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The Spectator, 21 January 2015 |
Edward Seckerson |
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Giordano: Andrea Chenier, London, Royal Opera House, 20. Januar 2015 |
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Andrea Chénier, Royal Opera House, review: like a Carry On – but without the jokes
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Who on earth could have predicted that a hoary old operatic melodrama set in
revolutionary France would find resonance in the present where the pen as a
weapon against bigotry and hypocrisy has suddenly achieved iconic status.
But hold up, let’s not get carried away. We’re talking about Giordano’s
Andrea Chénier. Though its eponymous poet does indeed extol free expression
at the service of love, the sentiments — the voices of reason in a time of
high anxiety — don’t run too deep. And so we’re back where we started, with
a hoary old melodrama.
So how to stage something that only gets
staged in the first place if you have an extraordinary trio of singers fully
ripened for the occasion — including a tenor of dashing and heroic
timbre who can cut a suitably sympathetic and romantic figure before Madame
Guillotine does likewise with him. The paradox, of course, is that this
brand of opera was dubbed verismo when nothing could have been further from
the truth. Though we begin in what might be seen as grand opera’s ‘comfort
zone’ — an opulent estate just outside Paris, where the director David
McVicar and his designers Robert Jones (set) and Jenny Tiramani (costumes)
hurl money at the stage and dress — something surely has to give once we
reach Paris. It doesn’t.
The opera itself starts promisingly.
Giordano and his librettist dare to give a mere footman the stage before the
aristocrats — led by the haughty Contessa di Coigny (Rosalind Plowright) —
begin yet another elaborate party with yet another elaborate gavotte. Carlo
Gérard — the impressively sonorous Zeljko Lucic – sings of his disgust and
hatred of his masters. At the height of his ire McVicar has six crystal
chandeliers rise from the floor in a gesture that certainly chimes with the
music but only in the sense that it is resolutely cheesy. The peasants, of
course, are not nearly revolting enough when they inevitably crash the party
and arrive in Paris in act two (surely the moment to pull the rug from
beneath us and let the darkness descend in some physical sense). Even the
slogans look like they’ve been daubed in Dulux, not blood. Giordano keeps
the violence pretty much out of sight; McVicar seems bent on keeping it out
of mind. It’s the Carry On film Don’t Lose Your Head without the jokes.
But most of the audience had come to celebrate the most exciting tenor
of the day without the distraction of a meaningful drama — and Jonas
Kaufmann did not disappoint. Chénier’s poetic exhortations were fleshed out
through his swarthy middle voice to the most thrillingly open top in the
business. That aspect of Eva-Maria Westbroek’s Maddalena brought only
modified rapture. An account of her big set-piece, ‘La mamma morta’, was
ultimately rendered anti-climactic by faltering intensity and a money note
distinctly lacking in height. I also wanted more of an Italianate mettle in
the sound and temperament. Still both singers’ generosity of tone and spirit
was a pleasure in itself and in their act two duet both floated lovely
phrases rapt in anticipation.
So a superficial excitement, to be
sure.All of it leads to the final stonking minutes of the piece where
Antonio Pappano — whose prowess in this repertoire is second to none —
scented the lovers’ immortality and whipped up the X-Factor hysterics in the
audience to a frenzy. But drama? Sad to say this offering — so untypical of
McVicar at his best — was theatrically moribun
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