in Act I and Act II. It is literally a box, with a bare wooden stage floor and unadorned walls, with no doors, just panels that open to let people in. Occasionally, we get a sense of location, with a skylight opening up, with a slight variation in colouration or lighting that suggests an exterior, but mostly it's a bare stage and basic lighting. Free movement is restricted somewhat by three cables that one presumes will lift to create a new scene at some point. They do so most effectively to create Carlo's prison in the second scene of Act III, but it's a bit much to have them impinge upon the rest of the set for such a short if nonetheless important scene. Most disappointing of all, the auto-da-fé scene falls well short of being impressive, a few figured dropped down onto the floor while a bale is lit behind them. Seen from a lower angle than the camera adopts, it might have been more effective, but probably not much more...

The singing, at the very least, rises superbly to the demands of Verdi's remarkable score, and in one or two cases is even great. I'm referring evidently to Ferrucio Furlanetto, who has performed as Philip in Don Carlo many times, and there are few who can compete with him. The tone and timbre is still wonderful, his control and delivery is impeccable, but more than just technically good or even just consummately professional, he brings real artistry and personality to the character. Eric Halfvarson's Grand Inquisitor is also excellent, and, following on from a great 'Ella giammai m'amo' where the king expresses his private griefs and fears, the duet/duel between these two great forces of Church and State at the start of Act III becomes a real tussle of wills that sets the tone for what is to follow.

If the first half felt weak and let down by the staging, this kind of opening really galvanises the second half, and it doesn't look back. Marco Armiliato manages to raise the orchestra up to a new level along with the dramatic developments, and one or two of the other performers seem to pick up their game as well. And, with Verdi's simply astonishing management of the developing situations, they really need to. Most impressive is Dmitri Hvorostovsky, who gives a typically earnest and intense performance that is exactly what is required for Rodrigo. The challenging role of Elisabeth is handled extremely well by Maria Pia Piscitelli, who gives it dramatic force as well as dealing with the tough singing requirements. Béatrice Uria-Monzon is also a charged Princess Eboli, again perfectly in line with the tone of the work and the strong presentation here.

Don Carlo has a tough time living up to the title role in the opera alongside such personalities, and if Stefano Secco isn't quite up to the same level, he still sings it with unfailing Verdian lyricism across the whole four acts. Carlo is pretty much a constant throughout the opera and, as such, his interaction with each of the other characters is vital to the success of the whole. With Marco Armiliato drawing all that together musically in the second half, and with each of the other characters at full drive, the nature of the interaction and its significance all falls into place to impressive effect. The balance of internal conflict and interaction with the external situation in the second half takes on a force of its own independent from the direction, or at least rendering its weaknesses less of an issue as the opera makes its way to its chilling conclusion.

The Vienna State Opera's Live in HD programme continues in March with live Internet broadcasts of Halévy's LA JUIVE, Bellini's I PURITANI, Massenet's WERTHER, Verdi's LA TRAVIATA and AIDA.  Details on these productions and how to view them can be found in the links below:

Links: Wiener Staatsoper Live Streaming programme; Staatsoper Live at Home video

Donizetti - Anna Bolena

Gaetano Donizetti - Anna Bolena

Metropolitan Opera, 2011

Marco Armiliato, David McVicar, Anna Netrebko, Ekaterina Gubanova, Ildar Abdrazakov, Keith Miller, Stephen Costello, Eduardo Valdes, Tamara Mumford

Sky Arts, The Met Live in HD - Oct 15th 2011

The Metropolitan Opera in New York chose the first of Donizetti's Tudor trilogy of operas, Anna Bolena, to open its 2011-12 season and also be the first of its Live in HD broadcasts for the season.  With David McVicar now also directing Donizetto's second Tudor opera Maria Stuarda for the 2012-13 season (broadcast this weekend Live in HD), and presumably in line to complete the trilogy with Roberto Devereux next season, it seemed a good point to catch up with the earlier production since it is currently available for viewing on the Sky Arts channel in the UK.

