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The Guardian, 21 January 2015 |
Tim Ashley |
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Giordano: Andrea Chenier, London, Royal Opera House, 20. Januar 2015 |
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Andrea Chénier review – it's hard to imagine Kaufmann bettered
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David McVicar’s new production wisely plays Giordano’s opera straight; Jonas Kaufmann and Željko Lučić are both superb although Eva-Maria
Webroek’s voice took time to settle |
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The dropcloth for David McVicar’s new production of Andrea Chénier shows a
bloody tricolour daubed with the words “Even Plato banned poets from his
Republic” – written by Robespierre on the death warrant of the historical
Chénier, a poet and journalist sent to the guillotine in 1794 for
criticising France’s post-revolutionary government. Giordano’s 1896 opera,
loosely based on the events that led to his execution, constitutes a demand
for individualism that retains its clout: hearing it in the wake of the
terrorist attacks in France is to be reminded once more of its relevance.
Given that it deals with lives caught up in a specific flashpoint in
history, the opera works best when played straight, and McVicar wisely
refrains from interpretative glosses. Giordanos’s distaste for ancien régime
kitsch, his distrust of mass politicalmovements and his exploration of the
creepy elation with which fervour tips into fanaticism are all realised with
unfussy clarity. When Jonas Kaufmann’s Chénier calls for the replacement of
systemic injustice with humanitarian values, his idealism is shown to be a
disturbing political force that makes him dangerous to those round him.
McVicar’s only lapse is the decision to turn the first-act pastoral into a
big pas de deux after the fashion of Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon, which
strikes a false note in a staging that otherwise prides itself on its
attention to historical detail.
Kaufmann is performing the title role
for the first time, and it’s hard to imagine him bettered. His striking
looks make him very much the Romantic and romanticised outsider of
Giordano’s vision. His voice, with its dark, liquid tone, soars through the
music with refined ease and intensity: all those grand declarations of
passion, whether political or erotic, hit home with terrific immediacy. His
acting is superb, too, from the gauche, resentful bow with which he greets
Rosalind Plowright’s vicious Countess di Coigny, to the slightly crazed
rapture with which he goes to the guillotine with Eva-Maria Westbroek’s
adoring Maddalena at his side.
With her voice taking time to settle
on opening night, Westbroek, though wonderfully intelligent, proved less
than ideal. The evening’s other great performance came instead from
Željko Lučić as Gérard – a beautifully sung, handsomely acted portrait of a
revolutionary politician facing the moral consequences of the private
motivations that tarnish his integrity. Antonio Pappano’s conducting can be
at times low-key – those grand passions could be grander sooner – but when
he eventually lets rip in the final scene, the effect is overwhelming.
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