|
|
|
|
|
Bachtrack, 31. Mai 2024 |
David Karlin
|
|
|
Giordano: Andrea Chenier, London, Royal Opera House, ab 30. Mai 2024
|
Costume drama at its finest: Andrea Chénier at The Royal Opera |
|
|
Period costume drama is out of favour with most opera directors these days,
which makes it something of a guilty pleasure to come to Sir David McVicar’s
staging of Andrea Chénier, with its meticulous attention to historical
detail and the Ancien Régime opulence of Robert Jones’ sets and Jenny
Tiramani’s costumes for Act 1. But Umberto Giordano’s opera is far more than
a pretty costume piece, and there was no mistaking the sense of occasion in
the air, this being Sir Antonio Pappano's last run of performances here as
Music Director of The Royal Opera.
Everyone involved, it seemed,
wanted to bring their A game to proceedings. The Orchestra of the Royal
Opera House sounded fabulous, from sumptuously silken strings to a rounded,
imposing brass sound that I haven’t heard from them since Pappano last
conducted Wagner here. Pappano seemed born to conduct Giordano’s music,
perfectly judging its myriad colours and its ebb and flow of intensity. If
he occasionally gave his players their head a little too much for them to
allow the singers to be heard, it was hard to complain on such an occasion
as this.
The acting was uniformly excellent and brought home both the
desperation of the poverty that preceded the French Revolution and the
overwhelming sense of paranoia and disillusionment at the time of The
Terror. Many individual lesser roles made important contributions: Rosalind
Plowright’s impossibly over-entitled Countess, Alexander Kravets’
disturbingly cynical “Incredible” (the spy set by Gérard to entrap Maddalena
and Chénier), Elena Zilio’s extraordinary cameo as Madelon, the grandmother
who offers her grandson to the army (at 83 years old, Zilio can still blast
it out to the top row of the amphitheatre and dissolve to the most
controlled pianissimo). Katia Ledoux made a highly promising Covent Garden
debut as Maddalena’s confidante Bersi. She has a very attractive, dark mezzo
voice and I’ll be hoping to hear more of her in bigger roles.
Jonas
Kaufmann lacks the sense of effortless power that characterised the peak of
his career. But most of the qualities that made him into the world’s top
operatic draw are still in good working order: the burnished timbre, the
control over messa di voce, the clarity of text and, above all, his ability
to make the words mean something. “Si, fui soldato”, Chénier’s response to
the charges against him at his show trial in Act 3, was blistering. Even
when he was “off the ball”, pacing around the ballroom in Act 1, or
scribbling his thoughts in Act 2, you could see how fully he was committed
to his character. As Maddalena, Sondra Radvanovsky had a mixed evening
vocally, at her best powering through the drama of the Act 2 confrontation
with Gérard, unimpressive as the younger Maddalena in Act 1 with a lot of
vibrato and uncertain high pianissimi.
As Gérard, Amartuvshin Enkhbat
trumped them both, for the sheer power and timbre of the voice and his
ability to stand up and grip the audience’s attention. His “Nemico della
patria” was the highlight of the evening, a totally credible portrayal of a
man trapped by his own passions who has come to hate himself.
Andrea
Chénier has never been considered one of the world’s greatest operas. The
near-rape scene in Act 2 has something of the scene between Tosca and
Scarpia, but Giordano lacked Puccini’s gift for tugging at the heartstrings.
The ending, as Maddalena joins Chénier to face the guillotine together, has
something of Norma and Pollione, but Giordano couldn’t write anything that
approaches Bellini in bel canto beauty. But when performed as it was last
night in a staging that is unashamedly straight period drama, this is an
opera that can make you believe in every action taken by every one of its
characters, infused with a sense of the turbulent times in which it is set,
enhanced by the richness of late romantic music. That’s a pretty hard
combination to beat, and Pappano will rightly feel that his music
directorship is ending on a high.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|