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Verdi, Un ballo in maschera: Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden/Maurizio Benini. Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, 26.6. 2009 (CC)

Co-production with Teatro Real, Madrid, Houston Grand Opera and Teatro Communale di Bologna.

Director: Mario Montone
Sets: Sergio Tramonti
Costumes: Bruno Schwengl
Lighting: David Harvey

Cast:

Riccardo - Ramón Vargas
Amelia - Angela Marambio
Ulrica - Elena Manistina
Renato - Dalibor Jenis
Oscar - Anna Christy
Samuel - Giovanni Battista Parodi
Tom - Vuyani Mlinde
Judge - Martyn Hill
Silvano - Changhan Lim
Amelia’s Servant- Neil Gillespie

Evan Dickerson reviewed an earlier incarnation of this production in 2005 (with Richard Margison, Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Nina Stemme lighting up the cast list). Mario Martone’s production uses the Boston setting instead of the recently more popular Swedish version and moves from the plush through the oppressive through to  the creation of  a sense of levels and space in the final act through the clever use of mirrors.

The conductor was Maurizio Benini, who as recently as May this year was telecast from New York’s Met conducting Rossini’s Cenerentola with Elena Garanča in the title role. There, he impressed by a sure sense of the shape of the work coupled with an acute ear for Rossinian style; here, the structural hearing was yet again intact, and he revealed himself a true Verdian  also. I would have been interested to hear Mackerras’ take on this piece, but emerged completely satisfied by Benini’s handling of both orchestral minutiae and the building of Verdi’s opera into a coherent whole.

Like Benini, Ramón Vargas also has been telecast from New York, this time in Bohème (Rodolfo). Good to see and hear the Mexican tenor in the flesh. His entrance as the Governor Riccardo (“Amici miei”) was ringing; his diction throughout was exemplary, his sense of line true, nowhere more so than in his aria, “Di’ tu se fedele” (Act 1 Scene 2). As an actor, he is mainly convincing – on a number of occasions the impression was that one almost believed the emotions he was projecting (as in his reactions to Amelia’s admission that she loves him). His big Act 3 aria, “Ma se m’è forza perditi” revealed just how strong a presence Vargas can be.

Angela Marambio (Amelia) and Elena Manistina (Ulrica)

The crucial role of Amelia fell to the Chilean soprano Angela Marambio, making her ROH debut. Her aria, “Ma dall’arido stelo divulsa” included a fiery, highly dramatic section around the arrival of “Mezzanotte” and telling final cries of “Miserere”. She has real presence. Bratislava–born Dalibor Janis takes the role of Renato, a part he has already sung at Berlin (Deutsche Oper and Staatsoper) and Hamburg. He has regularly appeared at Covent Garden since his debut in 2000 (Marcello Bohème). In Act 1 Scene 1, however, he seemed ill-at-ease. His tone was rather harsh, but worse than this was his decidedly stand-and-deliver stance; neither did the lines of “La reviedrà” speak naturally (one only needs to think of Di Stefano here). His contributions to Act 1 Scene 2, however, were far more focussed, and his final act “Eri tu” finally found him fully inside his character.

Although Marambio was excellent, she was in danger of being outshone by the Ulrica, the Russian mezzo Elena Manistina. Ulrica has a gift of a part as a Devil-worshipper, the content of whose Act 1 Scene 2 aria seems to hearken back to the witches of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Certainly the oppressively dark setting helped, but it was Manistina’s smoky expression shot through with a core of steely dtermination that was most noteworthy, right from the beginning of her “Re d’abisso, affrettati”.

In 2008, Anna Christy made her ENO debut in a memorable Donizetti Lucia. This Ballo found her making her ROH debut as Oscar, a role she has already taken in San Francisco (2006) and Paris (in the current season), and one looks forward immensely to seeing her here again. Christy sings with such precision and such involvement that it was difficult to believe it was the same person singing “Volta la terrea” that sang the tormented Lucia so recently. Similarly, the final-act “Saper vorreste” was agile, fluent and utterly beguiling.

With the smaller roles well and strongly cast, this amounted to a fine evening. There are another six performances in the run to go.

Colin Clarke

Pictures © Catherine Ashmore

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