Giuseppe Verdi - Nabucco
Wiener Staatsoper, 2015
Jesús López Cobos, Günter Krämer, Željko Lučić, Jinxu Xiahou, Carlos Osuna, Michele Pertusi, Maria Guleghina, Monika Bohinec, Il Hong, Simina Ivan
Wiener Staatsoper Live at Home - 14 May 2015
As it often does with early Verdi works, Nabucco is an opera where situation counts for more than either plot or characterisation. The situation here is one where a people are oppressed, struggling under a tyrannical regime, their beliefs and identity suppressed. That's something that the composer would have been able to identify with far more than Nabucco's Biblical setting and the personal investment consequently comes through here more clearly than in any of Verdi's early works. It's that element that a director has to find to present the work well, but rather more important is the choral nature of Nabucco. Both happily are well covered in the Vienna State Opera production.
It's Verdi's choral writing that contains all the emotions that are at the heart of the work, and Nabucco contains some of Verdi's most memorable melodies, full of noble sentiments of pride for one's homeland and one's people. This takes in questions of love, of family and duty, and Verdi's writing is masterful in how he binds up all these elements into the most stirring arrangements. It's a lot less convincing on individual motivations and characterisation and, for all the drama involved, Nabucco is not terribly strong on pacing and plot.
That's the main problem that a director has to face when presenting this Verdi opera on the stage. Initially, you don't have to worry about it too much, certainly not in the opening scenes of the work. For the first twenty minutes or so the audience isn't going to care a whole lot about the where and the why. You can feel everything you need to know in the beautiful choral arrangements and the oratorio-like expression of the Hebrew High Priest Zaccaria. Whether it's well-developed or not, the plot however is far from meaningless, and these are not generic sentiments.
There gravity of the situation is established through a forbidden love affair between Ismaele, the nephew of the King of Jerusalem, and Fenena, the daughter of Nabucco (Nebuchadnezzar), the King of Babylon and the oppressor of the Israelites, who has sacrilegiously declared himself the one god and forbidden the worship of idols. Family matters come to the fore when Nabucco's other daughter Abigaille, who is also in love with Ismaele, discovers the truth of her origin as the daughter of a slave, and she challenges the authority of Nabucco when through Fenena's influence, he attempts to free the captive Israelite prisoners.
The sentiments between love, family and duty are scarcely comprehensible however and far from credibly developed. The problem is lack of compatibility, the conflation of all these situations of family, duty and romance pushing the whole thing over into melodrama, particularly when some of them (the Fenena-Ismaele-Abgaille love triangle for example) have been inadequately developed. Verdi is ambitiously striving for a 'King Lear' here, but is not equipped to tackle a work of Shakespearean complexity. If Lear continued to elude him, he would do a similar plot much better in Aida in his later years, but in Nabucco at least there is a youthful fire, as well as some degree of sensitivity and intelligence in the scoring.
Director Günter Krämer's handling of the material for the Vienna State Opera production isn't entirely confident either. There's a determination to remove the Biblical context, but not really anything offered in its place. There are no thunderbolts and no idols worshipped; miracles are not divine ones, but carried out by human hands and direct intervention. The struggle is clearly still that of the Jewish people being oppressed (there's no Risorgimento parallel attempted here for example), the production aiming instead for an indeterminate but more recognisable 20th century setting. That sits fairly well as a human drama, but without any real context, the plot doesn't gain any greater credibility.
There is room within for greater credibility to be found within the generous emotional richness of Verdi's score, but although the individual singers all perform rather well, there's no effort either to develop characters and relationships on a surer footing. Željko Lučić replaced an indisposed Plácido Domingo (he hasn't been having a good run of health recently) so we at least have a strong, lyrical, authentic baritone in the role of Nabucco. If the singing is wonderful, Lučić doesn't have the same presence or the critical regal bearing that Domingo might have brought to the role in the seeming absence of character direction and the indeterminate setting.
Maria Guleghina had to take on the role of Abigaille, one of those frankly terrifying roles that Verdi would compose for soprano in his early works (in Oberto, in Attila). If you have a Verdi soprano of real character and stature, such roles can be impressive, but there are few dramatic sopranos of that type around nowadays, and if there's any weakness, it really shows. Guleghina is a little unsteady in pitch and the high notes are not the kindest to the ear, but she's every bit as fiery and formidable as the role demands. It's not enough however to make this Nabucco fly, nor are the rather thankless characterisation and writing for Carlos Osuna's Ismaele, Michele Pertusi Zaccharia or Monika Bohinec's Fenena. Jesús López Cobos however led the orchestra through the score with surprising warmth and sensitivity, and the chorus were outstanding. If you've got that much at least, you've got a fine Nabucco. Expecting anything more from this particular Verdi work is perhaps asking for a little too much.
