|
|
|
|
|
The Independent, 16 September
2009 |
Edward Seckerson |
|
Verdi Don Carlo, Royal Opera House, London
|
Photo: Catherine Ashmore |
The
heat generated by this scorching revival of Verdi’s Don Carlo had little to
do with burning heretics or indeed any aspect of Nicholas Hytner’s lucid if
rather passive staging but rather the conducting of Semyon Bychkov whose
drive and patience ensured that both the urgency and weight of history
defining this great score were magnificently served.
Bychkov’s triumph was fully to reconcile the sweep and intimacy of Don
Carlo. Fine detailing was as significant as grand gesturing in Bychkov’s
scheme of things. Verdi’s simplest colourings, like the bare unison horns
carrying us into the vaults of the San Yuste Monastery, were rich in
atmosphere and subtext, the musical embodiment of lines like “the sorrows of
the world follow us into the cloister”. At the other extreme Bychkov brought
electrifying immediacy to key climacterics in the drama. In the scene where
Rodrigo takes on the King, Philip II, the fury of his accusation that Philip
will rule over “the peace of the grave” unleashes an awesome welter of sound
from the depths of Verdi’s orchestra. In Bychkov’s hands it was as if a huge
fissure had opened up in the fabric of the piece. Dramatically speaking, it
had, of course.
That great scene was wonderfully played by Simon Keenlyside (Rodrigo) and
Ferruccio Furlanetto (Philip II). Furlanetto is that special breed of
singing actor for whom gravitas is inbred. We see a broken man disintegrate
before our eyes in his great act four aria; we feel his anger and defiance
in the encounter with John Tomlinson’s craggy Grand Inquisitor who manages
to turn the word “Sire” into a condescending growl. These are credible
portrayals. Less so Marianne Cornetti’s indomitable Eboli, a voice of
considerable fire-power but hopelessly woolly in the lacy coloratura of her
folksy Veil aria.
One of the most effective devices in Hytner’s staging – and I still find
the garish pop-up aspects of Bob Crowley’s design alienating – is Carlo’s
isolation, the descending front cloth of ancestral tombs a constant reminder
of his grandfather’s weighty legacy. Jonas Kaufmann carried this romantic
idealism magnificently, thrilling in his full-throated anguish, tender in
his love for Elizabeth de Valois with mezza voce phrases literally melting
in the singing of them.
Marina Poplavskaya (Elizabeth), beautiful and intense on stage, is not a
natural Verdian, the voice too white and unyielding, the lack of
through-phrasing conspicuously unidiomatic. But in the perfect symmetry of
their first and last encounters there was a real frisson between she and
Kaufmann. The numbing pianissimo of their final moments together carried
such regret and resignation as to unlock the very heart of a great piece.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|