Verdi - Attila (Milan, 2018)

Giuseppe Verdi - Attila

Teatro alla Scala, Milan - 2018

Riccardo Chailly, Davide Livermore, Ildar Abdrazakov, Saioa Hernández, Fabio Sartori, Simone Piazzola, Gianluca Buratto, Francesco Pittari

ARTE Concert - 7 December 2018

Attila is a dog of an opera. You can make excuses for it being an early Verdi work, full of youthful passion and fury, you can make claims for it being an expression in defence of national unity and liberty from foreign oppression, and you can even point to it anticipating Verdi's great mid period of Rigoletto, Il Trovatore and La Traviata, but at best Attila is workmanlike and at worst ridiculously old-fashioned. Other than the fact that it was first performed at La Scala in 1846, I can see no reason why the Milan house would choose Attila to showcase their traditional December season opening extravaganza.

Well, there's one valid way - maybe two - of making it work and possibly have something worthwhile to put in front of a modern audience. As was proved earlier this summer with Alzira at the Buxton Festival, even the crudest Verdi operas can be rehabilitated when they have truly great singers capable of singing the principal roles, particularly the extraordinarily challenging writing for the lead soprano role. In practice this is rare and there are few singers of that calibre willing to push their voices to such extremes for the sake of a hokey melodrama.

Which brings up the other challenge of making early Verdi palatable for a modern audience; finding a way of updating the production to make it relevant and not look like - as is the case with Attila - an am-dram Gothic melodrama in period costumes. Unfortunately, early Verdi rarely supports any effort to bring nuance or indeed substance to the works.

As far as the Teatro alla Scala di Milano is concerned however, they wouldn't dare present such a work without the necessary singing forces on such a prestigious opening night, even though the brave lead soprano Saioa Hernández taking on the role of Odabella is a complete unknown to me at least. On the directorial side there's a little more room to risk the disapproval of a thankfully decreasing but still vociferous minority of boorish traditionalists at the opera house, and Davide Livermore - who has produced some imaginative and thrilling work at the Rossini Opera Festival to showcase the underappreciated value of Verdi's predecessor - is a good choice that offers some hope for Attila not being a complete disaster.

The question remains whether Verdi's Attila can sustain any deeper human sentiments in this context. Based on Livermore's record it's not likely that he will attempt the impossible, but you can expect him to at least find a way of illuminating Verdi as an operatic spectacle. And indeed it soon becomes obvious that Livermore has dispensed with the heavy fleeces, fur-hats with horns and the swords and shields for a more recognisable and relatable vision of war. The director goes for spectacle that includes jeeps, motorbikes and helicopters (ok, not the last one, but he would if he could) but also finds a good balance of showing us familiar modern imagery of the nature of war atrocities without going too far down the Damiano Michieletto Guillaume Tell route of explicit realism.

Plumes of grey smoke spiral into dark murderous skies and ruined buildings set the scene as Attila's Huns overrun the Italian capital during the Prologue, gunning down ordinary men, women and children in summary executions. So when Odabella launches into a defiant condemnation of Attila's brutality against the Italian people, against Italian women ("Ma noi, donna italiche... sempra vedrai pugnar"), you need to see why she is sufficiently roused, why she might be capable of carrying out her threats, and why the Hun leader might be impressed enough to spare her a similar execution. You need to hear it too, and when Saioa Hernández launches into this opening scene you're left in little doubt of how formidable this woman can be, particularly when she is facing an Attila as deeply sonorous as Ildar Abdrazakov.

There's nothing clever or revisionist or high concept in that, it just matches and brings into realisation the full force of Verdi's intentions in dramatic and scenic terms, playing up the Gothic, which is the best you can do. Addressed to an Italian audience, with its nationalistic flag-waving in the face of foreign invasion ("la tua patria in cenere" - your country in ashes) it could be seen as risky in these times of far-right insurgence (particularly in Italy), but Livermore's vision (perhaps more than Verdi's vision of noble sacrifice) shows what war means to the ordinary people caught up in it in terms that we are rather more familiar with today.

