Tidigare produktion recensioner
8That performances of Les Troyens, with its enormous cast, are an ‘event’ goes without saying but with a cast as starry as tonight’s, expectations were stratospheric. The Strasbourgeois assembled 350 performers tonight – a super-sized orchestra, including six harps, numerous off-stage bands, sixteen soloists and three choruses, including one placed off-stage and, at times, in the auditorium. It was an especially nice touch to invite the chorus of the Karlsruhe opera, where Berlioz’ magnum opus was first performed complete, to participate. Tonight’s performance, and a second on Monday, were recorded for Erato for release in due course.
In the event, those performers communicated their fears, anxieties and desires vividly with the audience, who loved it all. Not surprising, since this was a magnificent cast headed by ENO Harewood Young Artist Božidar Smiljanić, as a firmly-voiced Figaro with superb stage presence. Silver-voiced Louise Alder led the feminine side as his feisty Susanna, along with Elizabeth Watts as a disconsolate Countess whose soliloquies on the loss of the Count’s love were superbly delivered, with Johnathan McCullough showing mystified resolution as a notably youthful Count. Singing in the witty translation by Jeremy Sams, the diction was so good I don’t recall glancing at the surtitles more than once or twice, and there was not a weak member of the cast in that respect, helped perhaps by the acoustic of the rectangular box.
Sometimes simple solutions really do work best. Joe Hill-Gibbins’ new production of The Marriage of Figaro for English National Opera stages Mozart and Da Ponte’s tangle of intrigues and concealments along a row of four identical doors in a white box. It’s a revelation: this is, after all, a piece in which the issue of who’s in on the joke (and who’s out) is crucial – and the humble door is its ideal multiway tool.
Sams takes the opportunity to re-write the libretto when necessary, not only making his words fit the music but even achieving the near impossible feat of making it all sound completely natural as though it were all written in English in the first place.
Many directors today choose to set operas in the 1950s or ’60s, and the reasons why are not hard to find. The period is still recent enough to retain a certain air of familiarity, which can help make the action relatable. At the same time, it is still ‘historical’ enough to maintain many of the traditional values and hierarchies on which the works originally played. This is not, however, the only reason why Phelim McDermott’s production, a joint venture between English National Opera and The Metropolitan Opera that first appeared at the London Coliseum in 2014, sets the drama on Coney Island in the 1950s. To McDermott, amusement parks take us into a different realm with their magic, exuberance and allure, and it is this type of territory that the quartet of lovers enter as they all go on their extraordinary adventure.
Count Almaviva was well taken by Argentinean Germán E Alcántara (...)in his first major role here, showed vocal and histrionic gifts. In the Act 2 altercation with the Countess his violent side was visibly and vocally only just in check, an aristocrat aware he is losing control of events.
