Giacomo Puccini - La Bohème
Teatro Regio Torino, 2016
Gianandrea Noseda, Àlex Ollé, Irina Lungu, Kelebogile Besong, Giorgio Berrugi, Massimo Cavalletti, Benjamin Cho, Gabriele Sagona, Matteo Peirone, Cullen Gandy, Mauro Barra, Davide Motta Fré
Opera Platform - October 2016
La Bohème is one of those works whose former strengths no longer carry as much weight for me as they once might have done. The beautiful arias, the Romantic sweep of Puccini's heart-tugging arrangements and melodies are still beautiful, still emotionally and dramatically effective, but they no longer seem to be where the true heart of the work resides. The gaps in the plot and character that I would have once regarded as its weaknesses on the other hand now seem to be more important to the enduring universality of the work as a whole. Gianandrea Noseda and Àlex Ollé seem to be attempting to address both points and striving for a better balance in the Teatro Regio Torino's 120th anniversary production of the first performance of La Bohème there, but it could also be seen as trying to fix something that doesn't really need to be fixed.
The piecemeal adaptation of Henry Murger's story collection once might have been regarded as a weakness in the structure of the opera. There is little flow between the four distinct acts, each of them having to sum up a 'where they are now' situation, with all the troubles incidents and twists and turns that their lives have taken in-between left to the side. That wouldn't be so bad if the scenes that remain weren't padded out with what often feels like unnecessary colour, weak characterisation and a lot of joking around that isn't all that funny.
Those might seem like weaknesses, but Puccini turns them into virtues, mostly. There's nothing weak about Puccini's musical colouring for the scenes, and if the use and repetition of themes might not always meet the strictest codes of musical and dramatic integrity, they do create a continuity that is necessary to link the four Acts. If a theme is repeated in a different context from its original use, it often serves as a contrast and a 'reminder' of where it originally came from. The horsing around of the budding artists can still be irritating and feel pointless, but it is important to reflect a wider view of the situation that has a major impact on Rodolfo and Mimi. It's not the love story that is important in La Bohème, as much as the work being about how love tragically comes second place to paying the bills.
That's not a very romantic way to look at one of the greatest love stories in opera, but it is a mistake to idealise La Bohème and prettify the abject poverty of the "bohemian life", where the protagonists are fighting on a daily basis to heat their tiny rooms, trying not to starve and striving not to die of some terrible disease. While it's important to reflect this, it is also important to show how life goes on, how friendship and companionship endure and - regardless of the weight you think Puccini applies to this aspect - it's all there in the opera. There may also be huge gaps in Rodolfo and Mimi's relationship, but those gaps just widen the huge gulf between the ideal and the reality and leave space for the listener who has experienced the travails of love to reflect on the truths in their relationship.
It might not be perfect but, as is often the case with Puccini, the imperfections just leave space for consideration, interpretation and playing with the colours. La Bohème however is not a work that demands any reconstructive or deconstructive modernisation. Indeed, were it not for Stefan Herheim's charged Oslo production, you would think that this is one opera that is surely immune to too much directorial intervention. Critically however, Herheim managed to play to the traditional strengths of the opera, deepening its sentiments without resorting to sentimentality and in La Bohème, there's a thin line there that it is easy to cross. The challenge for Àlex Ollé is the same one of reigning in and opening up.
A member of La Fura dels Baus, the Catalan theatre team who are not exactly known for restraint in their productions of elaborate concepts and spectacular technical innovation, Ollé has however been capable of scaling down where there is no need for additional overemphasis. La Bohème very much has its own distinct world, but whether it is set in Belle Époque Paris or a more contemporary updating isn't as relevant as much as showing the relationship between the real world and the lives of the characters. Alfons Flores's set designs for the Teatro Regio Torino production depict a more contemporary world, but it is still recognisably a poor district inhabited by ordinary people.
What Àlex Ollé's direction seems to set out to emphasise - or maybe reflect more than emphasise - is the ordinary and the universal application of this world. It's not a tragic story of love and poverty in olden times, but a familiar one today, where love is unable to overcome the other practicalities of living. The garret room set of Act I and IV then is not a little enclosed space here; it's one room of many, where undoubtedly similar stories are played out. You occasionally see another couple - one set out on a romance at the same time as Rodolfo and Mimi's is ending - but these are incidental details that are not over-complicated or over-emphasised to the detriment of the main story.
