Intermezzo

Tosca at the Royal Opera House - Angela returns

Tosca - Royal Opera House, 9 July 2009 (first night)

Angela Gheorghiu is of course better known for dropping out at the last minute than dropping in, but then Deborah Voigt unexpectedly withdrew from this Tosca mere days before opening night. Just when it seemed Bryn Terfel might be obliged to fake five nights of uncontrollable passion for the plucky but frankly 'autumnal' Nelly Miricioiu, the surprise announcement was made that la Gheorghiu would be returning to Covent Garden in the production created for her in 2006. 

Gheorghiu has her knockers, but while her voice and her (un)professionalism are open to criticism, her presence is undeniably electrifying. The stage wasn't set on fire when she stepped on it (something of a surprise given the number of burning candles and the repeatedly-demonstrated clumsiness of the cast) but the temperature certainly rose a few degrees. Despite the teasing playfulness of her jealous outburst, she displayed a compelling nervy intensity - some compensation for puny and even tremulous singing that didn't firm up until the second act.

Her performance was gripping, but it simply wasn't moving. Even when she span out Vissi d'arte quite exquisitely in her tiny porcelain voice, it left me cold.

She's a generous performer though, and there was a real frisson to her interaction with Marcello Giordani, who never let his enormous voice overwhelm her tiny instrument. His physical rigidity (a health issue?) didn't convince. But he sang Cavaradossi with textbook precision, if like Gheorghiu he was ultimately uninvolving.

And I can't help thinking there's something wrong with a production where Tosca has more secksy-chemistry with Scarpia than Cavaradossi.  There's a disturbing hint of complicity with Bryn Terfel's poison-hearted psychopath, a man who casually terrorises even his own staff. But then who wouldn't be drawn to him? - this is a magisterially compelling performance from Bryn, and immaculately sung, with penetrating attention to every syllable. Hiding his torture chamber behind a Bond-style secret bookcase door in his house is a clever touch - only the truly committed bring their work home.

Amongst the smaller roles, Kostas Smoriginas as Angelotti and Jeremy White as the Sacristan stood out as well-rounded and well-sung.

Jonathan Kent's traditional production has awkward, ugly sets, and the singers seem subservient to the scenery, forever negotiating a minefield of unduly fussy touches - bread drops from ladders, cheese rolls down stairs, windows open when they shouldn't, doors don't want to open when they should, singers walk into the furniture. If I'd bet a week ago on which show a singer would break a leg in, it would be this one. But it tells the story, straight.

Unlike Jacques Lacombe's efficient but prosaic conducting. Plain loudness substituted for real excitement, and dynamics shrunk in response to the size of the voices rather than dramatic necessity. Unlike the scenery, it never came close to catching fire.

*******  more photos over page  *******

pushed up lirico

I couldn't help noticing a difference (well a couple, actually) between Angela Gheorghiu's appearance as Tosca in 2006:

and how she looked on Thursday, the opening night of the current run:

Filet-o-chicken and hold the fries! One way to distract attention from the singing I suppose.

Bryn Terfel - open to offers

 

Bryn Terfel was interviewed on Radio 3's In Tune this week, where he talked about his career plans.  This month's concert performance in Verbier will be his last appearance in the role of Don Giovanni. Apparently the preposterous costumery of the Vienna Staatsoper production convinced him he's safer as Leporello .....

He's firmly booked at La Scala for a new Flying Dutchman in a couple of years time (a change he said from their normal notice period, which is about a month).

And just in case Covent Garden still need a Mephistopheles for their forthcoming Faust, he kindly offered his services.

Listen here.

FF FTW

The great Ferruccio Furlanetto is profiled by Martin Kettle in the Guardian, where his golf handicap is revealed.

Five! (Which means he plays golf nearly as well as he sings).

