.
Tonight has been a
special night for me. I grew up with an adored selections record of Don Carlo featuring Christoff and Gobbi. Then, when I started singing, one of
my first trophy-winning numbers was ‘Ella giammai m’amo’. What an opera. So
many great tunes! Almost out-Trovatore-ed Il
Trovatore. But, until tonight, I had never heard the full score. Never seen
it performed on stage.
Well, I’ve got a
stack of notes for people. Great bits do not an opera make. I know this piece
has been hacked around, in several versions, over the years, and the one that
it ended up in tonight needs both librettists (especially) and composer to have
a major relook. I was right to love my excerpts record, and after tonight, I
love it more than ever, but the padding … a wholly unnecessary last ‘act’ and
stupid melodramatic ending included … this is an opera with plenty of powerparts,
but which needs serious fixing and cutting.
So, to tonight.
Splendid setting. The sign of the cross looming viciously over us, as the
Catholic religion reigned viciously over the characters and plot. The direction
was unfussy, if a little 19th-century (lifting two arms does not equate
passion, banging one’s head on the wall becomes boring) and the costumes (with
one exception) atmospheric if not always explicable.
So we come to the
performance. Which I may say, right away, was ‘pretty bloody beaut’!
Amongst a wholly
A1 cast, I must focus on two young singers who simply blew me away. First, Miss
Kristin Lewis from Little Rock, Arkansas. What a dazzling, beautifully
controlled voice. Elizabeth has a
ghastly victimish role, and really has just ‘Tu che la vanita’ and a share in
the great quartet, which is the highlight of the night, in which to show her
stuff, and in those, Miss Lewis showed that she is a serious star prima donna
of the future. What lovely sounds, what thoughtful singing. I note she is to
sing Aida next. That should be a world-class treat.
But the star of
the night, for me, was the young Canadian baritone, Etienne Dupuis as Posa.
Yes, Posa has a large amount of the show’s best music with which to make an
effect, but it has to be sung. And tonight it was sung to within an inch of its
life. Dupuis has a glorious, warm silky-creamy voice which glid seemingly
effortlessly through the swathes of varying Verdi. He was slicingly dramatic in
his scena with the King, wonderfully pathetic in the best ‘Per me giunta’ I’ve
heard … I really wouldn’t have minded if
he’d taken an extra half-hour to die, just to hear him sing. Tonight, that
stick of a Don Carlo didn’t have a chance. The opera was clearly Don Rodrigo.
That isn’t to say
that that the tenor Leonardo Calmi demerited in any way. He sang his part
staunchly. But apart from in the scene of martyrdom, the character comes over
as such a tenorious wimp that it is difficult to make anything of him. Giacomo
Prestia looked and sounded a perfect King Philipp, playing his scenes with Posa
and the Inquisitor with a flair that made him wholly convincing as the Monarch
with a Dilemma, until that wretched last five minutes when all coherent
character-building is shattered in one gunshot. His ‘Ella giammai m’amo’ was
suitably sonorous, but a little spoiled by superfluous pacing and gesture.
Albert Pesendorfer was unbendingly impressive as the Inquisitor, fencing
murderously for the status quo, and that leaves the Princess Eboli.
Anna Smirnova is a
splendid singer and a huge favourite with an enthusiastic portion of the
audience. But someone in the costume department has got it in for her. Last
time I saw her she was dressed to ridicule in Nabucco: tonight was nearly as bad. A turquoise tent (why, when
everyone else was in black?) and the most frightful carrotty wig. And she has to
sing about her ‘don fatale’. Anyway, she sang the pop of the opera superbly,
but I just couldn’t believe that this penitent lassie was the same dame that
had been prowling about like a camp tigress in Act 1. Méry and du Locle really
have a lot to answer for in their libretto, but Miss Smirnova should first sue
the costumier.
Everyone seemed very
happy with Donald Runnicles’ orchestra, which was applauded loudly, the
Deutsche Oper chorus did the little they had to do with the skill and effect
I’ve come to expect from them, and at the end of the evening I felt that the
opera could hardly have been given a better performance. For which, much
thanks. But, before I go to see it again, MM Méry and du Locle have got to do
wholesale rewrites. And in the meanwhile, I’ll stick to my selections -- that
wonderful quartet, the Posa bits, Philipp’s scenas, ‘Tu che la vanita’, ‘O don
fatale’ &c – and forget the other intervening bits, and especially the most
ridiculous ending to an opera since Il Trovatore.
Next stop, Mons
Dupuis in Il Barbiere di Siviglia. Long
live Beaumarchais!
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