SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

SEEN AND HEARD UK OPERA  REVIEW
 

Verdi, Rigoletto:  (Revival Premiere) Soloists, chorus and orchestra of Welsh National Operas, conductor, Pablo Heras-Casado, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, 25.6.2010 (GPu)

Cast

The Duke of Mantua – Shaun Dixon
Rigoletto – Simon Keenlyside
Gilda – Sarah Coburn

Monterone – Michael Druiett

Sparafucile – David Soar

Maddalena – Leah-Marian Jones

Giovanna – Neda Bizzarri

Borsa – Cárthaigh Quill

Countess Ceprano – Claire Hampton

Marullo – Alastair Moore

Count Ceprano – Martin Lloyd

Page – Laura Pooley

Usher – Stephen Wells

Production
Conductor – Pablo Heras-Casado
Director – James Macdonald
Designer – Robert Innes Hopkins
Lighting Designer – Simon Mills
Choreographer – Stuart Hopps

Chorus Master – Stephen Harris

Assistant Conductor – Simon Philippo

Simon Keenlyside as Rigoletto

Two nights before, in the same opera house, Richard Jones’s production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, treated this particular reviewer to an evening in which the decisions made by the producer brilliantly threw light on Wagner’s music and libretto, and a distinguished cast responded with some fine singing.

Those who have seen earlier versions of James Macdonald’s production of Rigoletto (first mounted in 2002) will, I am sure, remember its major strategy – the switching of the action from the ducal court of Mantua to the White House and Washington. This does little or nothing to illuminate the opera. It offers us the less-than-startling revelation that a President of the USA would be capable of abusing his position in pursuit of passing sexual (and other) pleasures – which can only come as news to someone who hasn’t read a newspaper since the 1960s. Some good(ish) stage moments are created, particularly some filled with menace, and physical relationships on stage were often well thought out (though none of this seemed especially dependent on the transferral of setting). On the downside, apart from some minor clashes between details of the libretto and the actions visible on stage, the director’s choice has more than one significant drawback.

The source story, in Victor Hugo’s play Le roi s'amuse, has as its three main characters King Francis the First, Triboulet, his Court Fool, and Triboulet’s daughter Blanche. Under the influence of the censors (led by no less than His Excellency the Signor Military Governor Cavalier de Gorzkowski) Verdi and his librettist Francesco Maria Piave were obliged to make various changes including one of location and social status – the King has now become a Duke and we are now in Mantua rather than France. But we are still in a court; still, that is to say, in a setting in which a Court Jester had a specific, defined role and function. The court fool was not merely an entertainer; he existed in a complex relationship with his master, allowed to say things to him, and to other courtiers, things bolder and more honest than the generally sycophantic nature of such a social setting allowed. The court fool Will Summers was a more outspoken critic of Henry VIII than any others could have been without losing their heads. The figure is familiar in drama – and was familiar in that form to both Hugo and Verdi – as in the Fool in King Lear or Feste in Twelfth Night (described as “an all-licensed fool”). Switch the scene to presidential America (American presidents don’t keep court fools, though they may sometimes surround themselves with fools) and you destroy a major component in the social dynamics of the work. As a result, in this production, it was impossible to make sense of Rigoletto’s position. What was he doing in the White House? What kind of status did he have there? How did he fit into the political-governmental system? These are not simply idle questions. The change from Duke to President effects a destructive change of the text’s essential social mode in a way quite unlike anything involved in the switch from King to Duke (and Macdonald couldn’t even blame the censors). The change of setting is similarly destructive of the plausibility of the power of Monterone’s curse – or at least of Rigoletto’s fear of its effectiveness, a fear which might readily make sense in Renaissance France or Italy, but not, surely, in Kennedy’s (or Clinton’s) White House? The whole concept of the production is a contradiction of Verdi’s considerable knowledge of what worked in the theatre.

For all that he was trying to make sense of the character in a quite inappropriate context, Simon Keenlyside was a fine Rigoletto, richly communicative of the character’s suffering, of his mixture of astuteness and naivety, without losing any of Rigoletto’s fierce contempt. Keenlyside’s vocal command of the role was impressive and gave plausibility to the paradox whereby the character can be so reviled and yet, clearly, so feared, by the courtiers with whom he has dealings. ‘Cortigiani, vil razza dannata’ had a spine-chilling and scabrous power and ‘Bella figlia dell’amore’ was complexly moving. Sarah Coburn was also a generally impressive Gilda (though again interpretation was handicapped by some of the sillier aspects of the production). ‘Caro nome’ was full of the wonder of discovery and ecstatic reverie and the ‘love’ duets with her father were very finely done and full of feeling. Her voice has real clarity at the top and a pleasing depth too. This was an auspicious WNO debut. Gwyn Hughes Jones was due to sing the President (sorry, Duke) but illness caused a withdrawal earlier in the day. New Zealander Shaun Dixon stepped in as a late replacement and, while he certainly didn’t let the side down in any serious fashion, there were (perhaps inevitably) some weaknesses. Though he sang with confidence, his stage manner was on the stiff side and he never persuaded one that here was a character of sufficient charm or charisma to seduce Gilda, who doesn’t after all know of his position of political power. Vocally his work was idiomatic and, at moments, very pleasantly Italianate – although the top B at the end of ‘La donna è mobile’ escaped him (twice). David Soar made much of Sparafucile, cool but relishing his work; Leah-Marian Jones made a very (in)decent Maddalena, particularly eloquent in her pleas that this latest victim be spared. Michael Druiett brought resonant power to Monterone, and his curse carried a fair degree of conviction, despite the inappropriateness of the surroundings in which it had to be uttered.

Making his WNO debut the young Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casado got some generally very good work from the orchestra. Just occasionally rhythms chugged rather than bit, but for the most part his support of the singers was exemplary and there were orchestral moments of real power.

Musically – and to a degree dramatically – speaking this was rewarding, and the whole made for a worthwhile evening in the theatre. But one hopes that looming financial cuts won’t necessitate too many more revivals of this particular production.

Glyn Pursglove

Picture © Clive Barda