Here he is with La calumnia from Il barbiere di Siviglia in 2007 at La Fenice:

Joyce DiDonato casts away

Nick Kimberley of the Evening Standard reviews last night's performance of ll Barbiere di Siviglia, the first show Joyce DiDonato has performed in a wheelchair since breaking her leg on stage on Saturday night. She accessorised her new wheels with a bright pink cast to match the shoe on her good foot.

Joyce also shared a few words backstage after the show:

“If Moshe and Patrice had said before we started, ‘We’re going to put you in a wheelchair’, I would have declared it pure Eurotrash and stormed out. I got introduced to my wheelchair at about 5 o’clock and had just half an hour of preparation onstage beforehand. In the story, Rosina is caged; the beautiful thing is that tonight that became something quite literal: I felt trapped in the wheelchair. That helped dramatically. This was one of the most thrilling nights I’ve ever spent in the theatre.”

you might as well jump

 

We all know Angela Gheorghiu doesn't 'do' rehearsals - her superior operatic skillz of course render them entirely superfluous.

So it was no surprise that today's dress rehearsal of Tosca at Covent Garden featured instead Nelly Miricioiu, who is sharing the title role. Nelly is no spring chicken, but an artful combination of gliding, sliding, swooping and scooping conceals the worst of the wear and tear. The history-book sets and  frocks invite an old-skool semaphore display which Nelly, ever the diva, was only too happy to provide.

By her side, though with even less chemistry than Renee'n'Joe, Marcello Giordani rattled the chandeliers with his Met-sized voice. He seemed to be going through the motions, but perhaps he'll warm up for the proper shows.

Jacques Lacombe kept the orchestra together neatly in a well-paced reading, but I wanted more light and shade, more drama.

The glacial, composed menace of Bryn Terfel's Scarpia - could this be the definitive portrayal? - seems at this stage the only reason to catch this revival. But who knows, things could change between now and Thursday's opening night - which will also throw la Gheorghiu into the mix.

News from the Barber's chair

Joyce DiDonato confirms on her blog that she WILL perform the remaining Barbiere shows at the Royal Opera House - starting with tomorrow night, 7 July - in a WHEELCHAIR!

Check http://yankeediva.blogspot.com for all the latest updates straight from Joyce herself.

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Juan Diego Flórez is the new Simon Russell Beale. Official. So realistic was his slapstick acting that he convinced Tim Ashley of the Guardian that, "In act two, meanwhile, her Almaviva, Juan Diego Flórez, narrowly missed being clobbered by the lid of an open grand piano." Nope, it was all in character, as he thinks his 'singing teacher' disguise is about to get rumbled. He did exactly the same at the rehearsal.

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Despite having a correspondent in the house, the perenially fact-lite Guardian managed to cock up their report on Joyce's accident. According to them, she slipped "during a scene change towards the end of the first act" - when it was actually mid-scene and mid-act. (So - again - why should we trust you on the big news, Guardian?)

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Reviews in so far from Edward Seckerson in the Independent (published before I even got out of bed on Sunday morning, what a pro), Michael Church in the Independent blog, WhatsonStage.com, MusicOMH.com, MusicalCriticism.com, The Stage, Bloomberg and Boulezian blog.

Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Royal Opera House - opening night report

Il barbiere di Siviglia - Royal Opera House, 4 July 2009 (first night)

What a night!

I won't dwell on Joyce DiDonato's painful accident (see here for the gruesome details). But I will again marvel at her incredible willpower and determination to forge on and deliver an amazing performance, worthy of Rosina herself. She sang just as brilliantly as she did at the final rehearsal, with guts and panache. Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier's rigorously choreographed direction placed her every single note in dramatic context - each one of those trills and turns is linked to the action. And she didn't let them down, even in the tempesta scene where she had to swipe all the furniture to the floor in anger - not easy with a crutch in hand.

