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Guardian, 31 May 2024 |
Tim Ashley
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Giordano: Andrea Chenier, London, Royal Opera House, ab 30. Mai 2024
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Andrea Chénier review – Pappano ends on a high with this sensational, thrilling revival
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David McVicar’s 2015 staging of Giordano’s French Revolution opera is the final production of Antonio Pappano’s tenure as music director of the Royal Opera. With leads Jonas Kaufmann and Sondra Radvanovsky, it is an exciting, affecting evening
Antonio Pappano’s final production as the Royal Opera’s music
director is a revival of David McVicar’s 2015 staging of Andrea Chénier,
Umberto Giordano’s 1896 examination of the relationship between desire and
fanaticism, set during the French Revolution. It’s a thrilling account of an
often remarkable work that sends you out into the street feeling elated and
slightly jittery.
Pappano’s interpretation has shifted with time.
What in 2015 was a slow burn has now become a thing of extremes,
magnificently shaped, the high emotional pitch relentlessly sustained. Grand
passions and political fervour are repeatedly elided in this music, as
crowds acclaim revolutionary leaders with an uneasy rapture not far removed
from the sensuality of lovers’ meetings. Elsewhere the ancien régime dies to
mock Rameau, its faded elegance replaced by the revolutionary Ça Ira hurled
out by the brass with terrifying exhilaration. Pappano is unsparing with it
all, by turns lyrical and furiously energetic, and the playing can only be
described as sensational.
As in 2015, the title role is taken by
Jonas Kaufmann. Time has taken its toll on that famous dark tone, and a
touch of metal now creeps occasionally into the sound. But Chénier remains
one of his finest roles. Once past a couple of moments of effort in the Act
I Improvviso, his top notes soar with ease. The man’s poetic sensibility and
moral purpose are beautifully captured and conveyed, and there’s real depth
of feeling in his scenes with Sondra Radvanovsky’s Maddalena. She is
outstanding here, with a blaze in her voice and deep dramatic commitment. La
Mamma Morta really hits home with its combination of fierce intensity and
lyrical warmth.
Gérard, meanwhile, is played by the Mongolian
baritone Amartuvshin Enkhbat, another superb singer, his voice beautifully
even and focused. Dramatically he inclines on occasion to understatement,
though Nemico Della Patria, in which Gérard gradually realises how private
emotion rather than genuine altruism have dictated his political career, is
magnificently yet subtly done. The smaller roles are all finely cast, from
Rosalind Plowright’s Contessa, bristling with a sense of her own
entitlement, to the great Elena Zilio’s harrowing Madelon, tragically
sacrificing the last of her family to the revolutionary cause, and Katia
Ledoux’s knowing, affectionate Bersi – an excellent young artist, someone to
watch out for in future.
An opera about lives caught up in a specific
moment in history, it resists interventionist directorial tampering, and
McVicar’s staging, carefully revived by Thomas Guthrie, wisely plays it
straight. The Act I ballet, choreographed by Agurtzane Arrien, is more
Kenneth MacMillan than 18th century, but otherwise the production is rich in
period detail and sometimes unsettling in its menace. It all adds up to a
most exciting evening.
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