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The Times, July 11 2013 |
Neil Fisher |
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Verdi: Il trovatore, Bayerische Staatsoper,
Juni/Juli 2013
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Il trovatore at Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich
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Weep, British opera fans, that the new dream team in opera, soprano
Anja Harteros and tenor Jonas Kaufmann, lives in Munich. But rejoice that no
opera company on our island would dream of inflicting on us a production as
perverse as Olivier Py’s Il trovatore.
First, though, the
singing. No Verdi opera is easy to cast, but Trovatore is one of the most
fiendish. Kaufmann’s Manrico, the gypsy “troubadour” of the title, continued
to prove that he can carry off both Germanic heft and Italianate style. The
tenor’s husky voice is now undoubtedly weighted more towards the dramatic
than the lyrical, but he vaulted over all the vocal challenges, caressing
the grace notes of Ah si, ben mio, before swaggering through a
testosterone-infused Di Quella Pira. As ever with Kaufmann it is all done
with great musicality and theatrical insight.
Harteros (a much more
elusive presence outside Germany and Austria than Kaufmann) was a
spellbinding Leonora, spinning her powerful soprano through some gorgeously
limpid lines — meltingly ardent but fiery when roused to one of Verdi’s
scorching climaxes. It’s hard to imagine the role sung better. The Munich
audience demanded tenor and soprano back again and again for their curtain
calls.
The rest of the cast was strong, particularly Elena
Manistina’s feisty Azucena (though she’s far too young to act Kaufmann’s
mother) and Kwangchul Youn’s Ferrando. Alexey Markov boomed effectively as
Count di Luna. Paolo Carignani conducted lustily, favouring dramatic
momentum over orchestral detail.
So that leaves the men in pig masks,
the naked women and the blow-up sex dolls. There are fleeting moments in
Py’s folie de grandeur where he locates some of the diablerie implicit in
Verdi’s blood’n’guts drama. But any real insights are washed away in soggy
stagecraft and look-at-me posturing. Your chance to disagree in November,
when the production returns — with Kaufmann but without Harteros. The two
are reunited in December, however, for Verdi’s La forza del destino. |
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