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

Gomes - Lo Schiavo (Cagliari, 2019)

Antônio Carlos Gomes - Lo Schiavo

Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, 2019

John Neschling, Davide Garattini Raimondi, Svetla Vassileva, Massimiliano Pisapia, Andrea Borghini, Elisa Balbo, Daniele Terenzi, Dongho Kim, Marco Puggioni, Francesco Musinu, Michelangelo Romero

Dynamic - Blu-ray

Some opera subjects don't need adaptation, revisionist reinterpretation and modernisation: some subjects remain equally powerful in any context and traditionally in opera they relate to war, power, love, injustice and freedom. Few treatments of those subjects however deal with those all of those issues in such a way that is immediately abhorrent and emotive to any right thinking individual as when it's tied up in the issue of slavery.

Surprisingly then it's not a subject that has not really been confronted directly in opera, but as a composer of Brazilian origin working at a time when there were places where slavery still hadn't been completely eradicated, it's clearly a subject that was very real for Antônio Carlos Gomes. Viewed from a distance, the 19th century opera treatment of Lo Schiavo (The Slave) is perhaps not particularly innovative for its dramatic treatment of the subject and - forced to set the work in the 16th century rather than closer to his own time - it doesn't appear to tackle the subject any more head-on than Verdi's Aida, but the opera raises an important issue and has merit alone for that.

In reality it has considerable merit elsewhere and deserves to be remembered for more than its subject. Moving to Milan after composing a number of operas in Portuguese, the São Paulo composer Gomes is one of those forgotten composers who were striving in a post-Verdi world to take Italian opera in a new direction. On the evidence of Lo Schiavo, judging by its dramatic orchestration and wonderful melodic flow, Gomes might not have been any more successful than many other Italian composers from this period between Verdi and the verismo composers who failed to make a distinctive mark, but his work clearly deserves to be better known.

In terms of the terrible nature of slavery, Gomes's opera and the Cagliari production make its abuses clear from the outset. The native Brazilian slaves on the estate of Portuguese landowner Count Rodrigo are whipped by their overseer Gianfèra and some are seen in the production hanged. The Count also wants to arrange a marriage between two of the slaves Iberè and Ilàra without their consent. It's being arranged as a way of breaking up an undesirable affair between Ilàra and his son Américo, who the would rather - for the sake of business as well as propriety - marry the French Countess of Boissy.

The Countess has a more enlightened attitude towards human rights, declaring that she will free all her slaves. It's an attitude that is praised by everyone - well, nearly all - but even the Countess's generosity of spirit is challenged when she discovers - Amneris-like - that it is a slave who is a rival for her intended Américo. Along with stirrings of rebellion against past and present injustices, with Américo a soldier being sent out against his better human nature by his father to put down rebellion, the love triangle situation does put one very much in mind of a similar treatment of these themes in Aida.

While Verdi's intentions for Aida - and even earlier with Nabucco - were perhaps fired by anti-war and anti-religious sentiments, along with his own experience of the people of a nation struggling for freedom against an oppressive regime, Antônio Carlos Gomez does however succeed to some extent in bringing the idea of liberty from enslavement down to more basic human and individual level. Partly that is indeed down to the idea of slavery itself being so abhorrent, but those sentiments are reflected in the music which if not as detailed and sophisticated as late Verdi, is nonetheless capable of packing an emotional punch. The Countess's and chorus's delivery of 'Inno della libertà' on the freeing of the slaves can measure up to the Hebrew slaves chorus of Nabucco.

While the dramatic situations do mix up those humanitarian concerns with romantic passions, it does still carry across the fact that some matters are just intrinsically right and wrong, particularly matters of the human heart which of course has no master. It even hints at other areas that where there is no freedom and where there is inequality there is injustice and enslavement. Lo Schiavo even makes reference to slavery being the condition of a woman's place in marriage. The Countess of Boissy notes that "To be attractive is our main concern" and her only duty is to entrance a man to be her husband. Even the rebellious Iberè acts like a tyrant husband laying down the law to Ilàra, even though their marriage is a sham.

None of these issues are given any kind of contemporary spin in the Cagliari production. Director Davide Garattini Raimondi and set designer Tiziano Santi place the plantation in a jungle setting with vines and creepers, the slaves - authentically or otherwise I don't know - curiously adorned in headwear with fronds of greenery and grass skirts. The plantation is contrasted well with the French gardens of the Countess of Boissy in Act II, and the whole production is beautifully lit and coloured in a way that reflects the drama and the tenor of the score. In terms of music and its presentation, the Cagliari production with John Neschling at the helm really shows the quality of the piece. There's not a dull moment with plenty of variety in the musical numbers and situations to continually impress.

It impresses very much also in the singing performances. Gomes gives each of the principals a good range of emotions to express and challenges of technique and stamina to contribute individual expression to the roles. Elisa Balbo as the Countess gets perhaps the stand-out piece in 'Inno della libertà' and certainly delivers on it. Baritone Andrea Borghini is superb as Iberè, Svetlana Vassileva manages to capture the spiritual side of Ilàra as well as the joy, despair and anger that comes from her human experience as a female slave. Massimiliano Pisapia is a classic Italian tenor perfect for the role of Américo, well capable of handling the challenges Gomes places on this role.

This 2019 Teatro Lirico di Cagliari production of Antônio Carlos Gomes's Lo Schiavo is evidently a world premiere recording for the Dynamic DVD and Blu-ray. The HD image on the Blu-ray is image is clear and warmly toned, capturing the colourful production and the lighting tones well. There are two lossless audio mixes that when given volume exhibit fine dynamic range and detail, and both are resonant and punchy. The Blu-ray is region-free with subtitles in Italian, English, French, German, Japanese and Korean. A short feature on the disc only covers a reception for this landmark production, but there is more  detail on Gomes and Lo Schiavo in the booklet, along with a synopsis in English and Italian.

Links: Teatro Lirico di Cagliari