Nabucco was broadcast live from the Vienna State Opera as part of their Live at Home programme. The next broadcast is Sven-Eric Bechtolf's production of DAS RHEINGOLD on 30 May and DIE WALKURE on 31 May. Both are conducted by Simon Rattle. Details of how to view these productions live at home can be found in the links below.
Links: Wiener Staatsoper Live Streaming programme; Staatsoper Live at Home video
Giuseppe Verdi - Macbeth
Metropolitan Opera, New York - 2014
Fabio Luisi, Adrian Noble, Željko Lučić, René Pape, Anna Netrebko, Claudia Waite, Christopher Job, Raymond Renault, Noah Baetge, Joseph Calleja, Moritz Linn, Richard Bernstein, Seth Malkin
The Met Live in HD - 11 October 2014
There's at least one good reason for selecting Macbeth as the opening broadcast in the Met's 2014-15 Live in HD season, as opposed to the actual season opener Le Nozze di Figaro (which will be broadcast later this month). It's become a recent tradition to open the HD broadcasts with the popular attraction of Anna Netrebko, and opera's brightest star - possibly now at the peak of her career - has a new role in her repertoire - Lady Macbeth. That's something worth reviving a readily available production of Macbeth for, and Adrian Noble's 2007 production fits the bill.
Considering the liberties that Verdi and his librettist Piave take with Shakespeare's drama, it probably helps that there's a former RSC director behind the production to anchor it back in Shakespeare's themes. The strength of Noble's Macbeth consequently is its adherence to mood and character, and even if it gives the appearance of modernisation, it remains fairly traditional in its presentation. It's a good half-way house that is typical of the Met, where modernisation is acceptable if it is visually impressive and doesn't go as far as reworking the concept or more deeply exploring the themes of the work in a challenging or revisionist way.
Noble's production seems to borrow something of its mood from Alfred Hitchcock, with Lady Macbeth even transformed here into a Hitchock blonde. There's a sinister quality to Mark Thompson's set and costume designs that makes it a bit 'Dial M for Macbeth', the setting dark, misty and moonlit, the costumes vaguely 1940s. The witches wear granny-coats with handbags (think Monty Python's 'pepperpot' old ladies) and there's a more elegant formal dress of the royal court, most notably in the banquet scene. The military scenes however reflect a more modern image of war, but not too high-tech - the jeeps, combat gear and automatic guns having something of the appearance of the Bosnian war.
It's all very much iconic imagery that has resonance and meaning to a modern audience, without introducing high-technology 'magic' that could distract from the very necessary hands-on nature of mad ambition and the bloody business of murder. Is this a dagger which I see before me? It certainly is. It's not a drone or anything else that is designed to make some modern political point about the morality of killing and war in the present day. That's not what Macbeth is about. Nor is it specifically about national identity. Verdi certainly made something more of the Italian Risorgimento struggle in his opera ('Patria opressa') but there are no such references in this production, and little even that relates it to its Scottish setting. There are no saltires, no tartan or flags, and no attempt to update it to make reference to the recent independence vote in Scotland either.
The generic setting and non-specific period allow the focus to fall back onto the human question of our relationship to power, ambition and murder. Fortunately, although it diverts in some plot developments from Shakespeare's vision, Verdi's writing for Macbeth sees the composer at his most inspired. Macbeth is still a relatively early work in the composer's 'galley years', but the quality of the source material (even in translation) clearly spoke to the composer who would much later revisit his beloved Shakespeare in Otello and Falstaff. The selection of scenes and numbers for Macbeth allow him to align power and melody to new levels of intensity, and to stronger characterisation than is found in those other early Verdi pot-boilers.
Melodically and in the setting of the scenes to standard numbers and arias, the composition of Macbeth is wonderful, but the real quality of the work - particularly in the revised version used here - is in Verdi's writing for the voice. Get a couple of great singers into those roles with a strong chorus and Macbeth can be a thrilling and visceral experience. Željko Lučić and René Pape have a track record with this production at the Met in the roles of Macbeth and Banquo. It's perhaps unfair to merely pass over their performances here as "solid" - Lučić in particular is shaping up to be a great Verdi baritone and doesn't put a foot wrong, hampered only by not very special direction - but when you have the right person in the role this is Lady Macbeth's opera, which that means it's Anna Netrebko's.
