SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Giordano, Andrea Chénier: at the Royal Swedish Opera, Stockholm, premiere on 22.10.2010 (GF)

 

Directed by Dmitri Bertman

Sets by Hartmut Schörghofer

Costumes and masks by Corinna Crome

Choreography by Edvald Smirnov

Lighting design by Hans-Åke Sjöquist

 

Cast:

Andrea Chénier – Lars Cleveman

Carlo Gérard – Jeremy Carpenter

Maddalena de Coigny – Katarina Dalayman

Bersi – Susann Végh

La comtesse de Coigny/Madelon – Ingrid Tobiasson

Fléville/Fouquier-Tinville – Magnus Lindén

Mathieu – Johan Edholm

The Abbé/The Incredible – Magnus Kyhle

Roucher – Gunnar Lundberg

Master of the Household/Dumas/Gaoler – Michael Schmidberger

 

Conductor of the Royal Opera Chorus and Orchestra - Pier Giorgio Morandi

 

Andrea Chenier hasn’t been heard at the Royal Opera in Stockholm since 1909, when it was played nine times, so it was high time for a new production. Dmitri Bertman, always an innovative and surprising director, has opted for period costumes. (Almost a sensation in today’s world of opera but what else can he do? The French revolution took place in the 1790s and André Chenier, who is an historical figure, died on 25 July 1794.) The sets are however more or less timeless and the stage image is dominated by a golden frame. In the first act, when the nobility are still unaffected by the revolution, it is placed straight but in the following acts askew, symbolizing the turmoil. The backdrop is desolate: a flat landscape, a horizon and a dominating sky. In the last act, the prison scene, the picture is black until the very end when Chenier and Maddalena hand in hand walk to the guillotine, a landscape in sunset opens in front of them and the frame slowly rotates.

 

It is a beautiful production with beautiful, sometimes fanciful clothes and a lot of movement. The two main antagonists, Gérard and Chénier, stand out from the motley crowd, the former from act two and onwards in shining red, the latter in black. Choreographer Edvald Smirnov lets the crowd scenes dance; it is beautiful, humorous and makes the cruelties in for instance the trial scene stand out as even more cruel through the contrasts. Sometimes in the past I have found Bertman’s productions overloaded with details but this time everything contributes to a consummate entity.

 

Pier Giorgio Morandi’s conducting is at times too hard-driven – Chenier’s Come un bel di di maggio loses the poetry – but it is a crisp performance and he manages to expose a great deal of the felicities of the orchestration. Giordano has often been accused of being a rather crude composer – and compared to Puccini he is rather penny-plain – but he produces quite a lot of memorable tunes and the power of the score is indisputable. It might be possible to find more nuances but at the expense of the inherent thrill and Chénier has to be played at full throttle to give maximum impact. I have nothing but praise for the orchestra and the chorus, so important in this opera, who acquit themselves gloriously, both for the powerful singing and for fulfilling Smirnov’s not inconsiderable demands on acting and dancing.

 

The central solo parts require big dramatic voices, in particular the title role with its four solos and two extended duets. The original Andrea Chénier, Giuseppe Borgatti, was a noted Wagner singer and so is Lars Cleveman. His Siegfried in the Stockholm Ring some years ago was terrific and anyone calling my judgement into question need only listen to the award-winning Götterdämmerung recording from Hallé. He has been singing Tristan for several years and is scheduled to sing Tannhäuser in Bayreuth next year. He has the steel in the voice for the climactic outbursts and has stringency in the declamatory passages. Where he falls short of the ideal is in the lyrical music. Not that there is very much of it but the aforementioned Come un bel di di maggio, in the last act should be the lyrical apex of the performance – after all Chénier is a poet! – but there he is plainly prosaic. So much in the previous acts has been so impressive and in the final duet he is again glorious. Even the sun has its spots. Katarina Dalayman, whose Elektra in Stockholm I greatly admired less than a year ago, also has the heft for Maddalena’s role. She was Cleveman’s Brünnhilde both in Stockholm and on the Hallé recording and even though she could have been more inward in her set-piece La mamma morta this is singing on an exalted level. The British baritone Jeremy Carpenter is a fine actor and the owner of a well focused voice that serves him well in Gérard’s part, where the aria Nemico della Patria is the natural highlight.

 

The many secondary – but important – parts were well cast throughout with Ingrid Tobiasson appearing both as La Comtesse de Coigny and the blind Madelon. The latter part, only a few bars of music, is invariably the moment in this opera when tears burst forth at her final word to her son, Addio, followed by a heart-rending cello solo. Susann Végh’s Bersi is also vocally impressive, and Magnus Kyhle’s oily spy is truly nasty.

 

During this first run Andrea Chénier will be played until the beginning of January 2011, but I am sure it will be back during several seasons to come.

 

Göran Forsling