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Opera Today, 24 Mar 2019 |
A review by Claire Seymour |
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Verdi: La forza del destino, London, ab 21. März 2019 |
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La forza del destino at Covent Garden
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Prima la music, poi la parole? It’s the perennial operatic
conundrum which has exercised composers from Monteverdi, to Salieri, to
Strauss. But, on this occasion we were reminded that sometimes the answer
is a simple one: Non, prima le voci! |
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The Royal Opera House’s new production of La forza del destino, directed by
Christof Loy and first seen at Dutch National Opera in 2017, had been hyped
to the heights since the first moment it was announced that it would reunite
Anna Netrebko and Jonas Kaufmann for the first time at Covent Garden since
the soprano and tenor formed a triumphant threesome with the late Dmitri
Hvorostovsky in La traviata in 2008. The anticipatory buzz was amplified by
gossip about tickets changing hand for crazy figures on re-sale sites,
speculation about which star would cancel first, and rumours that Kaufmann
had been a rare figure at rehearsals, with Azerbaijani tenor Yusif Eyvazov -
Netrebko’s husband, who shares the role of Don Alvaro - filling in at the
dress rehearsal.
For once, though, a hyperbolic build-up did not
culminate with bathos but with brilliance: consummately expressive singing
which quite simply entranced and exhilarated. There is never any doubting
the luxurious beauty and intense communicativeness of Anna Netrebko’s
soprano but on occasion, as in last year’s Macbeth , I have longed for a
little more precision to accompany the vocal glamour and shimmer. Here,
however, making her role debut as Leonora, Netrebko had me transfixed with a
performance in which drama was balanced by discipline, and interpretation
was fired by intellect and intuitive insight in equal measure, casting a
compelling vocal spell.
From the first gestures of the dumbshow
presented during the overture, Loy places Leonora at the centre of the drama
and Netrebko’s vocal and physical definition of character was riveting.
Painfully wracked by conflicting desires and duties in ‘Me pellegrina ed
orfana’, Leonora’s Act 1 duet with Alvaro had an almost fierce directness.
‘Madre, pietosa Vergine’ began with a deep darkness, blossomed sweetly, then
floated bewitchingly - an exquisitely elegant mezza voce - in ‘Vergine degli
angeli’. Nebtrenko rose effortlessly above the orchestra’s throbbing
climaxes, while the agonising intensity of ‘Pace, pace, mio Dio’ conveyed
both Leonora’s fervour and her frailty with spellbinding magnetism.
Sweeping in through a window stage-right, as if to counter any doubts about
his participation with a bold physical statement of his presence, Kaufmann
was a heroic Alvaro, a little restrained at the start but expanding to
encompass a magnificent range, vocally and dramatically. The tenor spins a
heart-meltingly lovely line, by turns ardent and tender, the lyricism
charged with tragic suffering, and, as demonstrated in Act 3’s ‘La vita e
inferno’, has absolute control of his voice from the most impassioned
fortissimo to the softest whisper, magically grading the diminuendo at the
close. Ludovic Tézier’s Carlo was no less impressive, his glowing baritone
equally commanding and absorbing as he unleashed a vengeful fury which was
countered by smooth lyricism in ‘Urna fatale’; the extended duets of Act 3 -
in which Kaufmann and Tézier reprised a partnership first formed in Munich
in 2014 - were finely wrought dramatically and musically, and utterly
compelling.
And, the casting luxuries did not stop there, with
several singers reprising roles that they sang in Holland including American
soprano Roberta Alexander who was a splendid Curra, strongly defined and
impactful, and Italian tenor Carlo Bosi as the pedlar Trabuco who arrived to
sell his wares with a chutzpah worthy of a Dulcamare. Ferruccio Furlanetto’s
Padre Guardiano was a growling dark foil to Leonora’s sweetness, while
Alessandro Corbelli was excellent as Melitone, fun but never flippant, the
text clearly enunciated and gracefully phrased. It’s a shame that the
Marquis of Calatrava’s death, which triggers the fateful tragedy, prevented
us hearing more of Robert Lloyd’s bass which conveyed a father’s love and
his demand for submission with equal conviction. And, it was good to hear
Jette Parker Young Artists, Michael Mofidian, as Alcalde. Veronica Simeoni,
making her ROH debut, seemed not entirely comfortable in the role of
Preziosilla: though she did her best to make ‘Al suon del tamburo’ a rousing
romp and danced gamely in the Rataplan chorus, sporting emerald belly-dancer
pantaloons and surrounded by somersaulting acrobats in spangly top hats, she
struggled to project and to reach the upper echelons of the role securely
and confidently.
From the pit, Sir Antonio Pappano immediately
ratcheted up the tragic intensity in a surging, heated overture, and crafted
the ebbs and flows of the tragedy with consummate command. Whether
carousing, warring or in devotional mood, the ROH Chorus were in fine voice
and entered into the spirit of the lively, sometimes rather inconsequential,
tableaux and crowd scenes.
Verdi abandoned the classical unity of
time, place and action in La forza, thereby creating a headache for
directors who must make varied locations spanning vast geographical
distances, and visited over a period of many years, cohere. Then, there’s
the problem of how to assimilate the broad humour within the prevailing
tragic narrative. Rather than imposing a binding ‘concept’, Christof Loy and
designer Christian Schmidt seem to embrace the disunity. The white marble
walls of the Calatrava home that we visit in Act 1, subsequently fall though
remnants of the mansion remain in the ensuing locales as the stage becomes a
palimpsest of places and periods. Costumes allude to diverse epochs and
sometimes seem designed to add to the ambiguity and inconsistency.
There are just two assertive directorial gestures, the first being an
extended dumbshow during the overture. Here, atop and around the long table
which slices across the floor of the Calatrava palazzo, the three main
characters are seen as children. As the screen rises and falls three times,
destiny plants the dart which will find its target many decades later;
Leonora sits, head bowed, beside a small stature of the Virgin Mary which,
enlarged and aloft, will cast a deep shadow over her life. Then, as the
drama unfolds, Loy offers us recurring projections which zoom in on Leonora
at the moment of her father’s accidental death; the moment which thus seals
her fate. But, these ‘psychological close-ups’ are distracting and
unnecessary: Verdi’s music tells us all we need to know - especially as
here, when it is sung and played with such power and impact.
These
directorial diversions don’t really matter, though, as the singing is so
absorbing. Verdi may keep his hero and heroine apart for much of the opera,
as we traverse through taverns, monasteries and war zones, but when Netrebko
and Kaufmann are finely united in Act 4 it certainly feels like - if not
‘fate’ exactly - then very good fortune indeed.
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