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The Telegraph, 05 May 2013 |
By Rupert Christiansen |
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Verdi: Don Carlo, Royal Opera House London, 4. Mai 2013 |
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Don Carlo, Royal Opera House, review ****
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Rupert Christiansen applauds a magnificently realised production of Verdi's Don Carlo. |
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Foto: Gloriously expressive: Jonas Kaufmann in the title
role of 'Don Carlo' Photo: Alastair Muir |
This
was one of those rare and blissful evenings in an opera house when the full
nobility of Verdi’s mature genius was communicated by voices adequate to its
beauties, depths and demands. I am still reeling from the impact.
In the title-role, Jonas Kaufmann took a little time to warm up: the
wistful intimacy of Io lo vidi doesn’t come easy to him. But he soon found
his stride, producing a flood of gloriously expressive and shapely singing
alongside a sympathetic characterization of a troubled and volatile young
man.
His Elisabetta was Anja Harteros - a match made in
heaven, both vocally and visually. Nobody since Caballé in her prime can
have sung this music with such rapturous, full-blooded confidence as she
does: there was something generous, expansive, luminous about every phrase
of Tu che le vanità and the three duets with Carlo conjured up worlds of
complex feeling.
In comparison Mariusz Kwieicień’s Posa seemed a bit
flatly standard-issue - a very fine voice, but where’s the personality to
animate it? - until in Act IV he moved into a higher gear for a stunning
death scene which earned him the evening’s biggest ovation. As his
antagonist Filippo, Ferruccio Furlanetto radiated desperate trapped humanity
rather than despotic savagery: his lament for loveless loneliness, sung with
impeccable legato, was heart-rending.
There were a couple of minor
disappointments further down the ranks. The much-admired French mezzo
Béatrice Uria-Monzon replaced an ailing Christine Rice to make a belated
Covent Garden debut as Eboli. Alas, she fluffed the ululations of the Veil
Song and didn’t make much impact in O don fatale. Eric Halfvarson, normally
so sterling, was audibly suffering from the after–effects of a throat
infection as the Grand Inquisitor. The chorus, however, was tremendous.
Pappano conducted with absolute conviction - this is music he has in his
bones. I only wish that he had opted for an early French rather than a late
Italian edition of the score: too many marvellously potent and enriching
pages are sacrificed thereby, with concision the only significant gain.
I will never be altogether reconciled to Nicholas Hytner’s production,
which is marred by some hideous designs by Bob Crowley and an auto-da-fé
scene so bizarrely tasteless as to teeter into the realms of Monty Python.
Yet this scarcely mattered: for the chance to experience such music so
magnificently realised one can only be abjectly grateful.
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