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Thursday 4 December 2008

Ready for retirement

Eugene Onegin
Royal Opera House

Fiesque
Bloomsbury Theatre

Great acting singer that he is, Gerald Finley evidently abandoned any interest in sanity at the same point, positively raving in the last minutes. It is a failure of taste in the production that Onegin and Tatyana briefly get it together on the floor of her library, before she finds the strength to repel him. Thanks to the brilliant shaping of his whole role, though, Finley made us almost overlook that, and indeed more astonishingly made me take an interest in Onegin — anyway this Onegin — that I have never been able to before. It’s worth going for this great performance. Lensky is more routinely incarnated in Piotr Beczala, though the intensity with which he sings his great aria is another of the saving graces. The other roles are well, inconspicuously taken. This is a production that should now be retired, though, whatever feelings of piety and regret there may be about Pimlott’s premature death.

At the Bloomsbury Theatre, University College Opera came up with a winner: Fiesque, by Edouard Lalo. It was his first opera, and for various reasons was not performed until 2006, when Roberto Alagna sang the title role in Montpelier. Its plot irresistibly reminds one of Simon Boccanegra, and its vision of politics is as dark as Verdi’s. High spirits break in often, and there is a complicated love interest. If the score is reminiscent of anyone, it’s Berlioz, but I think most people would be hard-pressed to assign it a date or a composer. Lalo here only lacks memorable melodies; but I’d like to see a professional performance, though if I did I very much doubt whether the principals would be superior to the ones at the Bloomsbury.

The title role was taken with immense distinction by David Curry, a young tenor singing and acting with equal assurance and authority, and surely soon a star. His deadly opponent and eventual murderer Verrina wasn’t far behind, Robert Davies having a compact baritone voice and a handsome presence. The two women in Fiesque’s life were strongly sung, too, by Alison Crookendale and Margaret Cooper. All these singers are worth noting. The chorus, which has a huge part, was tolerable; the orchestra absolutely not. Surely some brass players of basic competence can be found in the London colleges? What could have been an exhilarating evening was often a trial, though also a matter of admiration that the principals managed so impressively against such odds.

More articles from: Michael Tanner | this section

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