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Financial Times, 29 November
2008 |
Francis Carlin |
Beethoven: Fidelio, Paris, 25. November 2008
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Fidelio
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Which overture? What order of play for the music
at the beginning of Act One? Beethoven made so many revisions, opening up
possibilities for different formats. Sylvain Cambreling opts to start with
the meandering Overture Leonora I, conducting with impressive grandeur but
reinforcing the leaden pace of Johan Simons' new production.
Martin Mosebach's new dialogues use didactic sledgehammer tactics and
Simons' switch from hyperactivity in the sung parts to gaping pregnant
pauses in the spoken exchanges suggest he is unaware that time travels
differently in opera. Every good idea is done to death: when Don Pizarro
(Alan Held, exceptional) vents his rage on his office chair, he sets it
spinning not once or twice but so often it looks risible.
Meanwhile, Leonora (Angela Denoke) is so twitchy that any normal-sighted
employee in this modern penitentiary (sets: Jan Versweyveld) would have
called the emergency hotline. Denoke, one of the best singing actresses on
the circuit, has bigger problems. The role is simply beyond her and her
singing is squally and often out of tune. Fidelio can survive at a pinch
with a poor Florestan but it sinks with a weak Leonora, the opera's driving
force.
Happily, Jonas Kaufmann's Florestan lives up to high expectations,
daringly launching the sustained note on his opening exclamation (" Gott !")
with a ghostly pianissimo, before turning on the power. The effect is as
harrowing as it is beautiful. The rest of the cast is major-league quality.
To finish, the ladies in the chorus celebrate freedom by unbuttoning drab
overcoats to reveal garish floral print dresses. A tawdry end to a noble
tale. |
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