Filmed at last year’s Salzburg Easter Festival, this
production of opera’s best-known double-bill was one of the
hottest tickets of 2015 – not least because it boasted Jonas
Kaufmann in his role-debuts as both the Sicilian lothario
Turiddu and the murderous clown Canio. Sadly the box-office
fairies didn’t smile on me at the time, but I’m pleased to
report that it comes across superbly on film, directed for video
by the veteran operatic cinematographer Brian Large.
Christian Thielemann is more associated with German repertoire
rather than verismo, and in his hands both scores sound markedly
different from the recordings I know (and indeed from the last
time I heard them live, all bold primary colours and churning
rubato under Antonio Pappano). Rather than heart-on-sleeve
slancio, he gives the music plenty of space, as well as elegance
and delicacy when required (in his hands, Turiddu’s
drinking-song wouldn’t sound out of place in something by Léhar
or the Strauss Family, and the opening of Pagliacci is nimble
and balletic rather boisterous).
I was moaning just the
other day that if I never saw another staging of an opera that
relied heavily on video-projections it would be too soon, but
I’ll happily cut myself a big slice of humble pie after seeing
Philipp Stölzl’s production. His innovative use of split staging
and close-ups of characters who are ‘off-stage’ always enhances
the main action rather than being a distraction from it - and is
especially moving during the intermezzos of each opera, where
the camera focuses squarely on the faces of Santuzza and Canio
as they agonise about the fatal choice they’ve made to wreak
vengeance on their unfaithful lovers.
The big departure
from the norm in Cav is the depiction of the central
relationship between Turiddu and Santuzza (sung here by imposing
Ukrainian soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska), the woman he’s seduced
and abandoned for old flame Lola before the opera begins: rather
than presenting Santuzza as an obsessive ex-lover who won’t let
go, Stölzl has them living together unhappily in a dingy,
cramped garret with their young son (the superb, watchful Paul
Clementi – the final close-up of his face as he realises that
his mother has brought about his father’s murder is
heart-breaking). Whilst this strains the libretto in places (why
does Santuzza ask Lucia where Turiddu has gone when she’s just
seen him leave for church after breakfast, and why does Lucia
tell her that he didn’t come ‘home’ the previous night?), it
also serves to make both characters more sympathetic than is
often the case: Santuzza is fighting to salvage an ongoing (if
troubled) relationship rather than doggedly pursuing a former
fling, and Turiddu seems less callow when we see his tenderness
as a father and loyalty (of sorts) to the woman he ‘ruined’.
Annalisa Stroppa’s Lola and Ambrogio Maestri’s mafia boss Alfio
are given similar warmth and nuance (though the latter’s
entrance, roughing up a villager who’s withheld
protection-money, is a genuinely nasty scene). Musically, high
points are the great confrontation between Santuzza and Turiddu
(two such enormous voices going head-to-head in their tiny
attic-room is pressure-cooker intense) and Kaufmann’s
shattering, drink-addled farewell to his mother as he leaves for
a fight which he knows he’ll lose.
If this Cav is all
monochrome and claustrophobic, Pag is a riot of colour and
energy. And if Kaufmann’s Turiddu is less callous than usual,
his Canio is established as a thug from the off, drinking
heavily in his dressing-room and setting about a child (his and
Nedda’s?) who runs in to see him in the opening scene, barely
holding his temper in check during the players’ sales-pitch to
the audience, and attacking a colleague on a lads’ night out.
Small wonder that Maria Agresta’s voluptuously sung Nedda seeks
comfort in the buff arms of Alessio Arduini’s dapper Silvio, but
I challenge anyone’s eyes not to prickle at Kaufmann’s visceral
‘Vesti la giubba’, which sounds wrenched from the guts in the
very best way. The final, terrifying close-up of him tearing off
his wig-cap and snarling ‘La commedia è finita!’ might haunt my
nightmares for weeks to come (though in fairness, I’ve never
been good with clowns - especially angry ones covered in blood).