|
|
|
|
Evening Standard, 27 March 2019 |
BARRY MILLINGTON |
|
Verdi: La forza del destino, London, ab 21. März 2019 |
|
La Forza del Destino review: Red-blooded passion and intensity
|
|
Souls were ransomed, eye teeth auctioned for a ticket to Verdi’s La Forza
del Destino with superstars Jonas Kaufmann and Anna Netrebko.
Was it
worth it? Arguably, but not for vocal prowess alone. Netrebko was
undoubtedly the star of the evening, incarnating the role of the anguished
Leonora with poleaxing intensity from the Act I farewell to her homeland,
through the prayer for forgiveness in Act II to her celebrated set-piece,
Pace, Pace, in the final act, spinning its long lines with rapturous tone.
As her lover, Alvaro, Kaufmann injected red-blooded passion and there’s
no denying the special calibre of his voice. At the same time, it’s possible
to find a habitual recourse to half-voice somewhat mannered and indeed to
sense a lack of authenticity in the whole package. That’s partly to do with
the stage persona of a superstar, and there’s a limit to what any director
can do when the singer thinks he knows best. In fairness, though, there was
a transformation in the final act, when Kaufmann instantly became the broken
penitent in both stooped posture and sapped vocal quality.
The plot
of Forza revolves notoriously around a catastrophic accident. Don Alvaro,
about to elope with Leonora, throws his gun to the ground when confronted by
Leonora’s father, causing it to fire and fatally wound the old man (the
veteran Robert Lloyd in fine voice). Alvaro and Leonora, plagued with
misery, are pursued remorselessly by Leonora’s brother, Carlo, hell-bent on
vengeance to restore family honour. But Christof Loy’s intelligent
production taps into the deeper currents of the work, showing how such
obsessions devastate love, friendships, families and societies. Here not
just the Father Superior of the monastery, but the monks themselves, are
sworn to secrecy about Leonora’s concealment: whole communities become
complicit. War, an ever-present backdrop, is the ultimate result, and the
workings of destiny or fate, far from a superficial plot device, invoke
something akin to Hegel’s sweep of world history.
There’s a stylised
feel about the battlefield — photographic reproductions in Christian
Schmidt’s design, often starkly lit (Olaf Winter); interiors and exteriors
merge, emphasising their artificiality. The idea that ordinary people,
including civilians, are sucked in and continue to be in our own day, is
powerfully suggested, however. Sex is a distraction in the face of ennui and
even Alvaro is momentarily tempted.
Most controversially, Loy
presents the scene in the military encampment, with Preziosilla’s rousing
Rataplan chorus, as a riotous carnival: a garish floor show with crazy
jiving routines. And yet even Verdi’s staunchest admirers question the lack
of organic unity between serious and comic elements in Forza; Loy actually
offers consistency in a world turned upside down.
There’s splendid
singing from Ludovic Tézier as Carlo and Ferruccio Furlanetto as Padre
Guardiano. Beyond praise too is the conducting of Antonio Pappano, who
unfailingly transmits the urgency of the drama, with its jabbing fate motif
and inexorable drive.
|
|
|
|
|
|