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Associated Press, June 30, 2013 |
By MIKE SILVERMAN |
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Verdi: Il trovatore, Bayerische Staatsoper, 27. Juni 2013
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Jonas Kaufmann takes on the challenge of Verdi’s Manrico before hometown crowd in Munich
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MUNICH, Germany — Parodied by everyone from Gilbert and Sullivan to the Marx
Brothers, Verdi’s “Il Trovatore” is often dismissed as an absurd story about
ridiculous characters redeemed by its glorious music.
Jonas Kaufmann
doesn’t see it that way.
The Munich-born tenor, who made his role
debut as Manrico at the Bavarian State Opera on Thursday night, said he
found the troubadour to have surprising depths.
“I’m not so much
attracted to one-dimensional characters like ‘the romantic lover’ or ‘the
hero who rescues the maiden in distress,’” Kaufmann said in an email
response to questions. “Compared to those typical Italian tenor parts,
Manrico is different. He is a lover, he is a fighter and he is a victim of a
difficult mother-son relationship and of a tragic family story.”
All
those qualities and more are certainly brought to the fore in the wild new
production by Olivier Py that opened the company’s annual Munich Opera
Festival. It’s a non-stop barrage of nightmarish images mixing styles and
periods that assault the audience at lightning speed on a multi-tiered
revolving set.
For starters, there’s a blind heroine, a burning
cross, a baby plucked from its mother’s womb, clergy wearing conical white
hats suggesting the Inquisition, a stage-within-the-stage, spinning
mechanical gears and doubles who enact their own back stories in pantomime.
Most striking is the glowering presence of a character (naked but for a
flesh-colored body stocking) who is only mentioned in the libretto: the
ghost of a gypsy burned at the stake years earlier. It’s her daughter,
Azucena, whose obsession with revenge drives the plot.
“I’d say the
overall theme of the production is that none of the four principals could
escape their family history,” Kaufmann said. “Everything they say, they do
and they feel is a result of those awful things which happened in the past,
therefore they don’t have a chance to live their own lives.”
Py’s
crazy-quilt approach is guaranteed to horrify traditionalists, but Munich
audiences are used to unconventional productions, so when the French
director bounded out with an impish grin for his curtain call, he was
greeted with as many cheers as boos.
For the singers, there were
repeated foot-stomping ovations, the loudest being reserved for Kaufmann’s
co-star, the sublime German soprano Anja Harteros as Leonora.
Kaufmann himself took a while to come into his own in his first outing as
Manrico. In the ensembles of the first two acts, the dark quality of his
voice made it sometimes hard to distinguish his timbre from that of Russian
baritone Alexey Markov, singing the role of the Count di Luna, his deadly
rival.
After intermission, things improved dramatically, starting
with the extended aria in which Manrico looks forward to his wedding to
Leonora, then shifts gears and rushes off to try to rescue Azucena (sung by
the Russian mezzo-soprano Elina Manistina).
His elegant phrasing and
ardent tone in “Ah! Si, ben mio” — complete with delicate trills — were
ravishing. And he brought fire and clarion sound to the rousing cabaletta,
“Di quella pira,” singing both verses and interpolating the traditional high
notes, though he took them down a half-tone to B natural.
“Of course
the audience is waiting for ‘Di quella pira,’” Kaufmann said. “I recorded a
version with two stanzas and two high Cs and it worked very well. But to do
this on stage in my first production would mean to take a too-high risk, so
the team in Munich and I decided to do the transposed version.”
Kaufmann, at 43 possibly the most-in-demand tenor in the world today, is
notable for the wide range of his repertoire: Wagner, French opera, and
increasingly the heavier Verdi and Puccini roles. And he clearly intends to
keep it that way.
“It may be my voice is darker than that of many
tenors in the Italian repertoire,” Kaufmann said. “But I don’t see that
means I should stick to Wagner. I mean, also when singing Lohengrin, my
voice may seem darker compared to some famous singers of that role. So,
should I stick to Siegmund then? No!”
“I’m glad that I could sing
Faust after Siegmund, and Manrico after Lohengrin and Parsifal,” he added.
“And I will go on with that — not only because it would be a bore for me if
I would sing always the same five, six parts, but also for vocal health. I’m
convinced that singing Verdi is very good for singing Wagner and vice
versa.”
Now that he’s tackled Manrico, his next new Verdi role is Don
Alvaro in “La Forza del Destino,” which he’s singing in Munich this fall.
After that, inevitably, is a pinnacle of the repertory, the title role of
“Otello.”
“It’s one of the most exciting, most complex, most
interesting and most beautiful parts you can imagine,” Kaufmann said. “And
it’s one of the most demanding and most dangerous as well, mostly because of
the emotional impact. You can easily hurt yourself vocally if you lose
control. That’s the reason why I haven’t sung the part yet. Conductors and
directors keep asking me, but we will have to wait another couple of years.”
Meanwhile, although the three remaining “Trovatores” are sold out, opera
fans worldwide have a chance to see it for themselves. The Bavarian State
Opera is offering a free streaming video of the performance on Friday, July
5, beginning at 7 p.m., local time, on its website: www.staatsoper.de/tv. |
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