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The Australian, 10 August 2019 |
Murray Black |
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Giordano: Andrea Chenier, Sydney, 8.August 2019 |
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Tragic love and revolt, splendidly executed
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Jonas Kaufmann, Eva-Maria Westbroek and Ludovic Tezier all excelled in a concert performance of Andrea Chenier. |
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Italian composer Umberto Giordano once was considered a potential heir to
Giuseppe Verdi, but his reputation now rests almost exclusively on the opera
Andrea Chenier (1896). Set just before and during the French Revolution,
it tells the tragic tale of doomed poet Andrea Chenier, his lover Maddalena
de Coigny and her former servant turned revolutionary leader Carlo Gerard,
who are caught up in the turmoil of one of modern history’s great defining
events. Although a key work of the verismo movement, it sometimes gets a bad
rap from critics.
This is unfair. Andrea Chenier is no masterpiece
but its strengths are many. Giordano’s score is rich in melodic invention
and offers spectacular technical challenges for the three lead roles. Its
dramatic urgency and pulsating energy capture the atmosphere of
revolutionary tumult, and its political sophistication is the equal of
Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra and Don Carlos. A concert performance of the
opera relies almost entirely on singers and orchestra to carry the drama.
This outstanding interpretation succeeded in doing so. Conductor Pinchas
Steinberg and Opera Australia Orchestra’s shrewd tempo and dynamic control
ensured their accompaniment was ideally paced, seamlessly negotiating the
many changes of mood and atmosphere. Brisk speeds, zestful rhythms and
forceful attack generated high-voltage intensity and propulsive momentum
while their opulent sonorities and long-breathed lines realised the score’s
sweeping ardour and lyrical beauty.
Andrea Chenier needs three
exceptional singers in the lead roles to take flight. Although each had
their individual virtues, they all excelled here in their remarkable
stamina, shapely phrasing and excellent diction.
Since making his
role debut at Covent Garden in 2015, German tenor Jonas Kaufmann regularly
has performed the role of the title character to great acclaim. It is easy
to see why. Kaufmann was a magnificent Chenier, displaying resounding
top-register strength, superb dynamic control, complexity of colour and
incisive clarity. In both voice and gesture he embodied Chenier’s passionate
fervour and resolute idealism.
Dutch soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek was
also Kaufmann’s Covent Garden castmate as Maddalena. Westbroek sang firm and
strong, her appealing timbral warmth and agile sense of line conveying her
character’s tender compassion and courage.
As Carlo Gerard, baritone
Ludovic Tezier sang with stentorian power and an appealing array of
burnished, dark colours. Tezier’s sympathetic characterisation convincingly
captured Gerard’s complex emotional state, thwarted in love and increasingly
disillusioned with politics.
The large cast of supporting singers all
sang superbly and the Opera Australia chorus impressed with its powerful
fortissimo outbursts and sustained sotto voce passages. Andrea Chenier By
Umberto Giordano.
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