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The Independent, 21 January 2015 |
Michael Church |
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Giordano: Andrea Chenier, London, Royal Opera House, 20. Januar 2015 |
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An exquisitely realised production
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Jonas Kaufmann brings down the house with the sheer beauty of his singing
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André Chénier was a poet-satirist who fell foul of Robespierre and was
guillotined in 1794; the formal beauty and moral fury of the poem he
penned on the eve of his execution makes one of the most chilling death-row
utterances ever. An Italian translation of that poem’s first line –
comparing the sunset of his life with the end of a fine spring day -
provides the aria which Umberto Giordano’s Andrea Chénier sings as he waits
to mount the scaffold.
But there the similarities end. The hero of
Andrea Chénier dies for a reason more in tune with late nineteenth-century
audience requirements – love. This Chénier starts out as a radical, but his
principles are no match for the charms of Maddalena, the beautiful young
aristocrat who sends him fan letters signed ‘Hope’, and whose mortal danger
moves him to throw up everything to save her. It’s a big part, requiring a
big voice and presence, and for their first production in thirty years of
this opera – Jose Carreras and Placido Domingo took turns to sing it last
time – Covent Garden have cast Jonas Kaufmann.
Giordano was a
contemporary of Puccini and shared a librettist with him, Luigi Illica, and
there are echoes of Tosca throughout Andrea Chénier, notably of
Cavaradossi’s farewell to life in ‘E lucevan le stelle’. But although there
are overtones of Scarpia in the character of Gerard – a disaffected servant
who also loves Maddalena, and who becomes a revolutionary – this character,
unlike the evil Scarpia, is an all-round good guy who tries to save
Chenier’s life despite the fact that Chenier has wounded him in a duel.
Giordano wants to tell a simple, uplifting tale.
He also wants, by
inserting popular songs, to evoke the atmosphere of the French Revolution,
and in this he is faithfully abetted by David McVicar’s scrupulously
researched and exquisitely realised production. The palace of the gentry and
the pullulating streets are energetically brought to life, if in benign soft
focus; the joyous libertinage of the exotically-dressed Merveilleuses and
Incroyables is McVicar’s way of reminding us that for some people the
Revolution was actually lots of fun. The courtroom scene, however, is
queasily believable.
And the casting of the supporting characters
works well, with Elena Zilio’s Madelon and Carlo Bosi’s Incroyable adding
colour, and Denyce Graves’s forceful Bersi and Zeljko Lucic’s powerful
Gerard laying the groundwork for the central encounter. Eva-Maria
Westbroek’s firmly-sung Maddalena may possess a too-mature stateliness,
but when Kaufmann launches into his opening aria it’s as though the sun has
come out: with his convincingly heroic presence, and the sheer beauty of his
singing, he simply brings the house down.
And so he does when he
sings his dream of love, when he wrestles with his soul, and when he takes
his leave of life: each aria is perfection incarnate. With Antonio
Pappano bringing out the drama inherent in every bar of Giordano’s intricate
score, there’s nothing schmaltzy about the duets between this pair of
lovers, even if the emotions are pure Forties Hollywood. So as they walk to
the waiting tumbril we get an unashamedly feel-good ending.
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