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Seen and Heard International, July 11, 2013 |
José Mª Irurzun |
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Verdi: Il trovatore, Bayerische Staatsoper,
8. Juli 2013
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Highlight of Il Trovatore: Jonas Kaufmann Honored in Munich
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The July Opera Festival in Munich is a must on my calendar: I consider it to
be the most important in the world. I know there are other festivals with
more glamour or more mystique, but none today offer so many attractions for
the opera lover, in terms both of quantity and quality. This year, I moved
up my trip to Munich to catch the last performance of Il Trovatore. The
production, which featured Jonas Kaufmann and Anja Harteros in the cast, was
one of the most important events in the operatic year. The two singers could
be considered house singers of the Bayerische Staatsoper.
The
performance was a success and reached an emotional peak in what one might
call its coda. At the end, Nikolaus Bachler, general director of the
theatre, and Dr. Wolfgang Heubisch, State Minister of Science and Culture,
took the stage to pay tribute to Jonas Kaufmann. They awarded him the title
of Kammersänger of Munich for his very special relationship with the
theatre, and in appreciation of the fact that on 3 July Mr. Kaufmann
replaced the indisposed Klaus Florian Vogt as Lohengrin in between
performances of Trovatore. Kaufmann was clearly moved by the homage, and the
public showed their admiration and love.
On this special occasion,
the Bayerische Staatsoper offered a new production of Il Trovatore, which
bears the signature of Olivier Py. His works never go unnoticed and are
always controversial but, to tell the truth, I did not like the production.
Py brought the action into modern times, and he was respectful of the
libretto and the music while trying to make a complicated plot intelligible.
He put some new characters on stage, notably Azucena’s mother and a woman
giving birth to one of the brothers. Leonora was cast as a blind woman,
presumably to help explain her confusion with the two brothers in Act I. But
in his eagerness to bring clarity, Py introduced an excess of action into
the production. A director should be careful about movement on stage when
the performers are singing arias to avoid distracting the audience, but
unfortunately, Mr. Py did the opposite again and again. To this was added
the almost continuous movement of a revolving stage, and the end result was
rather disappointing. As is common in other Py productions, there was some
gratuitous nudity, starting with Azucena’s mother.
Paolo Carignani
offered a good reading of the score, supporting the singers who were always
perfectly audible in the theatre. It was a remarkable performance from a
conductor who knows what his role should be in this kind of opera. It is a
pleasure to be in this house, where both the Bayerische Staatsorchester and
the Bayerische Staatsoper Choir are excellent.
Jonas Kaufmann was
Manrico, and he is the most important tenor in this role today. His voice is
perfectly suited to Manrico, with a dark timbre and superb vocal technique.
The aria Ah, si ben mio was excellent without abusing the piani. In the
subsequent cabaletta – the more than famous Pira – he was somewhat short of
breath at the end, taking the note in two parts which made it less
spectacular (Anmerkung: wie soll das denn anders funktionieren, das Wort
"armi" hat nun einmal zwei Silben). I dare say the pitch was down, and
that the final note was a high B.
For me the best performance came
from Anja Harteros as the blind Leonora. Her voice is beautiful, dark,
uniform. Her D’Amor sull’ali rosee was worthy of inclusion in any anthology
of Verdi interpretations. However, she seems to be less comfortable at the
very top, and the cabalettas were not as brilliant as one would wish.
Elena Manistina was well-suited to Azucena. I didn’t find her
particularly exciting, but she is a powerful singer. In my opinion, the
casting wasn’t ideal as she looked more like Manrico’s sister than his
mother.
Russian baritone Alexey Markov did not convince me as Count
de Luna. His voice has an attractive color and great consistency, but his
timbre is rather ingolato and his singing is quite monotonous and short of
nuance.
In the part of Ferrando, Kwanchul Youn was a luxury that only
the most important opera houses can afford, but he had an annoying vibrato
during the first act.
The theater was sold out. The audience was
warm, and during the performance the biggest ovation was for the
above-mentioned aria by Leonora, D’amor sull’ali rosee. The final applause
lasted 19 minutes, including four minutes of homage to Kaufmann.
Undoubtedly, after being named Kammersänger, the night belonged to him, but
he would never take a solo bow. He always took Anja Harteros with him, in a
gesture of genuine camaraderie that few artists would evince on a similar
occasion. If the theater has given him the title of Kammersänger, I give him
that of Kammergentleman. |
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