Quite simply, Netrebko is phenomenal, singing a challenging role with apparent ease, delivering the signature 'La luce langue' aria with remarkable control and tightly focussed precision. She almost makes it look too easy, and that might be a problem. She has clearly waited for the right time to tackle Macbeth, and has prepared for it well (trying out some arias on CD and a couple of live performances of the role at the Munich festival this summer), but at the same time the performance is almost too cool and studious, and it could do with a little loosening up.
That is perhaps just being too picky about what is by any reasonable consideration an outstanding performance, but there are occasionally flashes that show that Netrebko is capable of bringing much more to the role than the direction really allows. Her Act II banquet brindisi ('Si colmi il calice'), for example, isn't quite so joyful, but shows her growing anger with Macbeth succumbing to his terrifying visions of Banquo's ghost, flashing him furious glances and singing the second verse almost between gritted teeth. There's a taste of the fire that could underlie the cold, calculated behaviour here, and it's evident in 'La luce langue', but too little of it is seen elsewhere.
The same however could be said of the production as a whole. Some scenes are handled well, while others are rather static, the cast left to stand and sing out to the audience. In addition to the aforementioned banquet scene, where the bloody ghost of René Pape's Banquo makes a great impression, the scene of the King's burial is well staged, the tensions spilling over in such a way that the suspicions of Banquo and Macduff (sung well by Joseph Calleja) can clearly be seen to set them up in opposition to Macbeth. Fabio Luisi had the measure of the work, finding wonderful character as well as force in the score, and the Met chorus impressed, but in a way that confirmed that the quality of the production lay more in the delivery of the musical performance than in the largely static stage direction.
Giuseppe Verdi - La Traviata
Teatro alla Scala, Milan - 2013
Daniele Gatti, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Diana Damrau, Piotr Beczala, Željko Lučić, Giuseppina Piconti, Mara Zampieri, Antonio Corianò, Roberto Accurso, Andrea Porta, Antrea Mastroni
ARTE Live Web Internet Streaming - 7th December 2013
Unsurprisingly, the opening night of the new season at La Scala was marked by controversy and the making of political statements. Not much changes then at the home of Italian opera, and even if much of the furore is unwarranted and probably manufactured, it's good to see an opera house being the place to air such passions. One would think that there was at least surely nothing to complain about in the choice of Verdi or in the superlative performance of La Traviata for the 7th December season opening night, but it seems that some people at La Scala would boo an empty stage.
The first political statement was of course made even before the evening began, and even before Daniele Gatti's call for a show of respect for the death of Nelson Mandela was met by a spontaneous round of applause rather than the expected minute's silence. It was the political choice of a Verdi opera to open the season, following the controversy of the year beginning with the other two-hundred year old birthday boy Richard Wagner, and the nationalistic approval of the choice was greeted with cries of 'Viva Verdi!' as the lights went down.
If the choice of Verdi seemed designed to appease the more vocal of the boorish loggionisti, the choice of director Dmitri Tcherniakov to mess with the maestro was almost certainly a move calculated to create controversy and generate headlines. Inevitably, despite this production of La Traviata being one of the director's most restrained, respectful and considered efforts, the headlines were indeed captured by a small group of idiots who were clearly intent on booing whatever the outcome. This resulted in Piotr Beczala vowing never to return to La Scala after the appalling behaviour of the audience, and Diana Damrau's Facebook page doing their best to distance the soprano from any controversy by noting that she was engaged to perform long before any production team was in place.
Was there any need for this? No, of course not. Any reasonable opera-goer would be floored by a La Traviata as good as this and be hard pressed to find any serious cause for complaint in either the cast, the performances or the staging. Indeed, you'd be hard pressed to find a better account of Verdi's masterpiece played anywhere in the world today. You're certainly not going to hear a Violetta Valery as good as Diana Damrau, and she was in superb form here, her singing not just flawless in terms of technique, but passionate, sensitive and dynamic in response to the drama. Damrau is one of the best sopranos in the world, but even she can't carry an opera on her own, and the supporting work and the direction all came together to make her performance shine all the brighter.