But it wasn't just Joyce who made the evening so special. It was an incredible performance all round, one of the greatest I can remember at Covent Garden. Perfectly cast, brilliantly sung from top to bottom, played with freshness and precision - and a production which for all its crayon-bright buffoonery digs intelligently right to the heart of the work. And thigh boots too! What more can a girl ask?

Juan Diego Flórez was perfection itself, his Ecco ridente just meltingly delicious, his comic timing superb. And he - deservedly - got the longest ovation I've ever heard for that snake-pit of fiendish coloratura, Cessa di più resistere. Five minutes? I didn't count. So long that Alessandro Corbelli, staying in character as Bartolo, got a few more laughs by checking his watch.

In any other cast, Corbelli and the great Ferruccio Furlanetto would have stolen the show. Corbelli's unbelievably precise patter in Un dottor della mia sorte and his brilliantly-detailed faux-bad singing lesson aria were a masterclass in buffo technique. And his bumbling avuncular characterisation had the great advantage of making the ending far more credible.

It makes me happier to see the name of Ferruccio Furlanetto on a cast list than any number of overpaid divas. His Don Basilio was an awe-inspiring and utterly original creation, bizarre and faintly sinister, sure to give any children lucky enough to attend the show a few bad dreams. His La calunnia - a brilliantly choreographed assault on Bartolo's person and sanity that ended with the lanky Furlanetto's twisted round Corbelli's humpty-dumpty form - was simply one of the greatest performances I've ever seen on stage.

The late sub Pietro Spagnoli was an able and amiable Figaro. The voice is not particularly refined, but it's big and warm, and he held his own amongst his starry colleagues.

His finest moment came early on in the evening. Entering from the back of the auditorium, he made his way down the aisle singing Largo al factotum, pausing here and there to menace the expensively-seated customers with his tools, eliciting a mixture of genuine amusement and nervous smiles. Then - golazo! Was it coincidence, a wager, or is he really chasing that one-star review? - he waved his scissors in the face of Britain's grumpiest opera critic - who is clearly no fan of audience participation. Talk about an f-off glare - I thought I'd die laughing.

Even the smaller parts were brilliantly taken. The prosthetically-enhanced Jennifer Rhys-Davies was hilarious as Berta, though the ending of her aria shouldn't be nearly as funny as the directors make it. She is after all singing about how love has passed her by, one of the few moments where emotional truth pierces through the rigid stylisation the opera owes to its French origins in the drama of Beaumarchais. And Changhan Lim really made a mark as Fiorello - he can sing (a strong, warm baritone), he can act, and, importantly, he didn't look outclassed sharing a stage with Juan Diego Flórez.

Finally, Tony Pappano, managing both the orchestra and the harpsichord continuo (how did he find the time to rehearse with everything he's been doing recently?) practically reinvented the score. Light, witty, fresh, perfectly balanced, and as minutely detailed as the production itself. It's one of the finest things he's ever done at Covent Garden. At last we could hear what Beethoven raved about.

Standing ovation? You bet:

***** MANY more photos on the next page ******

Listen to Jonas Kaufmann's Lohengrin debut live from Munich

 

Jonas Kaufmann makes his role debut as Lohengrin at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich later today.

Richard Jones's eagerly-awaited new production will be broadcast on a big screen outside the opera house (if you're lucky enough to be in Munich) and also on the radio station Bayern 4 Klassik - which you can listen to here.

The show starts at 17.00 CET, which is 4pm in the UK, and there's a preamble with interviews at 16.30 CET (all in German selbstverständlich).

Listen to a preview programme including brief interviews with Richard Jones, conductor Kent Nagano and Jonas himself here.

Jonas Kaufmann and Anja Harteros (Elsa) - dress rehearsal

Joyce DiDonato injures leg; finishes Barbiere on crutches

We all like a little drama, don't we? That's what opera's all about. Joyce DiDonato went well beyond the call of duty providing it at the Royal Opera House tonight in Il barbiere di Siviglia.