With Café Momus sliding in on Act II - and looking like a properly swanky restaurant for a change rather than some dive - there is some effort to keep a sense of flow and continuity, as well as the all-important contrast that Puccini plays upon for effect. Like the rest of the Acts, Act III has a familiar configuration, just slightly updated, retaining what is necessary for the dramatic storytelling, while also trying to keep it relevant, or 'grounded' if you like, in a way it wouldn't be if it were kept period. It's not a realistic depiction of poverty and misery by any means, but it's not smothered in schmaltz either.
If La Bohème doesn't flow dramatically, in the music at least Puccini hits straight at the heart, and in the case of this work he is surely entitled to play to the emotions. Gianandrea Noseda however shows that you can adhere to the melodic, the romantic and the dramatic qualities of the music without ladling on the syrup. If this means that the tear-jerking qualities of the work are underplayed, well that's not necessarily a bad thing unless that's what you want, in which case this could be a little disappointing. I would say a fair proportion of a La Bohème audience would expect a little more emoting in the music and the singing than they get here.
Irina Lungu is a more delicate soprano than the full-cream Mimi we are accustomed to, and while she doesn't always hit the big moments she can bring some wonderful poignancy to something like "Addio, senza rancor". Her duet in this scene with Giorgio Berrugi is one of the high points here, Berrugi very much with a classic bright lyrical Italian tenor that is perfect for Rodolfo. With the combination of Lungu and Berrugi and Puccini's emotional expression at its finest, the conclusion of La Bohème still can't be anything but heart-wrenching, despite the efforts of the creative directors to downplay it slightly. It spared me being left a wreck at the conclusion, but I'm not sure that many would thank them for it, as that surely is the primary effect Puccini sets out to achieve.
Links: Teatro Regio Torino, Opera Platform
Giuseppe Verdi - Rigoletto
L'Opéra National de Paris, 2016
Pier Giorgio Morandi, Claus Guth, Francesco Demuro, Franco Vassallo, Irina Lungu, Andrea Mastroni, Vesselina Kasarova, Isabelle Druet, Mikhail Kolelishvili, Michal Partyka, Christophe Berry, Tiago Matos, Andreea Soare, Adriana Gonzalez, Florent Mbia
Bastille, Paris - 14 May 2016
There's been a very evident attempt to make the artistic direction of the Paris Opera a bit more cutting edge again under its new director Stephane Lissner, but Claus Guth's setting of Rigoletto in a brown cardboard box seems to being taking things a little too far. It's hardly the most attractive or imaginative representation for the dramatic setting of the opera in Mantua, and it's hard to imagine how it could even suit the purposes of Guth's usually intense psychological exploration of character and motivation.
It's not so much the case that Mantua and its royal court are represented by a cardboard box however as much as it's Rigoletto's regrets that are packed away in the box. The broken and dishevelled jester walks to the front of the stage at the start of the opera, wearing a grimy overcoat, his whitened clown make-up scored with deep creases, carrying a box that holds his only possessions. Rigoletto despairingly draws out a clown suit and a bloodstained white dress and the opera commences in flashback all within the confines of the larger box that fills the stage.
It's a relatively straightforward device in that respect and there's actually not any real licence taken with the characters or the drama elsewhere. The period is vague and non-specific, the costumes period in style for opening royal court scene, even if the set is plain brown corrugated cardboard, but it gradually moves into more modern styled dress as the opera progresses. As plain as the set is, it's functional, requiring few changes between acts - a staircase added in Act II, some of the flaps opening to provide doorways for the tavern scene and some projections are used. It consistently remains a representation of Rigoletto's life after the event being reduced to the contents of a cardboard box.
For deeper exploration of character then and the complex father/daughter issues at the heart of the work, Guth relies on another familiar device often employed in his productions; the use of doubles. Rigoletto in the flashback is represented by the singer, but the actor who 'unboxed' the memory is frequently present on the stage at the same time, distraught and helpless, unable to intervene and change what has already occurred. This added level of regret does highlight Rigoletto's folly to some extent and bring a little more intensity to the scenes, but no more really than you if you've seen the opera before and already know what is ahead.
Gilda is similarly split and not just to one double but to a series of Gildas in dancers of different ages. Unsurprisingly, these younger Gildas are intended to show the young girl as an innocent, but more than that they also reflect her 'growth'. Rigoletto's protection of Gilda means that her growth is stunted in a way that leads to her innocence being cruelly abused when it comes into contact with the real world, but it does bring about a twisted kind of growth that can also account for her sacrifice in the final act. It's nothing new, just another way to emphasise or perhaps 'translate' a more melodramatic device from the past into one that carries a little more credibility for a modern audience today.