In terms of the production design, Tcherniakov is clearly aware that an opera like La Traviata doesn't need any 'concept' attached, and it doesn't have any weaknesses that need covered-over or updated. On the contrary, Tcherniakov's apparent hands-off approach actually went the opposite way as if to point out that the work is so strong that it doesn't need anything but the most basic of settings. It doesn't need the traditional elaborate costumes and plush interiors to depict the drama and the tragedy of human love, it just needs singers of great ability and attention paid to the dramatic tone. If you think a performance as good as this happens all by itself in a way that works seamlessly with all the other dramatic and performing elements, then you're seriously underestimating the role and the ability of the director.
I'll leave assessment of the interior design and the costumes to the fashion critics, and if you want to look for some of the director's more eccentric touches there may be something of a theme with dolls and angels, but however he did it, Tcherniakov's attention was clearly on matching the drama to the wealth of emotions and passions that are there in Verdi's extraordinary score. The most evident departures from the stage directions for example are in the gypsy entertainments at the start of Act II, Scene 2, where the director brings Alfredo in early and has the party songs directed at him as if they mean something. They don't quite match, and Alfredo looks rightly disconcerted here, as if everyone knows something about him and isn't letting him in on the joke - which in a way is true - but Willy Decker's production (seen most recently at the Met) plays on the same idea and does it much better.
The second part of Act II of La Traviata is indeed where all sorts of undercurrents and passions are expressed, words are spoken out of place and actions are misinterpreted and Tcherniakov managed to capture the unsettling quality of this key act in the above scene (one too often thrown-away or even, in more extreme cases, even cut), but he maintains the tension elsewhere in this scene in a variety of ways. The lights go out in an unsettling way a couple of times when Violetta arrives and when she steps forward to ponder the situation with Alfredo. It's difficult to find any more violent way of depicting Alfredo's public pay-back repudiation of Violetta than is already there in Verdi's music, but Tcherniakov convincingly shows an understanding Violetta attempting a conciliatory gesture, and the harsh dismissive gesture of Alfredo to an act of kindness makes this scene even more striking here.
Tcherniakov knows he can make this work because he has such a great cast who can not only sing well, but can act well enough to express the complicated mix of conflicting emotions that are at the heart of the work. Damrau commands the mixed emotions of every aria and cabaletta of every scene, from her impressive 'È strano ...sempre libera' that expresses childish excitement developing into rapturous joy tinged by fear and anxiety, through her fearful defiance and heroic capitulation to Giorgio Germont in Act II, to a simply stunning summation of the joy of living the moment of death in 'Addio del passato'. Surely one of the most challenging roles in the soprano repertoire, there are many who can do Violetta well, but few who can make this kind of impression and at the same time make the role entirely their own.
Alfredo can often be a thankless role, particularly if not given the same kind of attention by a director, but Tcherniakov would seem to have some sympathy for the character and his flaws and Piotr Beczala bravely (and thanklessly) puts all those characteristic out there on display. Alfredo is a bit wishy-washy at the start, and even with the Brindisi, Beczala seems only adequate to the role. Act II, Scene 1 is there for Alfredo's taking and the Polish tenor really develops into character here in such a way that his instability later in the Act becomes fascinating for how he deals with it. The potency of the characterisation and the manner in which in works with Damrau's Violetta makes the reappearance of Alfredo in Act III a moment of almost heart-stopping intensity. That's how it should be, it should set up the tragic conclusion to arrive with no sentimentality and no regrets, and this one is devastatingly good.
Giuseppe Verdi - Macbeth
Bayerische Staatsoper, 2013
Massimo Zanetti, Martin Kušej, Željko Lučić, Goran Jurić, Nadja Michael, Evgeniya Sotnikova, Wookyung Kim, Emanuele D'Aguanno, Christoph Stephinger, Andrea Borghini, Rafał Pawnuk, Iulia Maria Dan, Tölzer Knabenchor
Live Internet Streaming, 11 May 2013
I've seen enough serial-killer horror films to know what it means when a room is "decorated" in plastic sheeting. I've also seen enough Martin Kušej stage productions to know he likes to mess up the stage with splashes of blood around the place. I also know Verdi's Macbeth well enough (better than Shakespeare's original work admittedly) to know that there's ample opportunity then for the red stuff to flow liberally in the Bayerische Staatsoper's new production. With promotional images showing a stage filled with 16,000 skulls, it looked like someone was going to have quite a job hosing down the sheeting at the end of this one. So how come this production never quite lived up to its potential?
