Verdi - Attila

Giuseppe Verdi - Attila

Opéra Royal de Wallonie, Liège, 2013

Renato Palumbo, Ruggero Raimondi, Michele Pertusi, Makvala Aspanidze, Giovanni Meoni, Giuseppe Gipali, Papuna Tchuradze, Pierre Gathier

France TV Culturebox, Internet Steaming, 24 September 2013

In the bicentennial year that saw new productions of many rarely performed early Verdi operas, the unlikely popular success of Attila is perhaps the most surprising, if not downright baffling. There are many other neglected Verdi operas - I Due Foscari, I Masnadieri, Joan of Arc and Stiffelio, for example - that are surely more deserving of exploration and re-examination than Attila. Popularity is no sure indicator of quality but it can't be ignored either, and there's no question that Attila is a quintessential and entertaining Verdi work. It is filled with nationalistic sentiments, tragic romantic situations and family complications which have that recognisable melodic and dramatic Verdian touch, even if none of the melodies can compare to Verdi's best and the drama here is fairly static.

Musically, Attila is also fairly conventional, Verdi matching the situation with appropriate music that isn't terribly imaginative, but more often resorts to basic see-sawing, plucking and shimmering strings to accompany situations of stormy tension. The break-down into static numbers doesn't allow for a great deal of fluidity either, containing the requisite religious scene (Bishop Leone), that is preceded by a ghost scene (maidens in white appearing in a dream to Attila), and patriotic hymns ('Cara patria' - 'Dear homeland'). The problem with Attila however is not so much that it's a number opera, since Verdi can do wonders with such material (Macbeth, Joan of Arc), as much as the fact that Temistocle Solera's libretto provides little room for the composer to explore any deeper subtext to the situation or any personality in the characters.

The problem is highlighted in Act 1 after the lengthy prologue. Odabella sings a lament for her missing father and Foresto who she believes is dead ('Oh! Nel fuggente nuvolo'), but as lovely as it is, it's rendered immediately pointless when Foresto turns up at the end of the number not dead after all, and the sentiments evaporate as the chugging strings work up the tension yet again for their charged encounter. Like everything else in the opera, that's all pitched at a level of near hysterical declamation. Here Odabella furiously challenges his faithfulness, while Foresto just as furiously denies it. "Strike me with your sword, but not your words", Odabella declaims, and Verdi's music is that sword, wielded as defiantly as the fervent expressions of determined ambition to destroy and defeat Attila and his forces elsewhere. It's all rather tiresome, I find.

The lack of any real dynamic or more subtle exploration of character and situation means that there's not a great deal a director can do with it either. Conducting the orchestra of the Opéra Royal de Wallonie, Renato Palumbo doesn't find any unexpected depths or lyricism in Attila, but there's no doubt it's a very good performance of a mediocre opera. The production too, directed by Ruggero Raimondi - a man familiar with the role of Attila as a singer - is as well-staged as any of the fine productions at the very underrated Liège company, but there's similarly not much a director can do with this material. Raimondi's production designs are traditional, well-designed (the arrival of Leone descending from above is most impressive) and beautifully lit, with backdrops of thunder clouds and imposing columns closing down space, but you could just as easily use the same set for Ernani or Oberto.  

The main roles in Attila are challenging then not only from a singing viewpoint, but they require some personality and creative acting ability if the opera is not to be just static declamation. All of the performers here do as well as could be expected, the tenor and soprano roles of Foresto and Odabella in particular being well filled by Giuseppe Gipali and Makvala Aspanidze. Aspanidze is a high soprano, which can make Odabella's fervour a little bit shrill at length and the Georgian's Italian enunciation is also heavily accented, but she tackles the demands of the role valiantly and has no problem reaching its high notes. Much of what is enjoyable and memorable about Verdi's writing for this work comes from the dramatic bass/baritone stand-offs between Attila and the Roman commander Ezio, and those are also capably met by Michele Pertusi and Giovanni Meoni.

The Opéra Royal de Wallonie's 2013 production of Verdi's Attila can be viewed via internet streaming from France Television's Culturebox website.  Subtitles are in French only.

Verdi - La Traviata

Giuseppe Verdi - La Traviata

Opéra Royal de Wallonie, Liège, 2012

Luciano Acocella, Stefano Mazzonis di Pralafera, Annick Massis, Xavier Cortes, Giovanni Meoni, Alexise Yerna, Cristiano Cremonini, Julie Bailly, Roger Joakim, Ziyan Atfeh, Patrick Delcour, Marcel Arpots, Iouri Lel, Marc Tissons

Live Internet Streaming, 26 April 2012

It’s almost becoming de rigueur for nudity and topless women to feature in opera productions these days, but up until Stefano Mazzonis di Pralafera’s production for the Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège, I’d never seen it done before in La Traviata. A popular repertory work, Verdi’s La Traviata is usually done in a straightforward traditional period manner, but Verdi - himself subject to gossip and rumour about his relationship with Giuseppina Strepponi at the time of writing the work - wanted the opera to challenge contemporary attitudes towards unconventional relationships, and the frank directness of the La Traviata was indeed quite shocking for its time. Now all we have to “shock” an audience is a flash of a topless woman. I don’t want to be seen to be making excuses for the practice, but you can see how it could be valid in the context of Verdi’s other shocker of this period, Rigoletto, where nudity featured during the orgies of the Duke of Mantua in David McVicar’s production at the Royal Opera House, and I suppose the same case could be made for La Traviata. When you think about it, Violetta Valéry’s profession as a courtesan - the “fallen woman” of the opera’s title, necessarily treated with circumspection due to censorship restrictions in Verdi’s time - is likewise often also delicately glossed over in stage productions. Not so here.