There are plenty of little touches that keep the drama grounded in this way, with cinematic back projections showing the death of Odabella's father that chrysalises her implacable quest for vengeance against the Huns. There is also plenty of spectacle and fireworks elsewhere in the impressive set designs and some good ideas that strive to get into the nature of Attila and his worldview, notably in the visualisation of Attila's dream turning to reality in Act I, and in Act II's party scene that has some sinister and decadent 'The Nightporter'-like Nazi imagery. Most of this works as well as can be expected for an opera like Attila.

The singing however is just superb. You couldn't ask for better than Ildar Abdrazakov and Saioa Hernández for total assumption of the roles of Attila and Odabella. Hernández is spectacularly good, nailing an extremely difficult role. There's still some standing, gesturing and striking of operatic poses, but the figures they play do often seem possessed and they try at least to make the Verdi-istic feel a little more naturalistic, or at least in the spirit of the work. The other performances are also outstanding; Fabio Sartori is a clarion-voiced classic Verdi tenor perfect for Foresto, with Simone Piazzola's Ezio and Francesco Pittari's Uldino also impressing.

Musically it's another matter, or another challenge if you like. In an interval interview Riccardo Chailly makes the case for Attila richly showcasing three musical colours for military scenes, for sacred scenes and for the supernatural, which sounds like typical Verdi by numbers to me that is done much better elsewhere. If it's insipid one moment and heavy-handed the next, Chailly at least tries hard to brings a little more uniformity and lyricism to the musical arrangements. It doesn't change my opinion that Attila is weak and démodé, but if anyone can make a case for it, they'd be hard pushed to improve on just about any aspect of this impressive La Scala production. A surprising success.

Links: ARTE Concert, Teatro alla Scala

Verdi - Macbeth (Berlin, 2018)

Giuseppe Verdi - Macbeth

Staatsoper under den Linden, Berlin - 2018

Harry Kupfer, Daniel Barenboim, Anna Netrebko, Plácido Domingo, Kwangchul Youn, Evelin Novak, Fabio Sartori

ARTE Concert - 21 June 2018

There's definitely an air of a prestige event about the Berlin Staatsoper's star-studded summer spectacular Macbeth, but also in its live open air broadcast, a sense of it being an occasion that can be accessible to a wider audience. Macbeth's recent elevation to becoming one of his most popular operas is deserved, and certainly among the best of the composer's earlier works. As such it has all the requirements of a crowd-pleaser, a showcase for imaginative stage direction, impassioned musical direction and for superstar singing. Verdi, Macbeth, Shakespeare, Kupfer, Barenboim, Netrebko and Domingo; evidently you're in for a treat. While the Berlin production can't fail to impress, there's still a lingering sense that it's more of an event than great opera.

The early indications in the setting of Act I Scene 1 are that Kupfer's production isn't going to shy away from the darkness and the horror that lies at the heart of Macbeth. There are however different ways of presenting the nature of that horror and Shakespeare and Verdi have differences of emphasis on the nature of power and ambition in Macbeth. For Verdi, the centrepiece of the opera is 'Patria opressa', the consequences that the lust for power has on the ordinary people caught up in war. Should a director stick closer to Shakespeare's themes or Verdi's? Well, there's no reason why you can't do both.

Phyllida Lloyd's production of Macbeth for the Royal Opera House found several ways to make the consequences and the reality of the underlying struggles present on a stage littered with the bodies of the dead, and Harry Kupfer's production for Berlin, while it may be a little more elegantly staged, also immediately places us is a world of almost apocalyptic devastation. Thick plumes of smoke rise from explosions of flame and lightning rains down on the scene as Macbeth and Banquo appear in the aftermath of the battle that will determine the future kings of Scotland. The witches dressed in rags scurry around the bodies in the muddy battlefield rags, scavenging over the spoils of war; a scene that tells you all you need to know about what is ahead without any mystic prophesy.

The veteran stage director's sets the scene well and what follows is equally spectacular. Kupfer's current visual aesthetic is for blacks, greys and steely silver, with off-kilter angular background projections of elegant, slightly surreal landscapes, and it works well for the contrasts and tones of Macbeth. The cold luxury of the Macbeth household is in stark contrast to the devastation outside in the real world, but it also captures a sense of the nature of Lord and Lady Macbeth's pretensions and sense of their own importance and ambition to rise. Verdi's music for these scenes, and Lady Macbeth's aria 'Vieni t'affretta' tell you as much, and Kupfer reflects this well.