Moreso than the other two works in Donizetti's Tudor trilogy, and indeed unlike most bel canto historical period dramas - Lucrezia Borgia and I Puritani, for example - Anna Bolena is a work that uses its history as rather more than just a colourful backdrop for the usual romantic intrigues leading to betrayal and despair.  Those elements are certainly a part of what makes the story of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII, human and relatable, but Donizetti's work also takes into consideration the wider historical perspective and nature of the characters - particularly in what is revealed about Henry from his earlier marriage to Catherine of Aragon.  It also takes into account the vast historical impact and the constitutional crisis that his desire to dissolve his marriage to Anne Boleyn would have on the English nation.

The first Act of Donizetti's opera, opening in the oppressive atmosphere of the court of Greenwich Castle, establishes the context exceptionally well. Courtiers mill around, wary of the evident problems in the royal marriage that hasn't borne Henry a male heir, while Anne looks troubled, feels isolated, her thoughts dark and gloomy.  Even her Smeaton's love-song ballad - the pageboy in love with the Queen himself - only reminds Anne of the way love can go wrong.  Yet, she still can't sense the guilt that is weighing upon Jane Seymour, or the seriousness of the threat that is posed by her lady-in-waiting's affair with the King.  Henry promises Jane "a husband, a sceptre, a throne", but for Jane her personal sense of shame can only be alleviated by the legitimacy of marriage and that will come at a price.  In order to break with Anne, Henry recalls the exiled Richard Percy, believing he can find justification in Percy's prior relationship with Anne Boleyn to annul the marriage, but the unexpected presence of the love-struck Smeaton in Anne's bedchamber gives Henry the opportunity to go even further.

The dilemma is laid out very clearly in Felice Romano's libretto, but even more so in Donizetti's brooding score which captures all of the drama and the dark foreboding of what lies ahead.  That needs to come across in the setting as well as in the music and the singing performances, and by and large David McVicar's production manages to get to the heart of those sentiments.  It's resolutely period in setting and somewhat stiffly arranged, the sets amounting to nothing more really than walls and doors - big doors, mind you - but this is an opera that works as a piece, a work driven by the dramatic flow rather than adhering to the standard bel canto number format, and the director manages to maintain a consistency of tone and purpose, allowing room for manoeuvre and expression over and beyond the words in the singing and in the coloratura of the singing.  And for that you need exceptional singing talent.

The singing here, while very good across all the roles and showing no fatal weaknesses, was however not what you'd call exceptional.  Ekaterina Gubanova perhaps comes across best as Jane Seymour, singing well and with feeling, making you really care about her character's predicament and even pitying her not only for being in love with a nasty figure like Henry, but for having to admit it to Anne.  She is very convincing in her dilemma, and her confession scene with Anna Netrebko's Anna is consequently one of the best scenes in this production.  Evidently however, all eyes are on Netrebko, but for the most part she is curiously stiff and even strangely vacuous, never delivering a performance as good as the one she delivered in this role in Vienna only a few months earlier (available on Blu-ray and DVD).  When it's needed however, she really gets her voice behind the extreme emotions and anguish of Anna Boleyn, if not always finding the variety of expression required in the coloratura, and even on occasion sounding a little hoarse on the high notes.  Often it just sounds forced and operatically mannered, which is not something I've heard before in Netrebko's usually more expressive and considered delivery.

Bearing the weight of history and a role that could so easily be simplified into an operatic 'baddie', it's tough to bring any kind of degree of humanity and realism to the role of Henry.  Donizetti and Romani recognise however that there is a man behind the crown ("May Henry be kind, even if the King is cruel") and they rather brilliantly capture that in the music and the libretto.  It's particularly relevant in scene when Henry realises that Boleyn was "Percy's wife. Before Henry" and in his subsequent scene with Jane Seymour that seals Anne's fate, the whole sequence epitomising and encapsulating Henry's attitude, his male pride, his kingly pride and the realisation that he can use that information and privileged position to his advantage.  These are crucial scenes to the work where a singer has to make Henry's dangerous authority and his ability to command a situation clear.  Donizetti certainly nails it in the music, and fortunately so does Ildar Abdrazakov in the singing here.

