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5David McVicar’s production of ‘Die Zauberflöte’ is filled with nocturnal high-jinks
Classic production by David McVicar of Mozart's last opera returns to Covent Garden with a new cast and a star turn
International opera houses such as Covent Garden need fail-safe productions of works that feature in most seasons, in which multiple casts can be accommodated as unfussily as possible. Now eight years old, and in its fourth reincarnation, Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser's staging of Madama Butterfly has, surprisingly perhaps, evolved into one of those dependables. Over the years, much of the kitsch that characterised it when new seems to have been quietly abandoned, although traces remain: the landscape, covered with what looks like pink bubble bath, that replaces the backdrop of Nagasaki when Butterfly makes her first appearance; and the tacky flapping gestures she makes as she dies. But generally the production's straightforwardness and refusal to labour political subtexts has become its strength, and its ability to retain its crispness is shown by this excellent revival, which Caurier and Leiser themselves returned to supervise.
If it's not broke, don't fix it!" Most clichés gain their status through being true, but that one is honoured in the breach as often as in its application, the desire to sell something new (even if it isn't really) as addictive to the vendor as it is to the buyer. Not always though. "25 years of Richard Eyre's La Traviata" is emblazoned (in gold, no less) on the cast list and the programme compiles a Who's Who of opera stars who have sung the roles in that quarter century - it was staged here as recently as January after all! So you've every right to expect something good, something slick, something that can fill hundreds of seats on wet Tuesday night a week before Christmas. And that's what you get.
Apart from Oropesa’s Violetta, the superb tenor Liparit Avetisyan gives a convincing performance as the passionate Alfredo, a role that is rarely achieved in operatic productions. The German baritone Christian Gerhaher in the role of Giorgio Germont, the man responsible for the break-up, also offers an impressive performance. The entire leading cast as well as the rest of the cast secured the narrative’s realism that is so brilliantly embedded in its musical fabric, which translates on stage in a manner that even those not musically trained, gain a satisfying musical and dramatic experience. The stamp of the director of this revival, Pedro Ruibeiro, is much in evidence. The dramatic performance, highlighting the conflict between father-son, the shift in Germont’s attitude towards Violetta, the ‘saintly courtesan’, is made clear in their first encounter in Act II. His hard tone and demeanour towards this fallen reveal early signs of softening and gestures of respect. The social norms layered with hypocrisy are superbly probed musically and dramatically in that first encounter between the two. The dramatic tension is given momentary relief by the colourful and beautifully performed gypsy’s singing dancing and the matadors. They lighten up the atmosphere before the mood darkens.The evening, in its entirety, can be summed up as memorable