There's really not much else to say about Kupfer's directorial choices. The remainder of the opera takes place in a series of equally suitable settings that provide variety and yet maintain a consistent tone. Every scene makes an impact - whether it's the ambush of Banquo by the maw of a digger on a building site or Macbeth's apparitions taking place within the crater of an active volcano - even if it doesn't say anything deeper than that. It's not the most insightful reading of Macbeth, but then Verdi's abilities at this stage in his career are far from the level he would attain with his later Shakespeare adaptations of Otello and Falstaff. The sets and direction however present impressive visual effects that match the character of the entertaining and expertly played performances.


Entertaining and expertly played that is, but likewise not with any great insight or depth. Anna Netrebko stamps her authority on the role of Lady Macbeth right from 'Vieni t'affretta' in the second scene of Act I, and her mastery of her character and ability to express her nature has already been capably demonstrated. As you would expect, she demonstrates great technical ability and considerable personality but, whether it's just the influence of the direction and the occasion, the personality is more Netrebko than Lady Macbeth; her 'La luce langue' is a little mannered, with no real sense of evil, menace or engagement with the world around her.

Unfortunately, that lack of engagement might also be down to the casting of Plácido Domingo. It's possible that Macbeth might well have a trophy wife, but it doesn't help that during his mental breakdown - where there is no actual ghost on the stage in this production - he looks more like her doddery old father. There's no chemistry here at all between Netrebko and Domingo. There's also the fact that while Domingo can sing the role well enough he just isn't a baritone. In other roles and even in other Verdi roles it might not matter so much, but the necessary contrast, weight and lyricism that is needed for Macbeth just isn't there. The addition of 'Mal per me' (making the best of both versions) consequently lacks the impact of the more direct ending and in fact it falls rather flat.

The Berlin Staatsoper's Macbeth then is very much a mixed bag. Daniel Barenboim conducts a good account of the score that holds back on bombast and allows the pace, rhythm and melodies to find their own sense of menace and horror. If it feels a little too smooth for early Verdi, that's as much to do with the elegant production that looks lovely, but fails to really follow through on the gritty and bloody drama that the opening scene appeared to promise. It's perhaps churlish to find minor faults with Netrebko and Domingo, who both delivered professional and crowd-pleasing performances, but these was more of a sense of them being opera gala performances than related to true lyric drama.

Links: Berlin Staatsoper, ARTE Concert, YouTube

Puccini - Tosca (Staatsoper Berlin, 2014 - Berlin)

Giacomo Puccini - Tosca

Staatsoper Berlin, 2014

Daniel Barenboim, Alvis Hermanis, Anja Kampe, Fabio Sartori, Michael Volle, Tobias Schabel, Jan Martiník, Florian Hoffmann, Maximilian Krummen, Grigory Shkarupa, Jakob Buschermöhle

Staatsoper am Schiller Theater, Berlin - 16 October 2014

The most notable point about the Staatsoper Berlin's new production of Tosca is that it marks the first time that Daniel Barenboim has conducted a Puccini opera. As interesting as that might be - and it did prove to be a fascinating reading of a very familiar work - it was just as intriguing to see how Barenboim's Tosca worked with the vision of Latvian director Alvis Hermanis. I don't think anyone would have known quite what to expect from this pairing, much less predict just how complementary the end result might be.

Relatively new to the opera world, the Hermanis productions that I have seen (Jenůfa for La Monnaie and Il Trovatore for Salzburg) have tended to be rather elegant, painterly and even 'flowery' in a way that would seem ill-suited to a verismo opera. In both those previous productions however there was a recognition of the harsher reality of stories that on the surface are given a somewhat romantic edge through a narrative structure that is enhanced by some beautiful melodies. There was also a very clear division in the Berlin Staatsoper's production between the familiar romanticised version of Puccini's Tosca as it is more often depicted and the rather brutal reality of its verismo subject.

