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The Guardian, 6 May 2013 |
George Hall |
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Verdi: Don Carlo, Royal Opera House London, 4. Mai 2013 |
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Don Carlo – review **** |
Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian |
Superb … Anja Harteros and Jonas Kaufmann in Don Carlo at the Royal Opera
House, London. |
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Just
as there is no definitive version of Verdi's largest opera, so a flawless
performance of this vast piece could only exist in the imagination. Nicholas
Hytner's 2008 production, revived by Paul Higgins, delivers a compelling
account of Verdi's final revision (in the standard Italian translation of
the original French). The work's anger and despair register powerfully.
Several of the performances are outstanding. Jonas Kaufmann
negotiates even the trickiest of Don Carlo's vocal corners with his focused
tone intact, and varies his coloristic range to superb effect; his physical
delineation of Verdi's doomed, unstable hero experiencing his every ambition
crumble into dust is finely achieved. As his father, Philip II, the
vocally authoritative Ferruccio Furlanetto never loses sight of the pain and
loneliness beneath the imperial carapace. Mariusz Kwiecień is direct and
articulate as the liberal idealist Rodrigo, the vitality of his tone as
unstinting as his dramatic engagement.
Much of Anja Harteros's
Elizabeth of Valois is on a similar level of excellence, though her ample
tone sometimes has a glaring quality. Béatrice Uria-Monzon's Eboli is more
mixed: while she embodies the princess's dangerous glamour effectively, her
vocalism has too many rough edges. Eric Halfvarson presents an unusually
malignant Grand Inquisitor, and Robert Lloyd's sepulchral Charles V
inescapably suggests a visitor from beyond the grave.
Antonio Pappano
drives the evening along with vivid, perfectly paced conducting; but the
auto-da-fé remains awkwardly staged, and the newly invented Priest
Inquisitor's spoken scene with the heretics still seems a jarring
interpolation.
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