On paper - and in promotional images - it all looks good. There's a strong, dark concept here to match the darkness of Shakespeare's vision and Verdi's brooding 1847 account of it. "If we can't make something great out it", Verdi wrote to his librettist Piave, "let's at least try to make it something out of the ordinary". Verdi's Macbeth is indeed a pale shadow of the original work, but in its own way it is something extraordinary. Martin Kušej likewise looks well placed to bring something extraordinary out if the work, if not indeed something great. His productions, as I've noted in the past (in Die Fliegende Höllander, in Genoveva, in Rusalka) are often concerned with elements of class, and there's plenty of social climbing ambition to be found in Verdi's Macbeth.
Verdi's choruses, his placing of the voices of the people up there on the stage, provide a clear dividing line between the machinations of the royal titled nobility and the common people. Kušej acknowledges those divisions, but also recognises that in Verdi's work the voice of the people is a rather more complex one. They're the driving force that celebrates the victories of Macbeth and Banquo, are sincere in their outpouring of unrestrained grief at the death of Duncan and, most obviously, are the motivating force that overthrows their country from the repressive regime that it descends into under Macbeth's bloody reign.
The masses also represent a certain fantastic element in Verdi's version of Shakespeare's play, since the witches here are not three weird sisters, but a chorus who determine the direction of fate and the destiny of the major players. There's a level of complicity then in their actions that endorses, idolises (lighters aloft) and encourages the ambitions of the ruling classes, even turning a blind eye (wearing hoods here) to Macbeth's crimes. They are no mere background chorus then in Kušej's production, and it's hard not to notice their presence and their hand in the playing out of the drama here.
The foreground characters are however rather less well defined. Partly that's Verdi's fault in his reduction of the complexity of Shakespeare's play and his breakdown of the work into four acts that really never flow in a convincingly dramatic way. Within each of those four acts however there is a wealth of characterisation that can be brought out when attention is paid to the score and the vocal writing, but there was something lacking on that front in this production. Željko Lučić, as he demonstrated recently in the Metropolitan Opera's Rigoletto, has a lovely lyrical Verdian baritone, but he doesn't have the presence, the steel or the personality to bring something greater to the character of Macbeth.
Nadja Michael, it must be said, is not lacking in personality or presence. Even if her singing performances can lack discipline and attention to detail, that's not so much of an issue with her character here. Verdi didn't want a beautiful voice for Lady Macbeth, but someone with indeed the kind of personality to bring dramatic expression to the role. Nadja Michael would seem to fit the bill perfectly then and she was indeed quite formidable in aspect, pacing the stage with determination, her face bathed in dark shadows. Her vocal delivery however left something to be desired. She seemed rather restrained in her 'La luce langue' (1865 revised version of the opera performed here), but her deficiencies became more pronounced in the later acts when she really ought to dominate proceedings.
Without the necessary personality and singing ability in these critical roles, it's difficult to make Macbeth work, no matter how strong the concept, but particularly when they are meant to represent a "killing machine" force. Visually, with the performers and the chorus often balanced on top of a mount of 16,000 skulls, the 'killing fields' concept was strong and it would be hard to imagine a darker account of 'Patria oppressa!' than the one that takes place here in a slaughterhouse with naked bodies suspended upside-down from meathooks. There were inevitably some curiosities in the actions of the chorus and in the symbolism of a tent on the stage that seemed representative of royalty or just death, but they did have an unsettling character that worked, particularly when the dying bloody Duncan is seen crawling out of the opening of the tent. Overall however, it all felt very detached from the musical drama, with neither the chorus or the principals ever managing to match the force and darkness of the actual work.
The disjointed approach of the staging perhaps reflects Verdi's piecemeal approach to the work, but it can be overcome with the right production and casting. Unfortunately, the frequent fades to black with brief pauses for scene changes drain all the energy out of the performances and stall the flow of a work that at least has a strong thematic consistency in the musical composition. Some of the work's potential was realised at the conclusion, which benefitted also from a beautifully sung Macduff (Wookyung Kim), but it was definitely too little and too late. The score was at least given a very powerful account from the Bayerisches orchestra under Massimo Zanetti, but the production never allowed those essential characteristics that make Verdi's Macbeth a powerful if flawed work to assert themselves and hold all the various elements together.
This performance of Macbeth was broadcast live on 11th May 2013 via the Bayerische Staatsoper's own Live Internet Streaming service.
