Verdi - Rigoletto (Lyon, 2022)

Giuseppe Verdi - Rigoletto

Opéra de Lyon - 2022

Alexander Joel, Axel Ranisch, Enea Scala, Dalibor Jenis, Nina Minasyan, Stefan Cerny, Agata Schmidt, Daniele Terenzi, Grégoire Mour, Dumitru Madarasan, Roman Chabaranok, Heiko Pinkowksi

Opéra de Lyon - 23rd March 2022

Some people might not like it being played around with and transposed to a more modern period, but the fact is that even Verdi needed to revise Victor Hugo's original setting of Le Roi s'amuse and backdate Rigoletto in order to make it work for his own purposes as an opera. State censorship of course played a part in making things difficult for him, but Verdi was never one for letting that stop him and he certainly made no compromises on what mattered about the subject of Rigoletto; the abuse of power, the dangers of aligning oneself with them, and the strain this places on personal and family life. Those themes are evidently timeless.

Presented as part of their 2022 Festival season alongside the Franz Schreker rarity Irrelohe and the Bach cantatas arranged as Trauernacht, the Lyon production of Rigoletto uses an idea that is familiar to other interpretations, taking it away from the elevated context of kings or dukes behaving badly and putting it in a more relatable modern day context where the power and abuse of it is in the hands of men with money. Here, as with other mafia versions of the opera (see Jonathan Miller's famous production or indeed the Met's Las Vegas version) the Duke is a gangster, but one who presides over the tower block HLMs of Paris or even perhaps the the built-up high rises on the outskirts of suburban Lyon.

There is another level added here in Axel Ranisch's production that attempts to bring it even more into present-day reality; an on-screen movie that shows how anyone - anyone - can relate to the sentiments so powerfully expressed by Verdi in Rigoletto. The movie sequences feature "Hugo", a Verdi fan whose favourite opera is Rigoletto, and, as the overture plays, the projected scenes show him loading up a video cassette performance of an opera. He can identify personally with the plight, the fears and the loss that Rigoletto experiences in his devotion to his family, as he has had difficult experiences with his own, to the extent that he is now about to take his own life.

Most of the new approach to the opera in this production indeed takes place on the screen. Hugo was I believe also meant to be a live presence on the stage as a silent actor - inserting himself into the opera drama - but on the evening I attended Heiko Pinkowksi was indisposed and the two stage and screen stories played out in parallel rather than blended together. It still worked well, particularly effective in a couple of key scenes. The scene where Gilda asks about her mother (Act I, Scene 9 - "Fatte ch'io sappia la madre mia"), a projection shows Hugo's loss of his own wife when pregnant with their daughter. It certainly hits home the reality of what Rigoletto experiences and gives reason for his over-protectiveness of Gilda. It makes it real and it does it perfectly in the context of Verdi's score.

Elsewhere the actual stage production is less creative in its depiction of the excesses of the Duke's behaviour and in the nature of the gang members who follow, aiding and abetting in his crimes. It's a typical depiction of a street mob, a gangland mafia with an arrogant, charismatic boss. Falko Herold's set design however is superb in how effectively it captures the sense of desperation of life in the high rise banlieus. That too feeds into Gilda's hope of escape from the poverty and restrictive circumstances of her situation.

There are actually one or two individual directorial touches that also play neatly into Verdi's feel for the story. Monterone is actually killed in the first Act, and it's his ghost that appears to be being led out to execution in Act II, the bloody apparition emphasising the deep impact that the curse (la maledizione!) has had on Rigoletto's mind. Similarly, Gilda's death scene pushes the idea of self-sacrifice, as Sparfucile holds back when he removes the cloak from the unexpected late-night visitor and recognises Gilda. Or since he hasn't seen her before, he probably hesitates to kill a woman, leaving Gilda to present him with the necessary dead body by killing herself. It's effective but perhaps more so since the underlying sentiments are also mirrored in Hugo's filmed story.

It has to be said that this movie drama no more strives for realism than Verdi's melodrama, but somewhere between the on-stage action and the events played out on the screen, Ranisch's production touches on the essential qualities, the humanity and the emotional force that Verdi brings through in the fantastic score. That is played out in a exemplary fashion by Alexander Joel, standing in on this evening for an indisposed Daniele Rustioni. It's best brought out in performance however by Nina Minasyan's superb Gilda. Holding back a little only in dramatic performance, vocally at least she was outstanding, exhibiting a wonderful purity of voice and a smooth legato that reached up to those high bel canto coloratura notes with precision and often with the requisite emotion.

Enea Scala was also in very fine voice as Il Duca and provided the necessary charisma as well as bringing a bit of additional character to the Duke. The production assisted in this by introducing a Duchess who silently reprimands his actions and indiscretions, but tacitly puts up with them. Scala's delivery of the Duke's arias was excellent, filled with the swagger of one who knows he can get away with it. Dalibor Jenis was a fine Rigoletto, but aside from Leo Nucci, I have seen few who can really bring something special to this role. Stefan Cerny's Sparfucile was also well played. It may be hard to bring anything new to Rigoletto, but there is still life, truth and relevance in the work, and the Lyon production certainly got that across.

