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Thursday 4 December 2008

Verdi’s riches

Don Carlo
Royal Opera House

The production opens in the forest of Fontainebleau — the Modena version is used, which is to say the five-act version with the cuts which Verdi had sanctioned by that stage, and with the Rodrigo–Philip encounter in its final form: Verdi was right to see that episode as central, and right, too, to feel that he needed to improve it from its earlier versions, but in my minority view it remains stronger as a dramatic confrontation than it is musically realised; the orchestral punctuations seem routine. We don’t get the woodcutters at the opening, or Elizabeth’s touching promise to do what she can to improve the lot of these hungry people. That robs the opening scene of its social dimension, and means that after the hunting horns we immediately get Carlo alone, then the long passage in which he and Elizabeth conceal and then reveal who they are. It makes a tentative start, and though the singers were at their best here it was not possible to feel that the composer is.

The setting, by Bob Crowley, is a stylised forest, with heavy frost. To ensure, admirably, that there is no pause between the many scenes, a large wall is lowered, strongly suggestive of a prison, and that turns out to be the dominant motif of the whole work — but it’s suggestive of the outside, not of the inside, of a prison. It is therefore unatmospheric, and whether we are at the auto-da-fé, in the King’s study, or in the gardens, everything seems much the same. Something about the production seemed to cast a lowering spell over the singers, all of whom were performing at less than their best, except for the irrepressible Pumeza Matshikiza, who sparkled in the role of Tebaldo, and made a stronger mark in the role than anyone else I have seen.

Even Simon Keenlyside, typecast as Rodrigo, was constrained both vocally and in movement, and only his death was moving — but it was so moving as to compensate for a lot that was inert. The least impressive performance was Sonia Ganassi’s Eboli, a role that has been the Waterloo of finer singers than she is. She was severely overparted, able to encompass neither the tiresome high jinks of the Song of the Veil, nor the agonies and determination of ‘O don fatale!’ It was in that latter aria that the real source of the trouble with the whole evening, apart from what I’ve already indicated, was so evident. Antonio Pappano massaged so much of the score that it was unravelling as it went along, and the whole passage of repentance in her aria was both slowed down and pulled about to a point where no one could have coped. It is the old failing, often manifested in Pappano’s Wagner, Verdi, Puccini. Often his need to go in for heavy petting with every note gives way later in the run, or next time round, to a grander mode of expressing his affection and eliciting a performance where the wood is apparent as well as the twigs and leaves. Later audiences may well have a much more rewarding evening than we did on the first, no doubt nerve-ridden night.

More articles from: Michael Tanner | this section

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