SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Other Links

Editorial Board

Google Site Search

Verdi,  Rigoletto:   Vancouver Opera, soloists, cond. Leslie Dala, dir. Glynis Leyshon, scenic designer Bretta Gerecke, lighting designer Harry Frehner,, chorus dir. Kinza Tyrrell, Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Vancouver, British Columbia, 7.3.2009 (BJ)

Donnie Ray Albert (Rigoletto) and Eglise Gutierrez (Gilda)

It was one of those evenings that I start by hating, but gradually come, if not exactly to love, at any rate to respect. The promise of a “bold new take” on a work like Rigoletto always arouses some anticipatory qualms in this reviewer’s mind, and the stage picture, open to view even before the Prelude began, served only to heighten misgivings: an industrial-looking construction of metallic grids on two levels, calculated to divorce the action as radically as possible from any imaginable 16th-century Mantuan court.

Then the lights went up, and we were greeted with a truly motley assemblage of characters, complete with stilt-walker and trapeze artist, dressed in a variety of costumes of all periods or none. The scene looked like nothing so much as “A Night at the Marx Brothers,” with a cast that even included one obvious Harpo look-alike.

The director’s aim, she explained, “Drawn by the strong metaphors at the centre of the opera,” was “to look at a kind of ‘circus’ metaphor.” And the first scene did indeed make some sense of this conception, portraying a milieu emancipated from any kind of logic, restraint, or morality. Unfortunately, this imaginative treatment degenerated at times into the most infantile literalism, as when Gilda made her first appearance not just virtually but actually in a cage, next to which a crescent moon descended onto the scene, presumably to represent the Spirit of Romance.

Bruce Sledge (Duke) and Donnie Ray Albert (Rigoletto)

Bretta Gerecke’s set, moreover, was not always practical in terms of sight-lines: in one long passage, a projecting suspended door made the activities of several characters upstage almost invisible to me and, I suspect, at least several hundred other members of the audience. It also did the singers no favor. When they had to sing on the upper of the two stage levels, some way back from the proscenium, they were hard put to it to make any real impact over the orchestra–it was a pleasure to hear so much orchestral detail, finely realized under Leslie Dala’s baton, but the vocal texture was seriously reduced in richness and power. I thought at first that Bruce Sledge, playing the Duke, possessed little in the way of voice, yet as soon as he was allowed to come down and forward, he showed that he is indeed a tenor of considerable strength and (except for the drearily predictable interpolated high note at the end of “La donna è mobile”) impressive artistry. Spatial considerations may similarly excuse a touch of unevenness in the singing of the Gilda. The young Cuban-born Eglise Gutierrez looks the part, and acted superbly; a note or two here and there seemed to emerge rather too strongly from the line, but hers is an ideal Gilda voice, promising great things when she is not saddled by an unhelpful stage environment, and she deserved the rapturous ovation that greeted her at the end of the performance.

I was seeing the production, originally staged in Calgary, on its opening night in Vancouver, and I have to acknowledge that the balance between voices and orchestra gradually improved as the evening continued. Donnie Ray Albert, whom I last encountered as a wonderful Porgy in Gershwin’s opera, sang and acted Rigoletto with enormous authority, though his Italian diction left something to be desired, particularly in the matter of rolled r’s. Other excellent vocal contributions came from John Conlon’s Marullo, Willy Miles-Grenzberg’s Ceprano, Raphael Wagner’s Countess Ceprano, and especially the richly projected Monterone and Sparafucile of Chad Louwerse and Kirk Eichelberger. The latter set up the opera’s shocking denouement with great conviction, and Gutierrez and Albert played their parts to riveting effect. I could happily have done without the deceased Gilda’s ghostly departure from the scene–at least she wasn’t air-lifted to Heaven, as I feared for a moment might happen–but all in all, Verdi’s sure-fire thriller duly thrilled, and an Aristotelian blend of pity and terror prevailed over whatever reservations I had about Ms. Leyshon’s production.

Bernard Jacobson

Pictures © Tim Matheson

^{Back to Top                                                    Cumulative Index Page}