One could make a case then that the use of nudity in all three acts in the Liège production is not just there for shock or titillation, but that it’s relevant to the themes and tied in with the structure of La Traviata itself. Originally titled ‘Love and Death’ during its composition, these two themes are vital to the impact of the work and they are where Verdi places the most emphasis in his scoring, with Violetta considering the possibilities of true love in the beautiful ‘Ah, fors’è lui’ in Act I, and reflecting on her death in ‘Addio del passato’ in Act III. On their own, certainly, these pieces are strong enough to encompass the beauty, the tragedy and complexity of emotions that have been engendered in Violetta over the short period of her time with Alfredo, but if the staging can draw the attention of the audience to what is being expressed, then so much the better. In Act I then, the aria is set alongside beside the revelry of the guests on a huge bed during ‘Si ridesta in ciel l’aurora’, while in Act III, there is an echo of a reminder of these times as Violetta hears the revelry of party-goers from her death bed. Act II meanwhile uses the nudity effect of the “bella ritrosetta” (“saucy little beauty”) to emphasis the connection between Love and Death in the play of Gastone and the Bullfighters, which otherwise seems like a piece of entertainment unconnected with the work.

Unfortunately, while there is relevance in how this all fits in with the opera and its themes - scored brilliantly by Verdi at his most melodic and inventive - there’s not a great deal else that stands out in the direction of this production, which struggles to find any interesting way to respond to the challenge of staging the familiar settings of the work. The first scene of Act II in particular really drags along. As heartfelt as the emotions are during the long scene between Violetta and Alfredo’s father Giorgio Germont as he tries to persuade her to give up her love affair with his son for the sake of his reputation and his family, and as well sung as these key moments of appeal are from both sides here during ‘Pura siccome un angelo’ and ‘Ah, dite alla giovine’, they gain nothing from having the two principals sit at the front of the stage and sing out towards the audience. There needs to be a little more connection felt, or at least tension between them over their respective desires and fears, and that’s hard to achieve without some good stage direction.

Aside from the use of brief nudity, the other two acts and the second scene of Act II then are otherwise unexceptional, but the staging does at least serve its function reasonably well. Even if the budget doesn’t always stretch to elaborate sets and designs, the Opéra at Liège under the direction of Mazzonis di Pralafera, seem to me at least to always manage to include a few original touches that allow them to strike a strong balance between traditional theatricality and some personal character. There are a few other minor touches here - Alfredo clutching Violetta’s bloodstained white nightgown during the overture, the guests at the society parties seated as if to watching the unfolding of the latest theatrical developments in society - which are interesting without straining the traditional narrative too much. The same principal would apply, it would seem, to the casting of singers who more than meet the demands of the work if not perhaps with any great distinction. As Alfredo, Xavier Cortes sings well - clear, strong and resonant, and Giovanni Meoni is a grave and dignified Germont Snr., but neither bring any great interpretation to the roles and they don’t look like they have been given a great deal of acting direction either.

Demonstrating however, in line with the rest of the production, that they know exactly the right places to place the emphasis, the performance of the orchestra under Luciano Acocella is marvellous and Annick Massis stands out as an exceptional Violetta Valéry. Even during the otherwise dull staging of the Germont/Violetta duets in Act II, the tempo and balance is considered throughout to give the performers the opportunity to really enter into the emotions of this critical scene. If the staging doesn’t work in favour of the singers there, elsewhere it has all the necessary impact, particularly in those aforementioned key moments of Act I and III, and their fine delivery by Annick Massis. She perhaps doesn’t have the fragile delicacy of Violetta in Act I, hitching up her skirt, hopping on a table with a glass of champagne and kicking off her shoes for her ‘Sempre libera’, but it captures the nature of the extraordinary new sensations awakened within her and it’s sung with strength, passion and character. On the flipside of those emotions, her ‘Addio del passato’ is filled with all the longing and heartrending emotion that likewise underpins the strength of the third Act. It’s a superb performance.

If the Opéra Royal de Wallonie’s production then doesn’t always demonstrate great originality, it does nonetheless manage to find its own character within the limitations of the setting, but more significantly, it knows exactly where to place the emphasis for the maximum impact and it takes great care with the casting to ensure that those moments can be achieved. With Annick Massis as an impressive Violetta Valéry, particularly strong in the Act III conclusion, and with Luciano Acocella directing the orchestra through a terrific performance that draws all those considerable qualities out of Verdi’s great score, this production, broadcast live via the website of the Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège, amounted to a very fine and occasionally impressive La Traviata.