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The Guardian/The Observer, 30 Mar 2019 |
Fiona Maddocks |
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Verdi: La forza del destino, London, ab 21. März 2019 |
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The week in classical: La forza del destino
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Netrebko and Kaufmann turn tricky Verdi into box-office gold.
For a few hours the UK was the envy of the world. Incredible but true, at
least for the musically interested. The combined forces of a fated opera,
two superstars and pairs of tickets changing hands illegally for the price
of a small car would stir excitement in any circumstance. Verdi’s La forza
del destino is in itself an event: complex, bumpy, long; an exploration of
war, prejudice and religion streaked with bizarre comedy, laced with
superstition, glistering with orchestral brilliance and vocal challenge.
Recalled through the theatrics of the past week, that first night of the
Royal Opera’s new Forza takes on the air of a febrile mirage, with opera’s
most prized pair – the Russian soprano Anna Netrebko and German tenor Jonas
Kaufmann – rising from the haze like surreal visions. Both showed up and
sang in peak, corporeal form, Netrebko her first Leonora, Kaufmann as her
lover Don Alvaro, a role he sang in Munich seven years ago.
These
sorts of rare unions – the two last sang together at the Royal Opera House
in 2008 – depend significantly on the persuasive powers of the ROH’s music
director, Antonio Pappano, who handles singers, novices or established elite
alike, with celebrated horse-whisperer skill. He also has Verdi in his soul,
keeping tight reins on pacing and structure. I doubt he wanted to allow all
those disruptive pauses between big arias, but there was no escape: this
audience whooped and cheered every aria long before the last notes sounded.
For Netrebko, dramatic integrity, a mesmerising aural imagination and,
now, a new, pliant, rich lower register, are of the essence, sometimes at
the expense of pinpoint accuracy. She holds the stage every second she’s on
it. Alas, the role means she’s often off it, especially after Alvaro kills
her father by mistake, a whoops moment with terrible consequences. Kaufmann,
with reason often called “baritonal”, has a tenebrous quality, coping easily
with high notes but in full bloom lower in the voice. He has a nice line in
self-flagellation, punching himself, the air, the floor, in despair. Leonora
and Alvaro are wretched people.
Meriting the same top billing as
Kaufmann and Netrebko, the French baritone Ludovic Tézier brought
extraordinary, sour magnificence to the role of Leonora’s vengeful brother.
The rest of this cast (there’s a second cast, also strong) was full of
glories. Two seasoned Italians – the bass Ferruccio Furlanetto as the
creepily glossy Padre Guardiano and baritone Alessandro Corbelli as his
comical sidekick, Fra Melitone – added lustre, as did the British bass
Robert Lloyd and the youthful Scottish-Iranian bass-baritone Michael
Mofidian, one late in his career, the other a Jette Parker Young Artist.
Written at the height of Verdi’s career, between Don Carlo and Aida, La
forza requires a chorus that, if the work is performed without the crude
cuts too often imposed, pulls hard with its own picaresque tale of social
hardship and battle weariness. The scenes with the Gypsy Preziosilla
(Veronica Simeoni), here unaccountably a belly dancer, sit uneasily but are
key to the work’s scope and balance. The ROH forces shone, as did the
orchestra, complete with the lugubrious, low belch of the cimbasso.
Christof Loy’s unexciting production, premiered at the Dutch National Opera,
Amsterdam, in 2017, neither helped nor hindered their performance. It looked
effective (designer Christian Schmidt), moving fluidly through time and
place, but the action was prone to cliche: a multipurpose room and table;
random video projections; three cringing dumbshows in the overture. First
glimpse of that statue of the Virgin Mary and you knew Leonora would end up
as a Madonna. Sure enough, Netrebko, draped in blue, hair tumbling, looked
the part but it was mawkish. These are details. This was centre court opera
at its fiery best. See it in cinemas on 2 April (encore 7 April).
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