Shortly after finishing Una voce poco fa, alone on the bare stage, she walked to the corner and her leg just seemed to give way under her. There was nothing to trip over - perhaps she just slipped.

She hauled herself up and carried on singing, but it was clear from her limp that all was not well, and her next appearance was with a walking stick, still limping.

A ROH spokesman announced before the second half that she'd sprained her ankle but was going to carry on despite the pain. And she did - with all her usual sparkle - wielding a flower-bedecked crutch as if it were just some fashion accessory. After all, that's what Rosina would do, isn't it?

She horsed around at the curtain call, waving the crutch in the air, but she didn't look her usual happy self.

No word at this stage whether she'll complete the rest of the run, but I suspect from this showing she'll try her best. Even if it means a wheelchair. 

*** Lots more about the show tomorrow! ***

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UPDATE - Joyce has in fact BROKEN HER LEG!

She was diagnosed with a fractured fibula (calf bone)and she's now in a cast. This is an incredibly painful injury - a friend of mine recently suffered the same break and nearly passed out with the pain before the ambulance arrived (and had difficulty even sitting comfortably in her ROH seat two weeks after the event). So how Joyce managed to soldier on for three hours is a mystery. Talk about a trouper!

More details - and photos - from Joyce herself on her blog, here.

 

 

L'amour de loin at English National Opera

L'amour de loin - ENO, 3 July 2009

The contemplative music of L'amour de loin hypnotises me. It ripples and shimmers, coloured as subtly and precisely as a paint chart with twenty different shades of white. Only sparing percussive interventions gesture above the wash of sound. Kaija Saariaho's sound world mutates with the laconic inevitability of a summer cloudscape, time passes imperceptibly.

That's on me Ipod.

(Where it is, incidentally, perfect in length and mood for an outbound Eurostar trip).

In the gigantic Coliseum, the detail - and the intimacy so essential to its appreciation - evaporates. Anyone who like me wasn't in the first few rows might as well have been in the next room.

And talk about slow-moving. L'amour de loin makes Pelléas et Mélisande look like an action thriller. A lovelorn troubadour dreams of his perfect woman, far away. When he discovers from a pilgrim that she really exists, he journeys across the sea to meet her. He dies. That's it.

Could any director turn that into two gripping hours? Perhaps not. Daniele Finzi Pasca's take is almost too exquisite. Minimalist stagescapes are bathed in evocative lighting. Shimmering expanses of parachute silk billow momentarily across the stage, then are sucked into its depths. Gymnasts and wire acrobats tumble and glide in silent slow motion, mirroring and commenting on the singing protagonists. A corner-stage shadow play too miniature to make out is the only ineffective touch.

It's all gorgeous and the technical craft is stunning - light-years ahead of what we usually see in London. But it only comes alive as the troubadour dies -  not uncoincidentally the only conventionally 'dramatic' section of the music. I do feel that it might have resonated more successfully if Pasca had focussed on the transformative aspect of both music and text - but who knows?

The chorus sounded drastically under-rehearsed, but Roderick Williams, Joan Rodgers and Faith Sherman were immaculately prepared, and did their best with the non-story and a precise, prosaic English translation that failed to capture the lyric flights of Amin Maalouf's original.

Despite the technical quality, musical and visual, it simply failed to engage. I was fidgety within ten minutes, and soldiering on through willpower alone after an hour. I was not alone. Masses of people slipped out at the interval - almost unheard of here. Was it worth missing Andy Murray's Wimbledämmerung for? I'm still fighting with that one.

*****  more photos on next page  *****

one way ticket to hell

Orpheus in the Underworld - Opera Holland Park, 2 July 2009

Is is panto season already? Opera Holland Park's Orpheus aims low and hits the target. By the time the final can-can kicked up its heels, most in the near-capacity audience were cheering, clapping and stamping along.