Stephen Costello doesn't have the most melodic tone as Percy, but is firm and steady and his singing is not without considerable feeling for the role. The importance of Mark Smeaton shouldn't be underestimated in this opera and fortunately it was well-cast with Tamara Mumford in the trouser role, and the part was well-directed by David McVicar. There's a sense of the bloody reality of Henry's reign brought home in Smeaton's confession under torture, McVicar bringing a certain realism that emphasises the horror of the situation and the brutality of the period. That's balanced however with a rather more delicate touch in the symbolic fall of a blood red curtain at the execution scene. It's the little touches that often count with McVicar and he brought them to bear effectively where they were most needed in a work that elsewhere didn't quite have the urgency of the Vienna production.

Verdi - Rigoletto

Giuseppe Verdi - Rigoletto

Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich, 2012

Marco Armiliato, Árpád Schilling, Joseph Calleja, Franco Vassallo, Patricia Petibon, Dimitry Ivashchenko, Nadia Krasteva, Tim Kuypers, Dean Power, Christian Rieger

Live Internet Streaming, 30 December 2012

Despite appearances, with a production that made use of some eccentric touches in each of the scenes, the Bayerische Staatsoper production of Verdi's Rigoletto didn't really seem to have anything new or even meaningful to add to a popular and brilliant work from the composer that will surely have more memorable outings in the year of his bicentenary.  Better sung ones too, undoubtedly, but that might have been a problem with the failure of director Árpád Schilling to give the fine singers here any meaningful characterisation and direction to work with.

There's little doubt about where the focus of interest in the opera is from Verdi's perspective.  It's not about the King's or, in this case, the Duke's amusements (the work derived from Victor Hugo's 'Le Roi s'amuse'), as much as the dilemma of the little man, Rigoletto, his court jester, who is caught up in the intrigues and less capable of dealing with the fall-out that results from the Duke of Mantua's wilder and more licentious activities.  What's intriguing about the work is how Rigoletto is not entirely a sympathetic figure (and the Duke is not entirely without some redeemable features either), and that he is in many ways the agent of his own downfall - even though he can't see that as being anything more than the curse of one courtier, Count Monterone, whose daughter has been seduced by the Duke.

That much is retained in Schilling's version for Munich, and it would be hard to present Rigoletto in any other way, such is the precision of Verdi's structuring of the work and his purposeful musical arrangements, the opera driven by a series of duets that establish the characterisation and the relationships between each of the figures.  Rigoletto is indeed shown - perhaps through no fault of his own having been born a hunchback and otherwise unable to attain love and acceptance through ordinary means - to be a lapdog to the Duke of Mantua, complicit in his schemes, believing himself secure in his favoured position.  He's not completely naive however.  He knows the true nature of the Duke and looks to protect his own little idealised existence - his daughter - from the kind of corruption that he himself is party to.  Rigoletto is "an amoral petty bourgeois man" according to Schilling, "who dreams of innocence", and who in the end is destroyed by his own attempts to defend this untenable position.

That's fine as far as it goes, and if it doesn't present any new ideas on the nature of Rigoletto, it at least adheres to Verdi's dramatic and musically astute depiction of this intriguing figure.  There's no necessity either for Rigoletto to be dressed as a court jester or bear his deformity in order to draw his character - Verdi has it so well written in his musical arrangements.  If the costume designer chooses to dress him in a shirt, chinos and a neckscarf, changing to a white bow-tie, top-hat and tails for the final scene, that's just as fine a way of distinguishing his social aspirations.  And if the Duke slums around in slacks, a chunky cardigan and vest shirt, and Gilda wears a jumper and jeans or a bathrobe, well, it doesn't look like much, but Rigoletto need not be as much about class and clothes as personality and love.  And since Gilda loves Gualtier Malde whether he is a poor student or a nobleman, there's no need here for lavish period costumes.

It still doesn't look like much.  What passes for distinctiveness in the production in the absence of any social or period context however is unfortunately rather odd.  In Act 1, the court of the Duke is represented by a stepped platform, a viewing gallery from which the courtiers watch the proceedings.  In the second scene, the assassin Sparafucile's weapon isn't a sword, but a wheelchair with oversize wheels - or more precisely, a flick-knife and a tin of black paint that he uses on his victims having lured them to sit in the strange wheeled apparatus.  A huge statue of a rearing horse is wheeled out briefly as the climax to Act 2 for no apparent reason or significance, and Act 3 brings back the steps for the inn scene.  It's all very representational - if the meaning isn't entirely clear - but it doesn't unfortunately create the necessary impression.