What appears to be given more emphasis in Guth's version that is not so often explored is the relationship between the assassin Sparafucile and Rigoletto, since Sparafucile when he first appears acts as a mirror image of Rigoletto. Again, this is just emphasising what is there in the libretto, Rigoletto even acknowledging that the two men are alike, only one kills with words while the other kills with the sword. Drawing attention to this however does put greater emphasis on the cowardice of the jester, his hiding his failure to act behind words, just as he hides his identity from his daughter. This of course comes back to haunt him and in this version - as it's done in flashback - he already knows it, which only intensifies his failure and his pitiful attempts to shift the blame onto a 'maledizione'.
Cardboard box aside then, Guth's Rigoletto sticks fairly closely to the accepted characterisation with only a little shift of where the emphasis lies and it's fairly successful in where it applies them. In the first Act at least however, it's not at all certain that the music and singing performances measure up to it. It all feels somewhat half-hearted and routine. As is usually the case with Rigoletto however, I find that you have to reserve judgement until Act II and Act III. Which, as an aside, makes me begin to wonder whether the first Act is really all it's cracked up to be. It certainly has all the elements in place and Verdi spices it up with plenty of dramatic colour and some famous arias, but it rarely ever seems to take off. Guth's production doesn't really help matters here in Paris.
Act II and III however, while the direction doesn't particularly contribute much more to the production, are indeed more alive and engaging, which suggests that Act I is really just a prelude to set the scene or act as a counterbalance for the fireworks in the subsequent Acts. Accordingly, there's a noticeably more invigorating drive from Pier Giorgio Morandi's conducting of the orchestra that is matched by what takes place on the stage and in the singing. Franco Vassallo's Rigoletto is by no means one of the great interpretations of the role, but there was no sign of faltering or being challenged by it. The 'Cortigiani' is a good measure of a Rigoletto and Vassallo was more than capable, carrying the role well but not really inspired or even truly fired-up.
The same could be said about most of the other roles in these second cast performances for the later run of the 2016 production. Francesco Demuro's Duke of Mantua was however by far the most impressive, his bright tenor voice clear and ringing, sailing through 'La donna è mobile' with such charm that it appeared natural and effortless. We didn't get to see much of the Duke's 'evil' side, but that was more of a directing decision and a surprising omission for Guth since the Duke seems the most obvious dual-personality in the opera. Irina Lungu had a few wavers, but rose to the challenges of Gilda's role and brought some personality to it. Andrea Mastroni was fine if not making as menacing a Sparafucile as you might like. Vesselina Kasarova is, to say the least, an acquired taste, but she is capable of some interesting interpretations. Not her Maddalena unfortunately, which was wayward, wooly and largely inaudible, her voice now losing much of its former force.
Even if it wasn't traditionally staged and the singing wasn't of the highest standards, the Paris Rigoletto hit the mark sufficiently at all the necessary dramatic and musical points. Act I carried off the tricky staging of Gilda's abduction stylishly if not naturalistically, mainly through the choreography of the courtiers in their masks, the scene ending with the thundering accompaniment to Rigoletto's dread of Monterone's curse. Act II's duets had pace and fury in equal measure and although the staging of Gilda's death scene remained largely off-stage, represented only by a falling curtain, the full impact of the scene was felt.
This performance of Rigoletto was viewed at the Bastille on the 14th May 2016. A recording of the production with the alternative cast that includes Olga Peretyatko (Gilda), Quinn Kelsey (Rigoletto) and Michael Fabiano (Rigoletto) is currently available streaming on-line on France TV's Culturebox website, although region restrictions are in place.
Links: L'Opéra National de Paris, Culturebox
Giuseppe Verdi - Rigoletto
Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, 2013
Gianandrea Noseda, Robert Carsen, George Gagnidze, Irina Lungu, Arturo Chacón-Cruz, Gábor Bretz, Josè Maria Lo Monaco, Michèle Lagrange, Arutjun Kotchinian, Julien Dran, Jean-Luc Ballestra, Maurizio Lo Piccolo, Paggio Valeria Tornatore
ARTE Live Web Internet Streaming - 12 July 2013
If Verdi's Rigoletto has proved to be one of the composer's works most apt to being reworked into new and modern situations, it's a measure not only of its popularity or its musical accomplishments as in how the dramatic strengths of Victor Hugo's original work are brought vividly to life by Verdi. Its treatment on the subject of power and moral corruption and the human cost associated with it has made it suitable to a Mafia updating (in Jonathan Miller's production) and even as a Rat Pack version in 1960s Las Vegas seen recently at the Met. The richness of the work however allows other interesting themes to be drawn from it.