Links: Opéra de Lyon

Puccini - Madama Butterfly (Hamburg 2012 - Blu-ray)

Giacomo Puccini - Madama Butterfly

Staatsoper Hamburg, 2012

Alexander Joel, Vincent Boussard, Alexia Voulgaridou, Christina Damian, Ida Aldrian, Teodor Ilincal, Lauri Vascar, Jürgen Scaher, Viktor Rud, Jongmin Park, Thomas Florio

Arthaus Musik - Blu-ray

One thing I've noticed about the  few opera productions I've seen by Vincent Boussard (La Finta Giardiniera, La Favorite), other than the fact that he likes reflective stages, is that he manages to do a lot with very little, with minimalist stagings that are eye-catching and give the impression of being more elaborate. There are some places where this approach works better than others, and it's usually when the music and the libretto of the operas in question are strong enough to stand on their own. Madama Butterfly is certainly a work that fits into that category, but it nevertheless usually comes with a lot of additional stage baggage and stereotypical imagery that borders on kitsch.  Can Madama Butterfly survive without cherry blossoms, silk kimonos and bamboo houses with paper screens?

Boussard finds a way to retain the essence of this imagery, but presents it in a relatively minimalist fashion in this Hamburg production of Madama Butterfly, and he does so without losing anything of the exotic spectacle. That much is essential in as far as it presents the idealised beauty and perfection of an arranged marriage that underneath isn't quite as ideal as it appears on the surface. That is something that Boussard takes as the basis for the overall concept here and by and large it works without distorting the intent of the work, but there are also one or two interpretative twists here that everyone might not agree work as well or even consider necessary.

The costumes, by Christian Lacroix, look stylised traditional, with obis and big hats, although reflecting Cio-Cio-San's adoption of American ways she wears jeans and a sweatshirt for Act II. In terms of the set design itself however, this Madama Butterfly looks every bit as minimalistically oriental and yet subtly elegant as it ought to do. Largely, the set for the entire three acts is based around a spiral staircase at the centre of the stage, with only large panels behind. These however slide back to open up to the seasons and the passage of the day outside, as well as being used for off-stage locations for Madama Butterfly and Suzuki to retire to at significant points. It's very much an 'interior' design then and functional for the purposes of the work, but a subtle play of light and colour suggests other moods and situations.

If it's all about establishing the essential mood for each scene, you could say that Boussard's production is a little over-elaborate in its use of colour. More than just reflecting the time of day or the seasons, the lighting here changes from moment to moment with purple and yellow washes adjusted by bold reds and greens, saturating the stage like a scene from a Wong Kar-wai movie. Whether Puccini's rich scoring and balance of moods needs that kind emphasis is debatable and a matter of taste, but there's no doubt that the set and lighting follows and relates closely to those rapid switches between one extreme emotion and another.

It's this idea of extremes, of being bathed in an image of perfection and an ideal, that lies at the heart of Madama Butterfly. The exotic of the Oriental appeals to US Navy Lieutenant Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton. His marriage to a young 15 year-old Japanese girl something of a dream in which he succumbs to the illusion of a perfect marriage to a submissive and attentive wife for a brief period before having to deal with the reality back home. For Cio-Cio-San, the fantasy is more deep-rooted and necessary to escape from an otherwise terrible fate as a geisha, a prostitute or bound to a loveless marriage in the Japanese style.

This is why Cio-Cio-San buys into her husband's American lifestyle with the Western ideal of it being a marriage based on love. She can't afford to consider the event, even after three years absence, the Pinkerton will not return. Her illusions are all crystallised in her centrepiece aria 'Un bel di vedremo', where every detail and every gesture of their joyful reunion is perfectly rehearsed in her mind. Those hopes are confounded if not entirely shattered in the very next scene with the Consul bringing a letter with news from Pinkerton, since Cio-Cio-San is unwilling to admit the intent of the words and Sharpless can't quite bring himself to deliver them.

This creates a kind of dramatic tension between two different kinds of reality that Puccini, with his basis in verismo, vividly depicts. The romantic illusions that sustain both Cio-Cio-San and Pinkerton are just as "real" to them as reality, and they consequently pack a full emotional punch as they are elaborated and just as quickly punctured in the next scene. More than just holding a suspension between illusions and reality however, Madama Butterfly likewise swings between the difference between male and female sensibilities, as well as between the clash of cultures and it sustains a similar weighted tension between them all.

Boussard's production, mood and lighting, follows these developments very closely but it leads the director to make a few decisions that don't perhaps hold up as well. One can understand how Cio-Cio-San can make a little shrine to her delusions - a letter, a whisky glass and a bottle of liquor - but whether those should be seen as extending to their child is another matter. It's clear from the libretto that the child is real, but Boussard muddies the issue by not having a real child on the stage, but making use of a large doll instead. He also takes the final death scene off-stage, which is a brave decision, but there's no denying that it does rob the conclusion of some of its intended emotional impact.

If the intention is to let the strength of the music and the singing speak for itself, at least the Hamburg production has some fine singers who are capable of giving the work a full and nuanced expression. It's absolutely essential that you believe in these characters that are so well written by Puccini (in spite of some stereotypes), and if sung well they work. They work here. Freed from the usual mannerisms, Alexia Voulgaridou is able to emotionally delve into the work anew and sings wonderfully and with tremendous force. It's a riveting performance. Teodor Ilincal is a lyrical tenor in the classic traditional mould, his B.F. Pinkerton naive and romantic rather than exploitative and insensitive. Christina Damian's Suzuki is also very fine and adds considerably to the overall quality of this production. As too does the excellent account of the work by the Hamburg Philharmonic conducted by Alexander Joel.

On Blu-ray, the video transfer is very good. It looks a little softer than most, mainly on account of the colour saturation, but the colour reproduction and the beauty of the set is impressive. There's only one audio track on this release, a PCM stereo track, but it's strong and gives a good account of the singing and the orchestration. Other than trailers, there are no extra features on the BD, but the booklet comes with an interview with Vincent Boussard that discusses his approach to the work. Region-free, subtitles on the release are in Italian, English, German, French, Spanish and Korean.