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The Spectator, 26 September
2009 |
Michael Tanner |
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Don Carlo, Royal Opera House
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The Royal Opera has revived the 2008 production of Verdi’s Don Carlo, and
the performance was a considerable improvement on last year’s. That is
almost entirely due to the presence of Jonas Kaufmann in the title role, the
vastly improved form of Simon Keenlyside as Posa, and the broad, detailed
conducting of Semyon Bychkov. The production itself needs to be written
off as a dead loss. How can so gifted a director as Nicholas Hytner be
responsible for so inert an affair as this, in which every dramatic punch is
pulled, unnecessary and cheap effects are added, and Bob Crowley’s designs
are tolerated, in all their unatmospheric ineptitude? The one thing that can
be said for them is that one scene can follow another without a pause, and
that is something to be relieved about. A grid is lowered as scenes end,
suggesting that Spain is a prison or asylum, and when it rises one sees an
assortment of unevocative sets pitched somewhere between the diagrammatic
and the naturalistic. Ineptitudes abound, the worst being the scene where
Carlos mistakes Eboli for Elisabetta, an awkward moment but one which I have
only seen draw guffaws in this production. Yet against the odds, thanks to
the overwhelming power of Verdi’s grandest, deepest operatic score, and the
passionate participation of the male principals, and the sweep of the
magnificent orchestra, one is left with a series of scenes of cumulative
intensity, so that the last hour and a half draws the threads of the complex
drama together, and the impact survives even the wretched ending, one of
Verdi’s worst, and exacerbated here.
Jonas Kaufmann hasn’t endured the rigours of record-company hype, so his
greatness as an artist needs no filtering: he identifies with each role he
sings, and here he actually made Carlos into a rounded character, instead of
the cipher at the centre that he usually is. He also, in the last scene in
particular, treated us to some of the most sustained pianissimo tenor
singing I have ever heard, live or on disc. Even the wayward Marina
Poplavskaya, who had failed to deliver so many of Elisabetta’s crucial
phrases, rose to the occasion here. Kaufmann is one of those performers who
seem to inspire his colleagues to surpass themselves. Ferruccio Furlanetto
has a rough voice, but his understanding of Philip II is deep, and in his
scene with Posa in particular the drama came to electrifying life.
Keenlyside delivered a noble, even exalted performance. All that’s needed
now is a couple of female leads to match up to this impressive trio. |
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