Past Production Reviews
18The other Harewood Artists were ... and Andri Björn Róbertsson singing Theseus. All clearly have great careers ahead and gave wholehearted performances.
Andri Björn Róbertsson, Emma Carrington, Simon Butteriss, Timothy Robinson and Jonathan Lemalu who may have smaller roles, but add much character and wonderful singing and acting in the final scenes.
In London, Fleming’s colleagues were less consistently good than Fleming herself. Reiffenstuel’s dresses for Alice Coote’s Octavian and Mariandel were not the most becoming the mezzo-soprano has worn on this stage, where she has thus far specialized in male characters. Coote’s singing was often ungainly, frequently with a discomfiting rawness to the tone. The finest exponent of the three main women’s parts was Sophie Bevan, who sang the ingenue role of her namesake to perfection, with a top register to die for.Steinberg’s family-sized sets looked too big on the Covent Garden stage; the Princess’s bedroom and its mammoth collection of dynastic paintings dwarfed the characters. A troublesome feature of Act II was a collection of enormous field guns and an obsession with rifles: in his desire to underline the militarism of his redesignated period, Carsen decided, without any specifics in Hofmannsthal’s text to back it up, that the army supplies that provide the basis of Faninal’s fortune were, in fact, armaments. Act III swapped the original’s dubious suburban inn for a palatial, populous brothel, where Ochs’s assignation with Mariandel almost got lost in the wider sweep of hedonistic goings-on. Overall, Carsen’s direction lacked the detail and focus that can make Der Rosenkavalier profoundly moving. Supplying some, at least, of the missing magic was the conducting of Andris Nelsons, whose enthusiasm for Strauss has already resulted in persuasive Covent Garden performances of Salome and Elektra. Once again his ability to balance super-enriched textures and provide dramatic momentum in a score that needs to be kept on the move paid rich dividends. The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House responded keenly to his confident direction.
On the podium of the Orchestra of the Teatro Regio , Marco Angius prefers a dynamic, vibrant direction, with a strong emotional and vital impact, clearly contrasting the elegiac parts and the more lively ones (the storm of the third act). To underline a preference for often full-bodied and voluminous sounds, sometimes overwhelming compared to the stage. The Slovak soprano Andrea Danková is Katěrina Kabanová, known as Katia: very musical and elegant, with a non-protruding voice, metallic in the high and at times weak in the low register, with attention to accents and singing line. The interpretation is excellent and heartfelt, where the loneliness of a woman eager for love emerges and who, with difficulty, manages to repress her erotic impulses. Baldanzoso is Boris Grigorjevič by the Ukrainian tenor Misha Didyk : shrill and vigorous vocality, characterized by almost always sure and thundering high notes, outlines a passionate and at the same time caring lover. On the shields the rehearsal of the English mezzo Rebecca de Pont Davies, in the role of the algid and authoritarian Marfa Ignatěvna Kabanova, known as Kabanicha, custodian of an asphyxiating matriarchal tradition: the voice is luminous, firm and penetrating in the high notes, in some cases opaque in the low ones; the acting is magnetic and charismatic. Characteristically centered is the weak Tichon Ivanyč Kabanov by the Slovak tenor Štefan Margita , with a brilliant and controlled voice, lively and well projected, able to bend to suggestive mezzevoci. The Ukrainian mezzo-soprano Lena Belkina as Varvara is credible : using a clear tonal voice, homogeneous and round in the emission, and a rightly flirtatious interpretation, she gives the character the freshness and imprudence of youth. The tenor Enrico Casari (Váňa Kudrjáš) and the German bass-baritone Oliver Zwarg (Savjol Prokofjevič Dikoj) performed more than good : decisive in the accents and handsome the first, remarkable in the phrasing and ugly in the scenic hatching the second. The interventions of the Chorus of the Teatro Regio , led by Claudio Fenoglio, were centered . At the end, a warm success and strong applause for all the performers
«Le baryton australien Derek Welton offre ses superbes graves à Oreste».
‘Orest … was sung by the Australian bass-baritone Derek Welton, whose attractive dark timbre fulfilled this heroic and lyrical music … Welton sang with extreme beauty and style, creating a noble character.’