There's is another 'painterly' approach used in this production. In fact, the entire opera is told in painted storybook form played out on a large screen that is built into the set. It's a cleverly all-purpose design that functions with some minor changes to represent the pillars and a wall for Cavaradossi's to paint in the Sant' Andrea della Valle church in Act I; it's imposing as a wall with a balcony in Scarpia's office at the Palazzo Farnese in Act II; and it acts as a backdrop to a wall of a prison cell on the Castel Sant' Angelo for Act III. Except it doesn't attempt to actually recreate the real-life locations in the way that so many other productions do in their attempt to inject realism into this opera.

And it doesn't need to. The Berlin production emphasises the realism by contrasting the action on the stage with the Napoleonic period storybook paintings projected on the screen. If you want to see Tosca as it is traditionally done, with wigs, candles and photo-realistic backgrounds of the real-life Rome locations, it's all up there on the screen. On the stage, the costumes are closer to the actual period of the work's early twentieth-century composition. (In their smart suits and moustaches, Scarpia's henchmen Spoletta and Sciarroni even look like Puccini as he is seen in those familiar photographs). There doesn't appear to be any attempt to tie the work to anything specific in Puccini's time, but it's sufficiently different to make it distinct from the period glamour without imposing another reading on the work.

No matter what the set designs show and no matter what period it's set in, what is of primary importance is the way a director handles the opera's key scenes. Despite the beauty of the melodies and the fact that they are two of the most memorable arias ever written in Italian opera, 'Vissi d'arte' and 'È lucevan le stelle' are not to be sung as bel canto, but must be depicted as verismo. Here, Anja Kampe doesn't step forward and sing Tosca's aria to the audience, she sings it as a means of seducing Scarpia with the false promise that she might have more to offer him in return for releasing Cavaradossi. There's no diva performance here, it's solid and dramatic with flashes of fire and brilliance. The curtain falls at the end of Act II with Tosca sinking into a chair in a state of shock at what she has done. That's verismo.

The same sense of aligning those those arias and key scenes to a purposeful dramatic context is also evident in the casting of Fabio Sartori for Cavaradossi. As a counterbalance to the cool but dark undercurrents that characterise Tosca and Scarpia, as Italian tenor is probably essential to stir up the passion and fire that Cavaradossi represents. Sartori brings this out superbly. I've found the tenor to be a bit hit and miss in the past in his Verdi singing, but his Puccini is impeccable, particularly when he's well directed. The singing is heartfelt and passionate, his 'È lucevan le stelle' finishing not with an eye towards applause, but caught up in his dark reflection on life and it coming to an end.

Michael Volle brought an unexpected lyricism to this production's Scarpia. Like Anja Kampe's Tosca, it was interesting to see the role played with a more Wagnerian tone, or in Volle's case, Wagnerian with a softer timbre and a Strauss-like beauty. It didn't exactly make Scarpia any more sympathetic, but it did make him much more human than this villainous character or the caricature of it is more often played, and indeed scored. I don't think this kind of casting and contrasting of voices comes about by chance either. It's clearly been carefully thought through for the impact that is required for the purposes of this production, and in particular for the manner in which it is conducted by Daniel Barenboim.

It was Barenboim's conducting of the Staatskapelle Berlin orchestra through his first Puccini opera that really hammered home the verismo aspects of the work. Anyone still subscribing to Kerman's outdated view that Tosca is a 'shabby little shocker' or a tawdry Italian melodrama would have been surprised by the human and the dramatic qualities that Barenboim found in the work. The conductor never let Puccini's lyricism and sense of melody get in the way of the aching and painful sentiments that underlie their superficial beauty. There was no bombast either in those moments of high melodrama, the horns blasting out a jarring dissonance in the crashes of those soaring crescendos, shaking the audience to the core.

With Barenboim conducting the Staatskapelle this way, there was no need for Tosca's leap at that famous conclusion, even though it was depicted in all its glamorous glory in the painted version of the story. The jarring reality and mounting horror of what has transpired over the three acts is all there in the music as the opera reaches its climax. The only option that is left open to Tosca needs no further spelling out, leaving Kampe to merely hold her arms out wide and walk towards the front of the stage as the curtain falls. The impact on the audience was palpable.