For a director like Robert Carsen, one of his themes of interest, taken to varying levels of success in his productions, is the post-modern theme of performance itself. All the world is indeed a stage, and at the heart of Rigoletto there remains a fascinating flawed figure who plays the role of the fool and ends up becoming one. He allows himself to be flattered to be part of Duke of Mantua's corrupt inner circle and become complicit in its crimes, hoping to keep his true nature as a loving father separate from the role he plays at court. Those two worlds collide through what he fears to be the curse of a nobleman, Monterone, but in reality he's largely responsible for his own downfall.
There's comedy and tragedy and even a certain amount of farce in the way that Rigoletto becomes the author of his own daughter's death, so it's not too much of a stretch to see him characterised as he is here in Carsen's production as a traditional clown. And, since there has to be some recognition that opera is also about performance and the playing to visual expectations, there's a knowing hint of Pagliacci thrown in here as well. And, yes, Carsen's version is set entirely within the big top of a circus - performance writ large. It's not the most original of interpretations, but for the most part, the production works without having to distort the intentions of the opera's themes too much.
The opening scene that starts with what is traditionally an orgy at the Duke's palace is transformed here into a big performance of acrobats and dancers in a circus arena. The Duke of Monterone's young daughter is not so much seduced and defiled here then as a willing participant, a dancer who strips down topless with other dancers who are not wearing much else either. She's as much a performer seeking the attention and favour of the Duke as Rigoletto. All the other participants seem likewise to be compelled to play their parts. Gilda cannot give up her devotion to the Duke, the assassin Sparafucile must honour his bargain in one fashion or another, and despite his fear of the curse of Monterone, Rigoletto must continue to play his part as a clown. The show must go on.
If the circus location isn't the most naturalistic setting and doesn't provide an entirely suitable platform for Rigoletto's scenes, it does nonetheless sustain some elements reasonably well. Act One sees Rigoletto and Gilda in a small caravan with collapsible sides, Gilda sings her paean of love to Gualtier Maldè ('Caro nome') from a raised acrobat's swing (a brave performance from Irina Lungu that nonetheless doesn't quite hit the same heights here), and Gilda is then abducted while Rigoletto is distracted holding a ladder for acrobats to ascend. It all adds up and works with the musical score, even if it doesn't quite conform to the letter of the libretto. Act II and III remain within the circus tent and there are fewer ideas, but Act II doesn't require much more than the iconographic image of Rigoletto in sad clown make-up face to draw the full extent and nature of his humiliation. Act III's rope cage for an inn is a curious set-up, but the drop of the curtain is well-employed as it the impact of the falling acrobat that closes the performance here.
If you're prepared to go along with Carsen's take on the circus setting and find that it works to some extent, the reason is more than likely to be because you are caught up in the vividness of Verdi's most compact and dramatically expressive score, and because Gianandrea Noseda propels it along superbly. The conductor notes in the Aix Festival programme that ('Caro nome' aside) Rigoletto is like "a volcanic eruption. Once the music starts, it doesn't let up for a moment". He recognises that this, and Verdi's marriage of the most wonderful music to a dramatically compact series of confrontations mostly in duet form, is what makes Rigoletto a truly remarkable work. Carsen's production allows the dramatic expression to match the musical flow and the intent of the drama, if not quite in the conventional way, while having some personal commentary to make about it as well.
The other essential element that is needed to fully support the work is of course the singing, and it's strong exactly where it needs to be. I haven't heard George Gagnidze before, but he strikes me as a near perfect Rigoletto, and Verdi baritones of this quality are thin on the ground at the moment. His glorious timbre is warm and expressive, not just clearly enunciating the words, but fully bringing them to life. It's probably even more difficult to find good Verdi sopranos and tenors of quality at the moment, but Irina Lungu and Arturo Chacón-Cruz cope well. Lungu struggles to hold some of the challenging high notes early on, but comes through strongly later in the challenging musical drama. Chacón-Cruz might not always have the forceful delivery required either, they brings the right kind of light charm, glamour and dramatic intensity to make an impact at those points where it is most needed.
Rigoletto at the Aix-en-Provence Festival is available for viewing on-line (with French subtitles) from the ARTE Live Web site.
