SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Other Links

Editorial Board

Google Site Search

Verdi, Rigoletto: Soloists, chorus and orchestra of the Royal Opera House. Conductor: Daniel Oren. Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 10.2.2009 (JPr)

Leo Nucci (Rigoletto) and Ekaterina Siurina  (Gilda)

In the classic Billy Wilder film Some Like It Hot a detective asks the villain where he was when the St. Valentine’s massacre was carried out.  ‘I was at Rigoletto’ the villain replies, and then he is asked for Rigoletto’s name and address! Although this wasn’t 14th February, it was close and when I left this performance I overheard a typical Covent Garden audience member pronounce that it had been ‘A very Italian evening’ -not, I think, a totally complimentary remark.

I have had some similar criticism myself from people annoyed by my lack of reverence to some Verdi opera such as Don Carlos in the past, but few have understood my argument that not every work by even a great composer  like Verdia has a divine right to be a called a masterpiece. I am on safer ground with Rigoletto however, because it clearly is one.

Verdi wrote for the masses and was criticising the power-trips taken by  contemporary rulers. Victor Hugo’s  play Le Roi s’amuse on which the opera is based  was about a king (the historical François I of France) who was shown as an immoral and cynical womanizer, something that fell foul of the censors in France. Before the opera’s first performance on 11th March 1851 it underwent a number of revisions by the librettist Francesco Maria Piave and Verdi himsel,  and in the end agreement was reached to set the opera's action in a duchy of France or Italy rather than the French royal, with the characters renamed. This  is how we have the Duke who rules over Mantua and belongs to the Gonzaga family - the Gonzagas barely survived into the eighteenth century so this would not offend anyone. A scene with the Duke is in Gilda's bedroom was taken out and his visit to Sparafucile’s inn was rewritten so he was seen to be  tricked into going there by Maddalena. The hunchback originally named ‘Triboulet’)  in Verdi’s Italianized version, ‘Triboletto’, became ‘Rigoletto’ (from the French rigolo meaning amusing or funny) and the whole opera was soon called after him. Fortunately, some dialogue was retained directly from the play  including the words to this opera's most famous aria,  ‘La donna è mobile’.

The first performance was a success and the opera has remained hugely popular every since. In 1855 when Verdi was asked which of his operas he liked most   he named Rigoletto as his best and it is easy to understand why.  Here we  have the juxtaposition of the sleazy Duke's carefree arias ‘Questa o quella’ and ‘La donna è mobile’ withintensely emotional duets between a father and his daughter Gilda who is torn between the two men in her life, after falling in love with the disguised Duke. It is unremittingly grim but nevertheless compelling. The tragedy that befalls the protective father and, more especially, his innocent child is signalled very early on but we never lose interest in what fate has in store for them. In fact, even the prelude with its dark colours and doom laden aspects immediately makes it clear that there is a fearsome drama ahead, as well as  illustrating the grief of the bereaved father which Verdi’s fairly abrupt ending to Act III never lets us experience. Not everything is quite perfect however, although that's not Verdi's fault: these days there is some unintended comedy in the final act when a rather banal moaning chorus brings to mind ‘They Call The Wind Maria’ from Paint Your Wagon.

Ekaterina Siurina  (Gilda)

David McVicar’s 2001 production is  given its fourth revival here by director Daniel Dooner. We are clearly in Machiavelli’s Italy and there is a single, ingenious, if slightly creaky and visually unchanging set by Michael Vale which adequately, although little more than that, depicts everything within its two levels,  from the Duke’s palace to Sparafucile’s inn. Tanya McCallin’s authentic costumes (gowns for women and men who wear mainly jerkins, doublet, hose and codpieces) are clearly inspired by the paintings of Titian and Velasquez and the general gloom surrounding the single set hints at the moral and physical corruptness of this snapshot of Renaissance Italy.

I had not seen this production before and just wonder how much of David McVicar’s original concept remained. For about 18 minutes in Act I we have corruptness thrown at us with simulations of all manners of sexual encounters, clothed and unclothed, men with men, women with women -  imagine it and he shows it - which  I suppose might have been raunchy, lewd, or even horrifying when the production first appeared.  Now, however,  the actors and chorus participated with typical British prudery and the result seemed  more like a trailer for ‘Carry On Coupling’. After Scene 1 is over,  the production retrenches to become  hardly distinguishable from any other Rigoletto given a period setting and concentrates on the more intimate moments between the drama's  characters.

I have no doubt that an influence on this is the Italian baritone, Leo Nucci, a veteran of over 400 Rigoletti. Looking at the production photographs,  he is only costumed like his production predecessor for the first scene,  and even then does not have the original hallmark sticks. It seems possible that Leo Nucci brought his own costume along which  he then wore while giving a  performance similar to those he has given many times before to great acclaim,  in opera houses throughout the world. After some 35 years of singing the role and over 30 years since his Royal Opera debut, it seems likely that  no one would dare to say ‘Signor Nucci, this is the way we would like you to do it’.

Nucci's Rigoletto is the victim throughout the evening and yet misses an element of him getting the deserved payback for the ridicule he has handed out to members of the Duke’s court. His acting was compelling if a little melodramatic and – slightly unforgivably – he came out of character to acknowledge the ovation for ‘Sì! Vendetta, tremenda vendetta!’ with slight nods to right, left and centre. His is clearly not now a young voice but is still wonderfully projected with great attention paid to diction and to the meaning of words being sung. He has all the weight and colour of voice that Verdi demands but perhaps cannot now support the long arching lines that are sometimes needed. In a sense, this was opera as it used to be – and it made a change to see ‘old school’ once more.

Russian soprano Ekaterina Siurina is a demure, innocent Gilda, whose passivity is a complete contrast to the force of Leo Nucci’s personality on stage but, like most of the principals, she more than holds her own in her big moments. She had fluting tones at the top of her voice, sufficient steel to holf her own in ensembles like the Quartet and she pinged the high notes in  ‘Caro nome’ like Olympia. She sang this aria as an enraptured young girl in the first flush of  love and thankfully not at all as a concert aria.

There was also the increasingly rare pleasure of an Italian tenor singing the Duke and, almost unbelievably, Francesco Meli was born thirteen years after Leo Nucci made his opera debut. His was a large voice but happily he could soften his tone  in more intimate moments and sang his arias with a subtle, bright voice. His acting however, was less lusty ruler and more like a public school boy out celebrating the end of his exams.

Kurt Rydl was flawless and full of menace as Sparafucile and sang the role with a suitably disturbing and cavernous voice. Slightly disappointing were Iain Paterson’s Monterone, who didn’t have the bottom to his voice this part demands, and Sara Fulgoni as Maddelena who, although making her a suitably blowsy character,  lacked a little focus in her voice. Among the even smaller roles,  Korean baritone – and Jette Parker Young Artist – Changhan Lim looks a name to follow for the future,  as he seemed to have considerable stage presence and made much of his few moments as Marullo.

The chorus boomed out in their usual well-schooled fashion and the orchestra played opulently for Daniel Oren whose broad, brash, crowd-pleasing Verdi will be loved by many and bemoaned by others for a lack of subtlety. But then, it  was exactly that sort of ‘Italian evening’.

Jim Pritchard

Pictures © Clive Barda

^{Back to Top                                                    Cumulative Index Page}