Verdi - Aida (Verona 2013 - Blu-ray)

Giuseppe Verdi - Aida

Arena di Verona, 2013

Omer Meir Wellber, Carlus Padrissa, Àlex Ollé, La Fura dels Baus, Hui He, Fabio Sartori, Giovanna Casolla, Roberto Tagliavini, Ambroglio Maestri, Adrian Sampetrean, Carlo Bosi, Elena Rossi

Bel Air - Blu-ray

You don't often see a minimally dressed stage for a production of Aida, and you certainly won't be accustomed to see it at a production in the open air Arena di Verona, where Franco Zeffirelli's vast, flamboyant and extravagant staging is normally the house production. Minimalism isn't something you associate either with La Fura dels Baus, but when the camera sweeps over the walls of the ancient Roman arena, there's literally nothing on the stage but two narrow crane scaffolds. In the year when Verona celebrated Verdi's masterpiece with two productions, one a recreation of the original production and one experimental, it would be a surprise if the Catalan team didn't rise to the challenge of the occasion in this venue.

There may be something to be said for taking the focus away from the spectacle and giving more attention to the actual human dilemma in Aida, but if there is, I haven't seen it. The godfather of theatrical minimalism Robert Wilson didn't make a convincing case for it, so it may well be that Verdi's grand conception and the music he writes for Aida does indeed demand big gestures. And an audience expects to be treated to a spectacle in Aida. La Fura dels Baus therefore take a bit of a risk with their approach, but one of their strengths is indeed finding the right scale for a work and the site-specific environment that it is staged in. Their Aida isn't actually minimalist, it just takes advantage of the natural environment. Short of putting on the work beside the Pyramids in Egypt, there's hardly a more suitably ancient setting for Aida than the Roman amphitheatre in Verona.

Nor, despite initial appearances, is the stage entirely bare for the whole performance. Just before the overture, a few extras dressed as old-style archaeologists from the British Museum use local workers to reassemble part of an old temple wall, the implication presumably being that we are going to build up a view of an ancient past. The stage does indeed start to accumulate props as the opera progresses, building up a concept that might not entirely be comprehensible and might take some fantastical leaps of imagination, but it does in a way reflect the pace and the deepening emotional and dramatic building of the drama. In terms of how this culminates in Aida's famous conclusion, there's now a fully-fledged technologically-elaborate La Fura dels Baus set that hits the dramatic high-point with all the force that an audience expects of this work.

For the earlier part of the production then just as the sun is setting, Padrissa and Ollé allow the location to do most of the work for them. The ballets and processions all involve large numbers of supernumeraries walking through the audience with lighted football-sized globes and lining up in the upper tiers at the back of the amphitheatre. It's simple but effective. Things get a little more elaborate (and confusing) when we come to the Triumphal March, which involves an acrobat hanging on a cable (but not singers in this Fura production for a change), with mechanical elephants and camels marched across the stage, as well as troops in scarab buggies and a forklift truck carrying reflective silver cubes. The impression it gives is of a stylised ancient Egypt in the costume design and make-up, but almost a science-fiction version of it.

Almost without noticing it however, the stage gradually accumulates and transforms. Large inflatable Dali-like soft shapes arise in the background, which when lit and projected upon, give a vague impression of sand dunes. The silver cubes meanwhile are assembled into a large concave cross, which gradually descends at the end of the opera to enclose Aida and Radamès in their tomb. Elsewhere, the set designers are able to recreate a stylised Nile riverbank for Act III, complete with water, plastic-backed crocodiles, and waving palm fronds made of the same cables that are even used to create a futuristic dress for Aida. On paper it sounds like a terrible way to stage Aida. There's no attempt to make any commentary on war, imperialism or nationalism in the concept, but it proves nonetheless to be remarkably effective both as a spectacle and as support for the love drama.