In such a context, neither unfortunately does the singing.  Joseph Calleja sings well enough, but his Duke lacks regal arrogance and boyish charm and there's a curious lack of feeling in his delivery.  There's a little more urgency to Franco Vassallo's Rigoletto and Patricia Petibon's rather more sympathetic Gilda, but the direction never allows them to express the roles with any sense of feeling for the drama.  One other curious touch in the casting that might have significance is the duality or contrast made by casting Dimitry Ivashchenko as both Monterone and Sparafucile and having Nadia Krasteva play Maddalena and Gilda's maidservant Giovanna - but again, what this adds exactly to the work remains elusive.  Still, despite the best efforts of the production design and direction to undermine it, the Bavarian State Opera production of Rigoletto benefitted from reasonably good singing performances, and ultimately won through by virtue alone of the wonder of Verdi's score and its performance by the Munich orchestra under Marco Armiliato.

Rigoletto was viewed via live Internet Streaming from the Bayerische Staatsoper.TV website.  The next free live broadcast will be Janáček's Jenufa starring Karita Mattila on 9th March 2012.

Donizetti - Linda di Chamounix

Gaetano Donizetti - Linda di Chamounix

Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona 2012

Marco Armiliato, Emilio Sagi, Diana Damrau, Juan Diego Flórez, Bruno de Simone, Simón Orfila, Pietro Spagnoli, Silvia Tro Santafé, Jordi Casanova, María José Suárez, Mariola Cantarero, Ismaël Jordi, Paolo Bordogna, Mirco Palazzi, Ketevan Kemoklidze, Fabio Capitanucci

7 and 8 January 2012

As an example of the semiseria opera tradition, where tragedy ensues but everything nonetheless works through to a happy end, the plot of Donizetti’s Linda di Chamounix shares a familiar plot line that is more than a little overwrought and even in parts ridiculous. Like Halévy’s semiseria Clari, recently rediscovered and revived (not entirely convincingly) by Cecilia Bartoli, it involves a young woman from the country, an Alpine virgin, who runs away to Paris on the promise of marriage to a rich man and in the process not only risks destroying the good name of her family but also losing her virtue and losing her mind when her fiancée seems to be unable to or is prevented from making an honest woman out of her.

In Haléy’s opera - written for the soprano Maria Malibran - this is an occasion then for long-winded opera-seria like virtuoso bel canto singing with extravagant coloratura to suggest the depths of despair, torment and eventual breakdown its heroine endures, as well as emphasising the importance of virtue in a manner that seems terribly old-fashioned by today’s standards and scarcely worthy of revival. Also rarely performed nowadays, Donizetti’s Linda di Chamounix is similarly encumbered by stern moralising, but the challenges of producing it lie more in the difficulty of finding bel canto singers capable of meeting its comparatively modest, but no less demanding singing roles. This new production from Emilio Sagi for the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona with Diana Damrau and Juan Diego Flórez in the main roles of Linda and Carlo, demonstrated the importance of the casting for this opera, one that is vital for it to work even half way convincingly.

Making this overall plot work is quite a challenge, but set-up in Act 1 at least is conventional enough. Linda is a pure and beautiful young country girl, the daughter of tenant farmers in the Alpine Savoy region of France in 1760. She is being pursued by the landowner, the Marquis de Boisfleury, a notorious libertine and seducer of young girls, who believes he has some claim to her, having extended her family’s lease on their factory. Warned of the intentions of Boisfleury by the Prefect, her father sends her away to Paris, entrusting her to her childhood friend Pierotto, but it means that Linda has to leave behind her true love, Carlo. Carlo, who has been keeping his identity secret, is the nephew of the Marquis de Boisfleury, promises “before God and man” that he will make Linda his wife, but his mother has other ideas and a more suitable match for the young viscount than a poor country girl.

