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The Spectator, 11 May 2013 |
Michael Tanner |
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Verdi: Don Carlo, Royal Opera House London, Mai 2013 |
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Don Carlo, Royal Opera House |
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Verdi’s Don Carlo, in Nicholas Hytner’s 2008 production, has a super-starry
revival at the Royal Opera, in Verdi’s five-act version, but without any of
the noble and explanatory additions that Andrew Porter discovered in the
early 1970s. A long evening should have been still longer. That is most
evident at the opening, which in the version we heard seems to have lost its
first few minutes, as indeed it has.
But it gives a chance to Jonas
Kaufmann to sing his sole aria of the evening straight away, though it’s an
odd piece: plangent, melancholy, but failing to establish a character.
In fact the performer of the title role has to create a character at
least as much of his own imagining as with the materials that Verdi gives
him. Kaufmann, to my surprise, didn’t quite do that. A small element of
narcissism has crept into his singing, so that one is more impressed by his
astounding pianissimi than moved by the misery of the character.
His alter ego, and the work’s true hero, the freedom fighter Rodrigo, is
magnificently taken by Mariusz Kwiecien, whose death scene was the most
poignant and searching part of the performance. Anja Harteros is a
marvellous Elizabeth, though she held back for much of the time, but gave
her all in her great Act V aria, and in the divine duet that follows.
Ferruccio Furlanetto was on staggering form, singing Philip II with a firm,
centred tone that hasn’t always been evident in recent years. Christine Rice
being ill, Eboli is taken by Béatrice Uria-Monzon, fine to look at but with
too small a voice to do justice to the determination of ‘O don fatale’.
With the odd reservation, it is a stunning cast. Yet the work didn’t
move me as it usually has done, and as it always did in the great Visconti
production from the first night in 1958 onwards. Why? The staging, though it
avoids any breaks, does nothing to generate the required atmosphere of
grandeur and claustrophobia. With fine period costumes, it is annoying to
have sets mainly unimaginable before the late 20th century. And Antonio
Pappano’s conducting left me, as so often, in two minds. Lots of fascinating
detail, superb micromanagement, but failing to give this strangely
constructed opera momentum. From the opening of Act IV onwards it is there
anyway, but the disparate scenes that constitute the first three acts need
to sound as if they are moving somewhere, and in this account, for all their
beauties, they didn’t.
Many members of the audience, keen to treat
this as a series of showpieces in fancy dress, made things worse by
applauding for minutes on end after most of the celebrated set-pieces; they
must have flown over from Italy. Perhaps it’s the First Night Syndrome, and
later performances may realise the immense potential of these artists in
this masterpiece.
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