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The Jewish Chronicle Online, January 29 2015 |
By Jessica Duchen |
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Giordano: Andrea Chenier, London, Royal Opera House, 20. Januar 2015 |
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Opera: Andrea Chénier
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A flawed voice of freedom |
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Nobody at Covent Garden could have guessed that shortly before Andrea
Chénier's opening, vast protests for freedom of speech would occur in Paris.
In Giordano's French Revolution blockbuster the eponymous poet is condemned
to death for using his pen as "a weapon against hypocrisy". Among the
opera's weaknesses, though, is that we never learn what he said.
It
may be a flawed work, its action overspread and overstuffed, but musically
it offers occasional glorious moments; and David McVicar's staging, with
designs by Robert Jones and Jenny Tiramani, is as sumptuously in period as a
Merchant Ivory film.
Željco Lucic convinces as Gérard – a sort of
anti-villain, the opera's most nuanced figure; Eva-Maria Westbroek is an
all-giving, heartfelt Maddalena. But as her lover, Chénier, tenor Jonas
Kaufmann is on peak form, simply unsurpassable for the finesse and
golden-treacle beauty of his voice and his supremely intelligent stagecraft.
In the pit conductor Antonio Pappano lights the blue touch paper for a fiery
night of extremes. You'll love it or hate it, and I loved it.
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