Giuseppe Verdi - Rigoletto
The Metropolitan Opera, 2013
Michele Mariotti, Michael Mayer, Željko Lučić, Diana Damrau, Piotr Beczala Oksana Volkova, Štefan Kocán, Maria Zifchak, Jeff Mattset, David Crawford, Robert Pomakov, Alexander Lewis, Emalie Savoy, Catherine Choi, Earle Patriarco
The Met: Live in HD, 16th February 2013
Diana Damrau and Željko Lučić appeared in one of the promotional slots during an interval in last month's Met Live in HD broadcast of Maria Stuarda to promote their appearance in the Met's forthcoming new production of Rigoletto. When asked whether they thought that Verdi's opera would benefit in any way from an updating of its 16th century Mantua court setting to a casino in 1960s Las Vegas run by members of the Rat Pack, Damrau and Lučić just laughed. Of course not. Verdi's brilliant work is strong enough to withstand most interpretations but, who knows?, it might just be fun to see it in the context of the colourful sets and situation developed by Broadway director Michael Mayer and his creative team
In the event that's exactly how the Met's new production turned out. Rigoletto doesn't gain anything at all by setting it in Las Vegas in the 1960s, but the idea has a certain merit and fascination in how it aligns characters from the opera to real Rat Pack figures. Here, the Duke of Mantua is a Frank Sinatra-like owner of a casino with a coterie of hangers-on willing to indulge his every whim, while comedian Don Rickles is the basis for the acerbic comedy of Rigoletto - or Rickletto, if you like. With Count Monterone a wealthy Arab sheik backer of the casino, Mayer's production is as an effective way as any of putting across the glamour and power struggles as well as the respective positions of the characters in Verdi's mid-period masterwork.
The production's greatest impact came, not unexpectedly, in the licentious First Act, the Old Blue Eyes Duke in a white dinner jacket, grabbing a microphone to "croon" 'Questa o quella' for his guests, accompanied by Las Vegas dancers with colourful fans. Visually, it looked magnificent, and it did get across all the necessary glamour and cruelty of the situation, with all the back-biting asides and casual sexism generated by the Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin-like members of the pack towards "dolls" anyone outside of their little group. A few subtle tweaks in the subtitles to reflect the swinging sixties dialogue worked well in this context, matching the intent and raising a few smiles without being too far removed from the original.
The setting didn't over-impose itself however, or else it ran out of ideas, fading mostly into the background after the colourful opening scene, and allowing the mechanics of the drama that is driven by Verdi's magnificent through-composed scoring and duets to assert its rightful position as the true engine of the work. Nonetheless, all the important dramatic points of the opera were made to fit into the setting fairly well, without too much awkwardness. The abduction of Gilda from Rigoletto's apartment in the casino's hotel using a lift worked best, the setting of the tavern in a strip club complete with pole-dancer perhaps a little gratuitous but workable, the dumping of her body into the boot of a Cadillac at the end a little less so. It was a nice touch, but it just made things a little difficult for Diana Damrau to get across the poignancy of Gilda's final moments in her 'Lassù in cielo', and it was hard to feel any sense of remorse in her father either. If that doesn't work, you've got a major problem with your Rigoletto.
It's the dramatic conviction in the singing however that ultimately determines the level of success of any production of Rigoletto, and while it was hard to fault the singing from any of the cast, that necessary commitment and direction wasn't always there. The Met's production at least benefitted from casting that mixed youth with experience, often within the same person. It was noted by both the singers and the director that Diana Damrau and Željko Lučić already had considerable experience in these roles and have often even performed them together in their time at Frankfurt. Piotr Beczala too has performed the Duke before - there's a Zurich production on BD/DVD - and is clearly quite capable in the role as well as being boyishly bright-eyed and charming. It seemed however that for the most part they weren't directed enough by Mayer - or indeed by the conductor Michele Mariotti - but left to bring their own experience with the characters to this production, with the result that they never seemed entirely comfortable with how that fitted into the Las Vegas setting.
Damrau - recently returning to the stage after giving birth to her second child - seemed to show a little more effort in her singing than before, but with such a wonderful and expressive voice, it was more of a problem that she didn't really seem to be able to connect with this Gilda and her dilemma come to life. These are relatively minor points since the singing from Damrau, Lučić and Beczala was just superb, but Rigoletto is indeed an opera where such considerations and attention can make all the difference. These are much richer characters than they were allowed to be in this rather superficial production. Curiously, there actually seemed to be more effort put into drawing the secondary roles, Štefan Kocán in particular standing out as the Sparafucile. With a deeply toned and wonderfully controlled bass, he was a refreshingly youthful assassin and consequently even more dangerous in a character role more often given over to veterans. Superficial but fun and wonderfully sung, there's nothing inherently wrong with the Met's Las Vegas updating of Rigoletto that a little more attention to the characterisation and a tighter hold on the conducting couldn't improve.
