Andrea Chénier, Royal Opera House, review: like a Carry On – but without the jokes

Who on earth could have predicted that a hoary old operatic melodrama set in revolutionary France would find resonance in the present where the pen as a weapon against bigotry and hypocrisy has suddenly achieved iconic status. But hold up, let’s not get carried away. We’re talking about Giordano’s Andrea Chénier. Though its eponymous poet does indeed extol free expression at the service of love, the sentiments — the voices of reason in a time of high anxiety — don’t run too deep. And so we’re back where we started, with a hoary old melodrama.

So how to stage something that only gets staged in the first place if you have an extraordinary trio of singers fully ripened for the occasion — including a tenor of dashing and heroic timbre who can cut a suitably sympathetic and romantic figure before Madame Guillotine does likewise with him. The paradox, of course, is that this brand of opera was dubbed verismo when nothing could have been further from the truth. Though we begin in what might be seen as grand opera’s ‘comfort zone’ — an opulent estate just outside Paris, where the director David McVicar and his designers Robert Jones (set) and Jenny Tiramani (costumes) hurl money at the stage and dress — something surely has to give once we reach Paris. It doesn’t.

The opera itself starts promisingly. Giordano and his librettist dare to give a mere footman the stage before the aristocrats — led by the haughty Contessa di Coigny (Rosalind Plowright) — begin yet another elaborate party with yet another elaborate gavotte. Carlo Gérard — the impressively sonorous Zeljko Lucic – sings of his disgust and hatred of his masters. At the height of his ire McVicar has six crystal chandeliers rise from the floor in a gesture that certainly chimes with the music but only in the sense that it is resolutely cheesy.