Vlada Borovko / Recensioni

In the title role, Elena Maximova disappointed. She has the looks and moves for the part, power to burn and the right sort of dark colour in the voice. But a thick accent was allied to awful diction, with hardly a consonant intelligible all evening. I spent the evening struggling to work out the words from a combination of memory and back-translation of the surtitles, and that kills any possibility of being swept away by siren-like sexuality, which is required to make the whole opera plausible. Just like the singing, the orchestral performance was mixed. Bertrand de Billy kept things moving nicely and strings and woodwind gave good, precise performances: the prelude to Act III, when they’re playing on their own, was the orchestral highlight of the evening. But there were simply too many errors and hesitancies in brass and percussion: this is a score where anything less than immaculate timing of triangle or tambourine notes can throw the whole flow of the music. The result was an orchestral performance that was adequate without ever touching greatness. Zambello’s staging is appealing: her take on 19th century Seville is well lit and bustling, very much one’s ideal of a Hispanic city in the burning sun gathered from Zorro movies or elsewhere. But it gives a lot of rope on which a revival director can hang himself: there is a huge amount of movement on stage and it all needs to be executed crisply. Under the revival direction of Duncan Macfarland and choreography of Sirena Tocco, last night’s cast and chorus were good enough to execute it all correctly, but not good enough to give the sense of doing so with abandon. The defining example was extras abseiling down the walls, who landed with care rather than with a thump and a flourish; the exception was the Royal Opera Youth Company, with the children throwing themselves into the action with delightful abandon and brio. For anyone seeing Carmen for the first time, this production will have been a more than satisfactory evening. Old hands hoping to see something extra will find it in Hymel and Car, but not elsewhere.

It tells the tale of the 16th century Russian tsar Boris Godunov who seized power after the death of Ivan the Terrible, allegedly after supervising the murder of Ivan's son, and went on to be almost as terrible as his predecessor. In the opera, he is plagued with guilt and ends up going mad, so the whole thing becomes a case history of increasing derangement. Most unusually, there is no major role for a woman singer, so there are no great soprano arias to liughten the musical mood, and it is Boris who dies at the end after the plot has meandered through the darker realms of insanity. The credit for the power of this scene goes equally to Terfel and the director, Richard Jones, and his team, whose striking design and costumes provide a visual treat matching the power of the music. Jones does, however, rather overdo a repeated vision tormenting Boris of the murder of Ivan's son which brought Boris to power.With Bryn Terfel as Boris dominating the show, all other roles are reduced to bit parts, but it is worth mentioning John Tomlinson as a drunken monk, who provided a much needed comic interlude to interrupt the sombre tale. As always, however, Bryn Terfel is well worth seeing and the intensity drawn from the orchestra by Antonio Pappano is magnificent.

Verdi’s first successful opera may not be many people’s favourite but the current Royal Opera House production surely raises the work a few rungs up the ladder of appeal.Let’s start with the chorus. There are operas where the members of the chorus have a couple of numbers, walk on the stage, sing their piece and are shepherded off to the wings. Not in Nabucco. Verdi composed some exhilarating pieces for them and I am not referring solely to the all-too-famous Va pensiero. The chorus is bunched up in the centre of the stage when they render the legendary number but it is a mourning piece and does not call for electrifying singing like some of the other choruses. The augmented Royal Opera House Chorus is worth the price of admission alone.The title role is sung alternately by Placido Domingo, the grand old man of opera and the relative newcomer, Greek baritone Dimitri Platanias making his Royal Opera House role debut. He gives a signature performance. From the arrogant king to the unhinged ruler and humiliated father, he achieves simply superb vocal resonance and emotional range. Just listen to his delivery of Deh perdona (Have mercy on a delirious father) where the great king is reduced to begging for mercy for his daughter from a slave who scorns him.Soprano Jamie Barton is Nabucco’s real daughter and the one who has snatched the tenor. She does not face the same demands as Monastyrska but she gives a praiseworthy performance. Tenor Leonard Capalbo gives a fine accounting of himself in the role of Ismaele.Director Daniele Abbado and Designer Alison Chitty have opted for a production that has modern overtones especially with the issue of displaced people and refugees. The costumes are modern and I felt that the direction given was “come as you are and bring your children for good measure.” That is not as bad as it sounds because ordinary dress is quite suitable and many of the refugees one sees on television are not dressed better or worse than what one sees on stage at the Royal Opera House. Children are very much a part of the refugee problem and having a few of them on stage was á propos. The set consisted of rectangular rocks and sand for much of the production. There was judicious use of projections (designed by Luca Scarzella) to dramatize some aspects of the production. The concept behind the productions seems sound but I am not sure that the execution of it matched the intent.Benini conducted the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House with the vigour and discipline that the music and concept of the opera demand. It was an outstanding performance.