The film-of-the-opera format seemed to me an unnecessary layer to add to a work which already has too many ideas for its own good. The production failed to pick out Offenbach's cynical portrayal of bourgeois morality, marital fidelity and the foibles of the ruling classes, and I don't think it even tried to draw them together as a coherent political satire. But it did pick up a few laughs with its crudely stereotyped Stroheim-style German director and camp clipboard johnny. Lavish costumes provided a hint of Hollywood-style glamour, but the crude sets and lame dialogue were strictly am-dram. Knicker-flashing can-can dancers and a rubber-catsuited female chorus showed more clearly where its aspirations lay.

The performances were a real mixed bag. Only Oliver White (Mercury) and Ian Caddy (Jupiter)  were equally at home with the singing, the acting, and the extensive dialogue. Jeni Bern sang Eurydice with sweetness and wit and very proper English, but turned into an Essex princess of toecurling charmlessness in the spoken sections. Daniel Broad (Pluto) and Nicola Stonehouse (Diana) also turned in decent vocal performances, but there were disappointments elsewhere. Some of the cast were nearly inaudible - though in a couple of cases that may have been a blessing. 

The closing Galop Infernale (aka can-can) was the most succesful part of the evening, a rattling display of skills from the dancers and the game orchestra (by now sporting devilish horns on their heads). A party in hell indeed.

Wagner kinder to sopranos than Mozart

A new study published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America demonstrates that Wagner combined text and music for sopranos in a way that makes the singer's job easier and aids clarity for the listener.

When singing 'closed' vowel sounds at high pitches, sopranos will often substitute a more open vowel. This makes the note easier to sing and improves volume and tone. But of course it also makes the text less intelligible. 

But if the composer reduces the number of closed vowels, by using texts which have a greater proportion of open vowel sounds on those tricky high notes, then the soprano doesn't have to 'cheat' by changing the vowel.

The researchers looked at Wagner's writing for Brünnhilde and Isolde, comparing it with Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, Rossini's Barbiere di Siviglia and Mozart's Così fan Tutte and Don Giovanni - though they sternly warn that "The data presented in the figures do not include the war-whoops of Brünnhilde in Die Walküre because, although her repeated cries of “Hojotoho Heiaha” occur at high pitch, they convey negligible textual information". Of course.

They found that in the Wagner operas, open vowels were used significantly more often for the very high notes, indicating that, consciously or not, Wagner made life easier for his sopranos. 

the Cheese has landed on the Macaroni

 

There were tears all round when Simon Keenlyside pulled out of the Royal Opera House's forthcoming Il barbiere di Siviglia. But on the showing of today's dress rehearsal, I don't think many will be disappointed by his replacement, Pietro Spagnoli.

His Figaro is a broad-brush portrayal, in keeping with Leiser and Caurier's cartoony production. Spagnoli is a generous performer with a big voice and great comic timing.  He's a less than central presence most of the time, but who wouldn't be when sharing the stage with Joyce DiDonato, Juan Diego Flórez, Alessandro Corbelli and the great Ferruccio Furlanetto (an alarmingly creepy Don Basilio)? All on top form I should add.

JDF especially. His singing has a range of colour and expression I haven't heard from him before - if he can manage another Cessa di più resistere like today's, he won't be allowed home without an encore. And he has blossomed into a fine comic actor, at last playing to his colleagues instead of the audience. He didn't put a foot wrong. His drunken soldier and upright singing teacher were beautifully detailed.

Detail was a hallmark of the production this time round. Leiser and Caurier have clearly thought and rehearsed every move through. Comedy needs serious preparation. I seem to recall a few longueurs and some over-the-top caricaturing when this production first appeared. All gone. It is simply funnier than it has any right to be.

Pappano, playing the harpsichord continuo as well as conducting, is completely on their wavelength - light, nuanced, alert. 

Even better than La traviata. Yes, really.

 

the joy of Beethoven

Amazon reviewers comment on various recordings of Beethoven's 9th.....