Many of the difficulties with swallowing the dramatic developments occur in Act 2, where Linda, having been reduced to singing in the streets after Pierotto had fallen ill, has now been rescued by Carlo and installed in a luxurious Parisian apartment. By amazing coincidence, over the course it seems of an hour, she is joyously reunited with Pierotto; is then visited by the Marquis who suspects she is living in such surroundings on the expense of a rich admirer and believes it gives him freedom to make another play for her; is visited by Carlo who is concerned about the upcoming marriage that has been arranged for him; is then petitioned by her father who, when he discovers that the viscount’s mistress is none other than his daughter Linda, furiously repudiates her. To top it all, Pierotto returns to tell Linda that he has seen the preparations for Carlo’s marriage to another woman. Having endued all this, Linda, inevitably, and in the great opera tradition, goes mad.

The plot might sound outlandish and governed by extraordinarily unlikely coincidences, but Act 2 nonetheless manages to present the different facets of Linda’s situation with economical precision. Really, you couldn’t make the complications of Linda’s predicament any clearer. What helps matters and makes the contrivances rather more palatable, is of course the wonderful musical arrangements and the singing. Musically, Linda di Chamounix, coming several years after Lucia di Lammermoor and preceding the masterful Don Pasquale, is a rather more sophisticated affair than earlier Donizetti works. Characters are defined and identified by leitmotifs and the composer’s use of duets allows the dramatic flow to be maintained without the excesses of emotion expression in long arias. Even Linda’s ‘mad scene’ is a rather more restrained affair than the one in Lucia di Lammermoor, and so well orchestrated are the events that lead up to it, and so precise in delivery and expression is the scene, that it’s actually even more moving and tragic without all the excess.

While there may be few and shorter showcase arias than is customary, those that we have are demanding nonetheless and, when delivered by a singer of exceptional quality, certainly have their dramatic and emotional impact and linger in the mind, as much through the fine melodies of the mature Donizetti style as through the sentiments expressed in them and what they reveal about the characters. Diana Damrau’s mad scene consequently received long and enthusiastic applause at the Liceu, as did Juan Diego Flórez’s confidently delivered ‘Se tanto in ira agli uomini‘ in Act 2. Their expression of the characters in this difficult Act 2 was such that Act 3’s happy resolution of Linda being cured from the madness that has afflicted her by the refrain of Carlo’s promise, is capable of being musically satisfying as well as dramatically convincing. In the other roles, Simón Orfila had powerful presence and authority as the religious and moral guide, the Prefect, while Pietro Spagnoli was fine as Linda’s father Antonio.

The difference that this makes was evident from a viewing of another performance of the same production the previous evening with an alternate cast. Surprisingly however, the difference wasn’t exclusively down to the vocal characteristics alone. Both Mariola Cantarero and Ismael Jordi sang well - Jordi in particular fully deserving of the applause received for a fine performance that was a worthy alternative to Flórez, if Cantarero didn’t have quite the beauty of tone or range of Damrau, particularly when it came to holding that high note at the end of the mad scene. There was however a marked difference embodied in their characters, Damrau and Flórez a much more convincing couple who were able to breathe life into the characters that was lacking in the performance of the alternate cast. Mirco Palazzi was a good Prefect here, if not quite as powerful as Simón Orfilia, but I preferred Ketevan Kemoklidze’s Pierotto of the alternate cast over Silvia Tro Santafé, who has a pretty voice but irritatingly sang every note with vibrato. Fabio Capitanucci also made a stronger impression as Antonio, particularly in his duets with Linda and with the Prefect. Paolo Bordogna played the role of the Marquis de Boisfleury with a little more of a comic touch that seems right for the character, but Bruno de Simone’s Boisfleury fitted in better with the more sensitive touch of the Damrau/Florez pairing.

Emilio Sagi’s staging was perfectly in service of the opera without being overly conceptual or too literal. The nature of the Alpine Savoy region was evoked in clean, pure, classical lines, the inhabitants all dressed in white and far more fashionably and expensively than one would expect tenant farmers of a provincial region - but the outer garments were perhaps more of a representation of the inner nature of the characters. The same sense of classical design of Act 2 likewise reflected Linda’s inner purity, even when to outside eyes she appears to be an immoral kept woman in an expensive Parisian apartment. Marco Armiliato directed the orchestra of the Liceu delicately through Donizetti’s score, like the singers and in line with the restrained musical arrangements, maintaining a fine balance that held back any heavy-handed over-emphasis that might tip the work over into sentimental melodrama.