Verdi - Simon Boccanegra

Giuseppe Verdi - Simon Boccanegra

Szeged National Theatre, Hungary - 2013

Tamás Pál, Zsuzsa Molnár, Vasile Chisiu, Stefano Olcese, Adrienn Miksch, Attila Réti, András Kiss, Bálint Börcsök, Szilvia Dobrotka, József Varga

Armel Opera Festival, Szeged - ARTE Live Web - 10th October 2013

Simon Boccanegra is by no means a typical work by Verdi. The composer had by this stage moved beyond the bluster of the works of his "galley years" - beautifully melodic, dramatically driven and often musically inspired though many of them are - towards a maturity of style in his middle-period that didn't rely quite so much on the standard number format of the classic Italian opera tradition. The melodrama is still there in mid-period Verdi, and the composer had yet to have the full involvement of a librettist like Arrigo Boito who would provide him with material truly worthy of his talents (though Boito did later add the Act II Council Chamber scene for the revised version of Simon Boccanegra), but there is nonetheless a greater subtlety and attention to characterisation in the fascinating works from this period.

Not that you would notice this from the 2013 Szeged National Theatre production of Simon Boccanegra presented at the Armel Opera Festival. It's not a bad production by any means, and it's always intriguing to see a work based on the original staging as described in documents from the time, but it's inevitably going to look rather old-fashioned with singers mostly standing facing the audience rather than interacting with one another and belting out the numbers in the classic 'park-and-bark' or 'stand-and-deliver' manner. For a lot of Verdi, if you've got good singers - and the Szeged are strong-voiced and more than capable of meeting the demands - you can get away with this. For early Verdi anyway. For a work like Simon Boccanegra, which relies on moments of tender expression and charged emotions more than dramatic developments to get its full impact across, you need a little more sensitivity than you get here.

Although the production doesn't really help them then, the two competition singers Vasile Chisiu and Stefano Olcese cope well nonetheless with the challenges that are to be found in the roles of Jacopo and Boccanegra. Much like Verdi's La Forza del Destino, there's a Prologue that sits widely apart from the main events of the opera, and it's important that there is a noticeable change in the personalities of the two characters who find themselves in opposition to one another, partly through maturity but also through them having to carry the weight of the tragic and tumultuous events that have divided them. I think that is clearly drawn in the production, at least in as far as it is important for the two main characters, and both performers do well in their attempts to show the necessary gravitas and rich characterisation that would have defined them in the in-between years.

Neither however are entirely strong enough singers with the kind of experience necessary to really bring roles like this to life. A Boccanegra really needs a mature Verdian baritone of experience, a Leo Nucci, a Thomas Hampson or - at a stretch - Placido Domingo, who has proved that he can inhabit the baritone role fairly successfully. It's a considerable challenge however for Vasile Chisiu, and if he doesn't have the ideal power, range or experience to step convincingly into a role like this with the kind of personality it requires, it's a good performance nonetheless and sung well. The unimaginative stage directions probably don't help, and certainly don't do Stefano Olcese any favours as Jacopo Firese, but he often seems disengaged from the drama, singing out to the audience rather than in response to what is happening on stage. Again, there's a nice bass-baritone voice there but it lacks the depth of characterisation required to make the melodrama in the story work convincingly.

Conductor and director Tamás Pál and the Szeged Symphony Orchestra gives a good account of the work, but the subtleties and melancholic undercurrents of the score seem to founder on the failure of the staging to match the necessary tension and drama to the work. The original set designs are well realised by the production team and it's certainly of interest to see the work close to how it might originally have been staged, but for a Verdi work like Simon Boccanegra to fully come alive to a modern audience it would require better direction and singers of considerably greater stature and ability than we have here.

The Armel Opera Festival performance of Simon Boccanegra can be viewed for free for six months after the performance on the ARTE Live Web streaming service. Subtitles are French only.

Giordano - Andrea Chénier

Umberto Giordano - Andrea Chénier

Armel Opera Festival, Sgezed, Hungary 2012

Tamás Pal, Géza Bodolay, Leïla Zlassi, Eduardo Aladrén, Attila Reti, Júlia Vajda, Zsófia Kalnay, Tamás Altorjay, Antal Cseh, Éva Szonda, János Szerekován, Szilveszter Szelpal, Ferenc Herczeg, Milán Taletovics, Zoltán Lorincz

Internet streaming - ARTE Live Web, 6 October 2012

There is only one standard repertory opera in the 5th Armel Opera Festival competition at Sgezed in Hungary - and even then Giordano’s verismo French Revolution piece Andrea Chénier is not that commonly performed - but it’s one that at least gives two of the competition finalists the opportunity to sing in a style that is a little more traditional than the other four modern works produced here. Although the demands of the work might be different, Andrea Chénier is however no less challenging in terms of the singing and acting ability that can only be measured in competition by performance in a fully staged work, and fortunately both competitors here proved capable and well suited here to the more classic style of performance.

Géza Bodolay’s staging of the work for the Szeged National Theatre obviously had to work with a budget considerably less than the one available to the Bregenz Festival for their 2011 lake staging (the entire stage modelled on a giant construction of the famous painting of the Death of Marat), but with good period costumes and making good use of the chorus for party-goers and crowd scenes, the director was able with the minimum of props and sets to get a sense nonetheless of the final decadence of the French aristocrats and the horrendous fate that awaits them in the coming Terror. The use of a dark silent figure with a white face to represent the Terror and the guillotine (although one of those was present on the stage as well) also served to heighten the reality and horror of the situation. It was the small touches that counted here, like the use of revolving panels at the back of the stage to depict the imprisonment and torture of Bersi and Chénier, but they also allowed crowds to quickly swarm onto the set. This would have been an effective strategy for the Act I confrontation organised by Gérard between the common people and the aristocrats, but the director chose to set the people among the audience for this key scene.

The choice of opera and the stage direction then provided a more than adequate platform to show the skills of Leïla Zlassi in the role of Maddalena and Eduardo Aladrén as Chénier. There were perhaps a few minor problems in with pitch and range in the Act 1 arias, but by-and-large both singers coped well with the singing and acting demands of the roles. Eduardo Aladrén made the necessary strong and charismatic impression as Chénier in Act I, and sustained this well in collaboration with Zlassi through the subsequent acts, the duets at the end of Act II and Act IV in particular being well presented. Zlassi’s Act III aria, ‘La mamma morta‘ was excellent, performed with real feeling and good technique. If there was anything lacking in the performances of both singers, it was perhaps that they lacked the necessary force and stamina required for the roles, but they were clearly capable of making the roles come to life and achieve the necessary impact.

The role of Gérard is no less vital for the work than Maddalena or Chénier however, and it needs a little more charisma and dynamism than Attila Reti’s was able to provide. Capably sung and performed, his baritone lacked any real colour and his acting was all directed out towards the audience. A strong overall production, the Szeged Symphony Orchestra directed by Tamás Pal giving a good account of the work, the strength of the performances right across the board in all the little colourful secondary characters and in the chorus work, provided a strong base for the work and demonstrated that it’s the little details that count and which give Andrea Chénierall the dynamic and character that lies within its verismo subject.

The Armel Opera Festival production of Andrea Chénier is currently available to view on-line from the ARTE Live Web site.