This DVD set captures the lavish staging of ‘Cav and Pag’ at
the 2015 Salzburg Easter Festival, with Jonas Kaufmann making
his double-debut as Cavalleria rusticana’s feckless love-stud
Turiddu and as Pagliacci’s murderous, jealous husband Canio. For
Kaufmann fans, this release is a must. The German tenor ticks
all the verismo boxes, entirely credible as an actor, and
acquiring sleazy good looks and predatory sexiness for his
superb Turiddu and threateningly obsessive as Canio. He sings
with southern passion, rather more expansive in the scorching
directness of ‘Cav’ and marvellously introspective and brooding
in Pag. With Nedda’s infidelity confirmed, the close-up of Canio
getting ready for the show and finishing off his make-up with a
lurid gash of rouged smile is the essence of desolation.
It is, though, just one fine moment in Philipp Stölzl’s virtuoso
production that serves both operas without compromising the
identity of either. The vast stage of the Grosses Festspielhaus
is split into six smaller stages, in a double-decker
arrangement, each one with its own shutter to phase in and out
of the action, so that, for example, we can see and hear Turiddu
serenading Lola and see her in another area drinking-in all the
attention.
In both operas, the staging gives us intimate
vignettes and a strong sense of continuity. Just as effective
are Stölzl’s designs, which you could be forgiven for thinking
they echo the work of Ravilious, Bawden and Nash, but no doubt
references to Italian and German artists working in that
1920s/30s’ expressionist world of illustration. The result is
grainy, stylish and very urban, and you are never quite sure
whether you are seeing two dimensions or three.
Video-director Brian Large makes telling use of close-ups –
Canio’s ‘Vesti la giubba’, sung by Kaufmann with remarkable
bleakness; and in ‘Cav’, a study of Santuzza screened throughout
the ‘Intermezzo’ as she takes in the enormity of what she has
set in train. The films make the scale and fluency of all this
abundantly clear, and the way the cameras pick up the dizzying
amount of detail going on in the huge chorus, dressed in
1930s-themed costumes, is masterly.
The rest of the
casting is very strong. In ‘Cav’, the carter Alfio is a brutal
Mafioso powerfully played by Ambrogio Maestri. Liudmyla
Monastyrska is gripping as the conflicted, betrayed Santuzza and
on great vocal form; and Stefania Toczyska is compelling and
mysterious as Mamma Lucia. In ‘Pag’, Dimitri Platanias shows off
an Iago-like depravity as Tonio, in a magnificently sung and
incisively observed portrayal; Maria Agresta pushes all the
right buttons, and Alessio Arduini’s nerdy lover Silvio sings
with ardent lyricism and reveals a buffed body as he strips off
for a raunchy love scene.
Christian Thielemann, a Wagner
and Strauss supremo, brings full-on passion and breadth to these
scores, drawing full-blooded and full-toned playing from the
Staatskapelle Dresden.