Giuseppe Verdi - Don Carlos
Wiener Staatsoper, 2020
Bertrand de Billy, Peter Konwitschny, Vera Nemirova, Michele Pertusi, Jonas Kaufmann, Igor Golovatenko, Roberto Scandiuzzi, Malin Byström, Eve-Maud Hubeaux, Dan Paul Dumitrescu, Virginie Verrez, Robert Bartneck, Johanna Wallroth, Katie La Folle
Vienna State Opera Live - 4th October 2020
Don Carlos, the full Five-Act French version, is probably Verdi's most ambitious work, and if it was never quite a success its flaws only add to its fascination. In the right hands those flaws don't necessarily need to be weaknesses, and like much mid-period Verdi, with judicious cuts, good singers and some creative directorial ideas, the genius of the work is very much in evidence. Unfortunately if you don't have one of those elements, or indeed all of them, you're in for a struggle with this work. With this Vienna State Opera production of the full-length French version of Don Carlos clocking in at 5 hours including intervals, it's a glorious epic nonetheless even if it seems that the director Peter Konwitschny does more to highlight the opera's flaws than find a way to make them work.
Even so, I wouldn't say that the Vienna production is a struggle by any means. It's got a cast that is hard to fault and a conductor and director who should be capable of bringing fire to the work, but rather than seek to mitigate against or even exploit the works flaws, somehow Konwitschny just seems to emphasise them. What is most evidently lacking however is any kind of central idea to give it purpose, drive, energy and momentum. It has moments of excitement, mainly due to Verdi's scoring and the inner fire of the work that still smoulders, but you're left with the feeling that it should be so much more. That however is a not an uncommon feeling to have with Verdi operas of this period.
It's not as if there is any shortage of themes to latch onto in Don Carlos; love versus duty, personal lives and public faces, honour versus betrayal, family, friendship, politics and religion, war and peace, wielding power over a kingdom but having no control over human feelings and emotions. Any one of these can be expanded upon and Verdi provides the means to do so with stirring music that has strong dramatic drive and character definition, even if it's perhaps not always the most subtle. The opening Fontainebleau scene in this version can provide vital context for the love that Don Carlos has for his "mother" that Verdi melodramatically characterises as incestuous, but here it feels long drawn out and emotionally distant, Byström and Kaufmann failing to igniting any genuine passion.
Subsequent acts show little of interest or imagination, the background is plain, costumes are traditional style, the whole things very monochrome. A tree planted at Fontainebleau remains lit throughout at front of stage, a symbol perhaps of a new life, the potential of a new beginning, one that may be closer to nature, but the tree and idea never really takes root - which may be the intention. There are a few curiously exaggerated nods and winks to the audience, particularly in the dead Charles V disguised as a monk, but there is also a lot of just plain bad acting, particularly on part of Kaufmann. Don Carlos needs control, direction and purpose to find a way through the abundance of themes and personalities, and notwithstanding the strengths of Verdi's score, it just won't work if it doesn't have adequate dramatic conviction to support them.
If there's little evidence of a directorial hand in the first half, the production shows a little more ambition after the interval. Unfortunately those are more in the nature of little touches rather than serving any grand scheme or purpose, as if to give the audience a moment's respite from the heaviness of the melodrama. This is particularly evident in the French version's unfamiliar and rarely performed ballet sequence. Entitled Eboli's Dream, it takes a more modern outlook, updating the setting to a comfortable little mid-twentieth century home. Eboli is a pregnant wife cooking for her husband Carlos when he returns home tired from work, getting ready for a little family dinner party with in-laws, the king and queen. It's played mainly for laughs, Carlos is tired and clumsy, the cooking is inevitably a disaster and they have to order in pizza. It's quite silly, but a welcome change of tone and it's always a treat to have the ballet music included in Verdi's French operas.
What Peter Konwitschny brings out then is not so much the dramatic character as emphasise the dramatic colour of the work, which being a French Verdi opera has all the range and ability of the composer in it. It may not necessarily make the best use of it, and it rather demonstrates that it is hard to match the drama with the music without it appearing very heavy-handed. Colour there certainly is though, even if some of those touches often feel distracting. In the context of a mostly through-composed opera, the Spanish colouration of the music in the friendship of Carlos and Rodrigo (and its maudlin reprises), the Andalusian gypsy music of Eboli's Veil Song and even the ballet, all feel like crowd-pleasing filler playing to convention rather than making any meaningful contribution to the drama. All are enjoyable in their own way and the production at least seeks to include them for that.
Another of those breakaway moments occurs when the opera is taken out into the foyer of the Vienna State Opera for Verdi's big choral auto-da-fé set piece, with an announcer, a film crew and photographers following the action. The heretics, looking like staff of the opera house or formally dressed members of the audience, are rounded up and beaten. Again, this is very much playing to the colour of the piece rather then illustrate it with any meaningful dramatic context. For Act IV's "Elle ne m'aime pas" ("Ella giammai m'amò" in the Italian) it's made clear that Eboli has obviously enjoyed some revenge sex with Philippe having brought Elisabeth's casket to him, only for the king to regret it the next morning. It adds a little more of a frisson to the king's condition, his conscience spiked further by the arrival of the Inquisitor, who is blind and doesn't see Eboli in his room.
If the dramatic conviction of the opera is lacking, there is at least considerable compensation in the musical and singing performances conducted by Bertrand de Billy. Surprisingly however, despite having sung this role capably before (even if I wasn't impressed by the version I attended at the Bastille in 2017) Jonas Kaufmann appears to be showing further signs of strain. More than any minor issues with the singing, I was more surprised more by his lack of any sense of real engagement with the character of Carlos and his dilemma. You could blame the director (or revival director Vera Nemirova) for that, but either way, the cracks are showing.
Malin Byström is a fabulous singer and you can't underestimate how impressive she is singing a fiendishly difficult role, although ideally a little more force and experience is needed perhaps to really put personality behind Elisabeth. Eve-Maud Hubeaux's Eboli is fabulous, well-sung, showing plenty of personality and character. Michele Pertusi and Igor Golovatenko also give fine performances as Philippe and Rodrigo. No great revelations perhaps but regardless of any minor complaints with the production and performances, the opportunity to hear such an astonishing work performed at this level is always a treat.