“Well, I think my Norma is something in between Maria Callas and Cecilia Bartoli.” Sonya Yoncheva, stepping into the title role at Covent Garden when Anna Netrebko decided Norma wasn't for her after all, was giving herself plenty of wriggle room when interviewed last month in The Sunday Times. Perhaps it was good she raised the spectre of Callas herself, because plenty of others would have been ready to do so. In the end, Yoncheva's Norma is a good deal closer to the legendary Greek soprano on the vocal spectrum than many would have wagered.Joseph Calleja's warm vibrato and liquid golden tone is a throwback to the age of Björling, Gigli and Tagliavini – a far cry from the clarion tenors often associated with the role of the Roman proconsul Pollione. He suffered a few intonation issues at the start, but quickly settled to deliver a performance which almost made Pollione sympathetic, despite being the love-rat in the nest.Act II opens on an unsettling domestic scene – Norma's children blithely playing with Scalextric and a Spacehopper while Watership Down is aired on the flatscreen television (Richard Adams' timid rabbit Fiver referencing the Druid's clairvoyant powers?). Ever the practical priestess, Norma lays down plastic sheeting to minimise the mess as she prepares to commit infanticide. Revealing that she has betrayed her vows, Norma condemns herself to the sacrificial pyre. Crucifixes begin to glow as a giant cross flickers animated flames to which Norma and Pollione seem destined, before a cruel twist at the end denies her that Brünnhilde-like immolation. Pay attention, or you'll miss it! A striking production and a terrifically enjoyable evening, especially for Yoncheva's superb assumption of the title role.

Oreste, taken from Euripides, was the first of the three pasticcio operas (sort of paste-ups) which Handel himself created from his own works. It outlines Oreste’s reunion with his sister Iphigenia (remarkably secure soprano Jennifer Davis) while she is serving as high priestess of Diana in Tauris operating the harsh laws of King Toante (bass Simon Shibambu in crazed dictator mode), which require all strangers to be sacrificed. For Jones, the horrific cruelty of the classics translates easily into a grungy post-apocalyptic world where order has entirely broken down: a tagged urban underbelly where all protagonists wonder in a traumatised daze of psychopathic bloodlust. Acting is strong – we shall surely see more of baritone Gyula Nagy, and soprano Vlada Borovko, who lands in this world like something out of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and sings with style to match.The eight-strong Southbank Sinfonia under James Hendry impressed, with reliable tempos and much lyricism, and the lower strings relishing every scrunch on offer. But for all the ingenious attention to gruesome detail, it’s not entirely clear what this Handel-Mad Max mash-up really adds to our understanding of either.

Gerard Finley was a different Michonnet from others I’ve seen – more expansive, less of a character actor – but the beauty of his velvet timbre and his lieder singer’s attention to the nuance of the text made him intensely watchable. Each time he portrayed one of the scenes where Michonnet finds himself incapable of declaring his true love to Adriana, I felt the man's wrenching melancholy; his unheeded advice to Adriana not to meddle in the affairs of the great was heartbreaking.Tenor voices are a matter of taste, and I have to admit that in this kind of repertoire, I prefer a darker, more rounded timbre to Brian Jagde’s bright, clear tones. But Jagde tackled the role of the dashing Maurizio with enthusiasm and improved steadily through the evening, at his best in the boisterous relation of his war heroics, “Il russo Mèncikoff”. On the softer side, he was effective in the tenderness of the closing duets as Adriana dies of poison.As ever at Covent Garden, supporting roles were strongly cast, most notably Bálint Szabó’s powerful bass as the Prince. Under Daniel Oren, the Royal Opera Orchestra turned in a solid performance – lacking, perhaps, in the last degree of Puccini-esque sweep and lustrous string timbre, but well paced and sprightly.This production of Adriana Lecouvreur isn't the star vehicle that I'm sure some would like, but it’s a solid, watchable, well put together and well performed production of an opera I love.