As such, the production design doesn't overwhelm the human characters at the heart of Aida, nor does it overwhelm the performers. Thankfully, the singing is also strong enough for there never be any danger of that happening. Hui He is even stronger in the role of Aida here than in the previous version of the role I've heard her sing (Maggio Musicale Fiorentino). Her voice is fuller here (at the cost perhaps of a little clarity of diction), with a soft legato that reaches those high-notes much more smoothly. I didn't see much of an emotional connection to the character in her performance, but it's sung well and clearly gets out there to the arena audience. Fabio Sartori's voice is also big enough if not terribly lyrical and his notes stray a little, but he's just about good enough for Radamès. I most enjoyed Giovanna Casolla's Amneris. She has a firm, commanding voice for the most part and manages to be suitably formidable while demonstrating a human side.

The open-air nature of the Arena di Verona doesn't give the best acoustics to judge the performance of the orchestra, but Omer Meir Wellber conducts the work well through all its dramatic points and show pieces. The visual and audio qualities of the video recording are also restricted somewhat by the venue, which means that the Blu-ray isn't always as clear as it might be as it tries to cope with the changing light conditions. An attempt to capture the full impact of a large-scale La Fura dels Baus production like this is also difficult, but the filming does reasonably well. The Blu-ray is BD25, region-free, with subtitles in Italian, German, French, English and Spanish.

Verdi - Oberto

Giuseppe Verdi - Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio

Teatro Regio di Parma, 2007

Antonello Allemandi, Pier' Alli, Mariana Pentcheva, Fabio Sartori, Giovanni Battista Parodi, Francesca Sassu, Giorgia Bertagni

C-Major

Verdi's first opera, written when he was 26 years old, might lack the musical sophistication and dramatic characterisation of his late masterpieces, but Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio was good enough to open at La Scala in Milan in 1839, where it enjoyed a modest success, and it's a prototypical full-blooded early Verdi work that already has many of the elements that we associate with the composer.  There's a historical subject based around war and revolution and an arranged marriage - but it's not Don Carlos by any means - there's a young woman whose father is outraged that she has been seduced and abandoned by a rakish noble - even if it can't stand up alongside Rigoletto or Simon Boccanegra or any of the other Verdi operas that deal with the father/daughter relationship.  Oberto rather sticks closely to the established format and subject matter of the 19th century Italian number opera, but Verdi's dramatic flair, his ability to underscore those key moments with the most stirring and passionate arrangements is evident nonetheless and those qualities are brought out exceptionally well this production.

There's not a lot of dramatic action as such in Oberto.  Much of the important events have already taken place, leaving the principal characters involved to fume their displeasure and deep feelings of love, betrayal, anger and desires for revenge at the start of the opera through a series of cavatinas and cabalettas.  At the centre of the drama - like many of Verdi's works - is a father/daughter relationship that has been affected by war and revolution.  Oberto, the Count of San Bonifacio, has been driven into exile, leaving behind his daughter Leonora.  Leonora in his absence has been seduced by Riccardo of the Salingherra family - Oberto's sworn enemies - under a false identity.  With Riccardo about to be married now to Cuniza, the sister of Ezzelino, an influential ally, Leonora bemoans her shame and Riccardo's betrayal.  Her father Oberto however has secretly returned and incensed by what has happened, he urges his daughter to go speak to Cuniza and avenge her honour, turning up before the wedding to resolve the matter himself in the traditional fashion of a duel.  It's pretty standard plotting then, the drama driven by a series of arias/cabalettas, but Verdi brilliantly whips this up into something utterly compelling by adding trios, quartets and choruses to create an explosive atmosphere in manner that makes it impossible not to get swept along.

Recorded in the small, intimate surroundings of the Teatro Verdi di Busseto, this 2007 production settles for a relatively traditional setting that has an appropriately theatrical feel to it.  There's nothing too ambitious attempted, the costumes are theatrically period, the sets are confined to backdrops, with minimal use of props and the stage - small as it is - left clear and open for the singers to step forward and let fly.  In the absence of any real dramatic interaction, the director Pier' Alli merely gets the performers to stand looking out, look sincere, strike a few dramatic poses and make some curious sweeps of the arms and hand gestures.  The presumption - a big one possibly for what is after all Verdi's first opera - is that the music and singing alone will be enough to carry the full force of the work.  Fortunately, while it's not left to rest entirely on the shoulders of the performances - the lighting and setting providing an effective and appropriate mood for the work - this turns out not to be an entirely unreasonable assumption.

