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Arts hub, 11 Aug 2023 |
Paul Selar |
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Ponchielli: La Gioconda, Sydney, 9. und 12. August 2023
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La Gioconda in Concert, Sydney Opera House |
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Tenor Jonas Kaufmann was the drawcard but Spanish soprano Saioa Hernández
shone as the star of the evening, performing with magnetic and potent
artistry.
Interval fireworks on the Harbour, vocal fireworks on the
stage start to finish – Opera Australia’s (OA) premiere of Italian composer
Amilcare Ponchielli’s La Gioconda, in the first of two concert performances
at the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, seems to celebrate not only the
grand tradition of Italian 19th century opera, but the world class artistic
strength the House has attracted and nurtured across its 50 years.
Alongside a raft of acclaimed international singers, Australian excellence
combines to make Ponchielli’s curiously capricious work and outlandish plot
a monumental, adrenaline-pumping encounter.
Duplicity, revenge, lust
and murder pervade proceedings as part of the story’s 17th century Venetian
setting over four ostentatious acts. While high drama is no stranger,
dramatic excess rules.
La Gioconda, the “smiling” singer, is the
target of Venetian Inquisition spy Barnaba and his mix of evil and lust. La
Gioconda is in love with the exiled Genoese prince, Enzo. But Enzo and
Laura, the wife of Alvise, an Inquisition leader, are in love and no end of
odd twists and interventions will break their pledge to each other.
Arrigo Boito’s libretto just about suffocates itself along the way, to the
extent that by the time Act Three’s instantly recognisable balletic
interlude, Dance of the Hours, pleasures the senses, you may be left
wondering where exactly in the drama you are.
Ponchielli lavished
immense orchestral forces and an endless supply of mood shifts on a score
bursting with melting arias, duets and trios etc up to sumptuously written
swathes of music for large chorus. But the sum of all parts often struggles
to cohere – the structural deficiencies evident in the libretto feel more or
less magnified by the music.
Minus the trimmings of sets and
costumes, 17th century Venice’s enigma of revelry, decadence and fear
nonetheless bristles under the baton of conductor Pinchas Steinberg who
expertly juggles and ignites every turn while the OA Orchestra responds with
focused and dazzling musicianship.
Forestage, renowned German tenor
Jonas Kaufmann is the certain drawcard, but Spanish soprano Saioa Hernández
shines as the star of the evening, filling the title role with exceptionally
magnetic and potent artistry. With the task of challenging music to sing and
a perplexing soul to render, Hernández gives of herself generously,
impressing on every level and mastering a role on which the great Maria
Callas etched her name decades past.
When La Giaconda’s mentally
scarred and zig-zagging mind reach breaking point in Act Four’s knockout
aria, ‘Suicidio!’, Hernández’s power, sensitivity and effortless navigation
from bottom to top makes the moment so compelling that if Ponchielli was
really trying to convey one idea for his audience to take home, it is right
here – the question of how could a just God turn a troubled soul trapped in
the Christian sin of suicide away from Heaven? Hernández leaves one
awestruck.
When Kaufmann made an announcement four weeks back that he
would be cancelling two performances in France due to an infection and the
need to recuperate, the long journey south seemed a big call. He thankfully
made it, rewarding a near full house with his warm, reverberant and
charismatic tenor and adding a role debut to his list.
Calmly taking
up his position, the first explosive notes demonstrate the magnitude of his
instrument. Onwards, the breathtaking nuances, intelligent phrasing and
connection to the core of his character sheath his performance with wonder.
This is most pronounced as he takes the elasticity of the voice to the
finest threads in Act Two’s moving stand-alone aria, ‘Cielo e mar’, in which
Enzo longs for Laura’s arrival aboard his boat before their planned (but
thwarted) elopement.
Recently singing the role of Amneris with
remarkable fervour in OA’s Aida, Polish mezzo-soprano Agnieszka Rehlis draws
upon more tender and graceful shades as part of her refined but determined
and outspoken depiction of the noblewoman, Laura. Rehlis shines no matter
the combination of voices around her, including a highlight with Ukrainian
bass Vitalij Kowaljow in the role of Alvise when he demands she kill herself
after learning of her infidelity. Cruelty and sadism nestle comfortably in
Kowaljow’s commanding portrayal of Alvise, he making excellent use of his
rugged, roaring bass to pour forth chilling wrath in Act Three’s ‘Si, morir
ella de!…Ombre di mia prosapia’.
But it is Barnaba the Inquisition
spy who is the real villain of the opera, working with stealth to inflict
psychological damage for his own advantage and outstandingly sung by French
baritone Ludovic Tézier. For almost the entire first two acts, Tézier holds
the stage as the soloists breeze in and out to Warwick Doddrell’s
rudimentary but effective direction, and having the stamina well beyond Act
One’s revealing, monumental monologue, ‘O monumento!’ to make his depraved
presence known.
To get to La Gioconda, Barnaba ensnares her blind
and frail mother La Cieca, luxuriously sung by local mezzo-soprano Deborah
Humble, who unearths a wealth of texture and colour from some of
Ponchielli’s most gifted writing. Smaller roles are taken up with gusto from
the rear choir stalls, embedded among the thrilling voices of the OA Chorus
who respond marvellously to the big demands of the varied tessitura and
scene-setting moods.
After stabbing herself to death in front of
Barnaba, you could only wish that La Gioconda is resting easy in her grave
as she so achingly desired. La Cieca’s lifeless body is discovered in the
canal but Enzo and Laura do manage to escape eventually. Grand Italian opera
powers through a mountain range of peaks and valleys and, enlivened as it is
in OA’s concert performances of La Gioconda, it never fails to intoxicate.
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