The singing is generally good, but in such a stripped down production and with the musical arrangements as they are, there's nowhere to hide any weaknesses.  There are no concerns at all however with the male tenor and baritone roles.  Fabio Sartori gives a gutsy performance as Riccardo, pitching his performance perfectly for the tone of the work and the scale of the theatre, while Giovanni Battista Parodi's Oberto is similarly well-judged, striking the right note as the outraged father looking to restore his dignity without taking it overboard.  Mariana Pentcheva also gives a performance of dramatic intensity as the deceived bride-to-be Cuniza, and it's only Francesca Sassu's Leonora that shows any real weakness in the line-up.  The merciless acoustics of the small theatre and the opera's musical arrangements will quickly reveal any weaknesses, and in this context Sassu sounds unable to bring any depth or drama to the lower end in her opening cavatina, but also fails to hold her own in her Act I duet with Parodi.

When fully supported however, as the opera gathers pace with Verdi works up the musical drama and lightning effects are thrown in for good measure, the qualities of the work and the production become clear.  The trio at the revelation of Riccardo's betrayal - resounding with Oberto, Leonora and Cuniza cries of 'traditor!' - is the highlight of Act I, Verdi following it up impressively with a powerful finale, while Act II's quartet has much the same impact, achieving the full Verdi effect.  The chorus have an important part to play in this, and do so marvellously, but the main part of the success of this production rests on the driven performance of the orchestra as conducted by Antonello Allemandi that is nicely attuned to the rhythms and dynamic of the work.  The sound quality on the Blu-ray disc is simply outstanding.  Every instrument is crystal clear, highlighting just how good an account of the work this is.

Released on Blu-ray by C-Major, the image quality every bit as good as the HD sound mixes, Oberto is the first of a series of performances recorded at the Teatro Regio di Parma that will form part of a complete Verdi collection, 'Tutto Verdi', released to coincide with the composer's bicentenary in 2013.  Some trailers for other works in the collection are included on the disc, as well as a visual introduction/synopsis for Oberto.  The Blu-ray is all-region, with subtitles in Italian, English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean and Japanese.

Verdi - Simon Boccanegra

Giuseppe Verdi - Simon Boccanegra

Teatro alla Scala, Milan 2010

Daniel Barenboim, Federico Tiezzi, Plácido Domingo, Ferruccio Furlanetto , Massimo Cavalletti, Ernesto Panariello, Anja Harteros, Fabio Sartori, Antonello Ceron, Alisa Zinovjeva

Arthaus

Coming just before the mature final works, Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra – along with Un Ballo in Maschera, Les Vêpres Siciliennes, La Forza del Destino and Don Carlos – occupy a strange but fascinating hinterland in the career of the composer. Each of the operas, influenced by Verdi’s political involvement in the Risorgimento for the reunification of Italy during the period, are very much concerned with the exercise of power, but they all rely on typically operatic conventions of bel canto and French Grand Opéra in their use of personal tragedies and unlikely twists of fate to highlight the human feelings and weaknesses that lie behind their historical dramas. Written in 1859, but revised by the composer in 1881, Piave’s libretto given an uncredited reworking by Arrigo Boito, Simon Boccanegra is consequently one of the more interesting works from this period, certainly from a musical standpoint. Aware of the flaws in the earlier version of the opera, Verdi can be seen to be striving in its revised form to take it away from the aria/cabaletta conventions towards the more fluid form of music-drama and expression of character that would come to fruition in Otello.

In many ways, the central relationship that defines the tone and the nature of the drama in Simon Boccanegra – a father-daughter relationship that is common in Verdi’s work – is similar to the one played-out in Rigoletto. The mother is dead (in the case of Simon Boccanegra, the wife happening to be one of the daughters of Jocopo Fiesco, the head of a rival Genoa family), and Simon must necessarily keep his relationship with his daughter secret. The difficulties of the political situation, and a desire to keep his daughter (who has been lost only to be conveniently rediscovered 25 years after the opera’s prologue in the house of his rival) out of the complicated political affairs, and some over-protectiveness on his part with regards to her choice of men, affect Boccanegra’s judgements and open up those weak points at a time of vulnerability during his reign as Doge. This kind of situation leads to an old-fashioned but quite literally blood-and-thunder conclusion in Rigoletto, which is the most masterful of Verdi’s work in this style, but while the plot twists and conclusions are no less dramatic in Simon Boccanegra, the musical treatment – certainly in the revised version of the opera at least – is less reliant on convention and closer to the purer and personal mature Verdi style that is deeper, intricate and more nuanced in characterisation.

It’s perhaps with this in mind that the 2010 production of Simon Boccanegra from La Scala in Milan adopts a kind of hybrid form of traditional staging with some modernist touches that, like the opera’s own make-up, don’t blend together entirely successfully, but are no less fascinating for how they throw their contradictory elements into relief. There’s nothing too jarring or experimental in Federico Tiezzi staging – this is La Scala after all – nothing that distracts from the essential directness of the drama or Barenboim’s conducting of the powerful musical accompaniment that drives it relentlessly forward to a gradually building tragic conclusion that, like Don Carlo, has a sense of the Shakespearean grandeur that the composer was working towards. The staging is perfect in terms of giving a sense of historical 14th century period, the costumes beautifully designed with eye-catching colour schemes that make the divisions between the rival factions clear, the stage itself uncluttered – as Verdi himself specified – evoking mood, character and location as much through the lighting as any props. There are one or two more modern touches of stage technique however – descending trees onto the stage in Act II, a sea of blocks that suggests seismic activity and a huge reproduction of Casper David Friedrich’s Das Eismeer – that suggest that this shouldn’t be taken simple as a straightforward historical drama, but as one that has greater conceptual meaning with regards to the questions of the nature of power and the place of human relationships within it.

This style of presentation works perfectly with the imperfection of the opera itself and the contradictions inherent within these concepts. It would be less than satisfying however if the opera itself didn’t have the kind of casting that it really needs to carry them off and, fortunately, that’s where the real strength of this particular production lies. With the likes of Plácido Domingo, Ferruccio Furlanetto and Anja Harteros this opera could hardly be in safer hands. Domingo, of course, isn’t the true baritone that is required for the role, but he had all the necessary qualities and experience – as he approached his 70th birthday – to take on the challenge of two significant Verdi baritone roles in 2010 (and it’s probably no coincidence that the other was that complementary character of Rigoletto). His tone of voice, so dramatically attuned, brings a great deal of that necessary flawed humanity to the role of Boccanegra. Ferruccio Furlanetto is of course one of the great Verdi basses of our time and it’s particularly wonderful to watch two such fine performers and voices complement each other so well in this rival roles. Their Act III ‘Piango, perché me parla’ is absolutely stunning. Harteros sings Maria/Amelia well – as you would expect – but I didn’t get the same sense of father/daughter chemistry that existed when Domingo was paired with Marina Poplavskaya for the Covent Garden production of this opera the same year.

This is a fine, marvellously looking production then, meticulously directed and conducted to bring out the full conceptual nature of the staging and the abstraction of the opera’s music, but it’s the human interpretation that is perhaps the most vital aspect of Simon Boccanegra. It’s not just experience that is required either on the part of the singers, but rather the ability of Domingo, Furlanetto and Harteros to inhabit their characters and give them a deeply human sense of expression through their delivery that ultimately lifts this production above being merely a faithful and appropriate treatment to one that explores the intriguing potential of the opera, with all its fascinating flaws and contradictions.

The Blu-ray release from Arthaus presents the production exceptionally well, with a clear, sharp full-HD image, and two sound mixes in LPCM stereo and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 that are superbly detailed and toned. There are no extra features on the disc, and only a brief essay on the opera and the production in the enclosed booklet. A synopsis to explain the historical context of the opera’s setting would have been useful, but I imagine you can find that on line somewhere if necessary. Region-free, BD25, 1080i, subtitles are in Italian, English, German, French, Spanish and Korean.