Teh Furtwängler:

• I first encountered this recording in the Franklin Mint set of the 100 greatest recordings of all time, and I was ecstatic when I saw that it was available on CD.

• This is a historic phenomenon. As you know, the orchestra is Bayreuth, which the orchestra of the famous opera house of R. Wagner. But this building was alomost collapsed in 1940's, because of Nazis!!...

• Beethoven would not approve thsi recording, perhaps the performance.

• Soloists are fine; look at the booklet and you will see the font size of the name of the soprano is a bit greater than the rest of the soloist.

• The reason I put 4 instead of 5 is that there must be a better way of performace. I dont know if this has been achieved or not.

• People drop things during the recording. Sometimes the brass is out of tune. I don't recommend this as a study CD.

• For me this version is way too slow. I blame it on Wagner.

Teh Karajan:

• Beethoven recordings are like Lays potato chips. Who can possible settle for only one?

• The timpani generally sound like dead pots.

• The soloists are indeed powerful and joyous and amazingly skilled and just unbelievably competent... but the timpani do indeed sound like tin pots. Karma, I suppose.

• Beethoven's quintessential masterpiece is performed with a rare and noble magnificents befitting The world's greatest composer.

• Forget about this pop music and this rap, this music stimulates the mind and sole.

• For all I know, old HvK may well have been a Nazi, but it certainly does not affect my opinion of his conducting, just like such things don't stop people from buying Mercedes-Benzes or Volkswagens.

Teh Solti:

• If you want to feel like a newborn wonder child, free of all jadedness in taste, buy this version NOW. And this comes from a manager of a string quintet which stresses modern classical.

• Perhaps the next lunar mission will be accompanied by this CD, to emphasize the magnitude of the accomplishment.

• The French invasions of Napoleon was taking place and Beethoven thought that there was no better time to call for a brotherhood of man.

• The scherzo was at one time used for the opening music to the NBC Evening news.

• When I checked a copy of this CD out of my library and gave it some quality time in my Mirage speakers, I knew that Georg Solti was my new favorite conductor.

• I won't bore you with my opinions on the various aspects of the performances.

• Not everyone will like the earsplitting timpani thwacks that begin the Scherzo, but others will be thrilled.

• Soprano Jessye Norman's wings always lift her to the rafters of even the most imposing concert hall.

• The whole is quite slacking indeed, as if the musicians are reluctant to perform.

• There should be many Beethovens in people's mind, and you may also like Solti's Beethoven.

Tosca time for the Cheeky Girls - Nelly and Ange return to Covent Garden

It's official - as confirmed by reader KM, below.

Opera's own answer to the Cheeky Girls, Romanians Angela Gheorghiu and Nelly Miricioiu replace Deborah Voigt in the Royal Opera House's forthcoming Tosca.

Angela takes 9, 14 and 16 July, and Nelly 11 and 18 July.

Ms. Voigt withdrew "due to an attack of acute colitis".

an education lesson

 

Philip Kennicott explains just where most opera companies are going wrong with their education programmes in July's Opera News - and what they could learn from comic book fan culture.

American opera companies I should point out are generally much more tuned in to audience requirements than British ones. Many have at least taken the first step of including synopses and other background information on their websites. But Kennicott recognises they need to do more:

"The who, what, where, when and why of opera, which is often the meat and potatoes of educational efforts, is all well and good. But the question "How good is it?" is far more compelling. And an audience driven to answer that question will learn all the rest of what it needs to know along the way, without even being aware of it as education."

Required reading for opera administrators everywhere.

La boheme in Holland Park

La bohème - Opera Holland Park, 27 June 2009

Torrential summer rain sprayed through gaps in the canvas roof as the second half began, but I barely noticed. This is not a flawless Bohème, but musically and dramatically it's one of the strongest productions OHP have come up with.

Like Jonathan Miller's recent ENO production, the action is updated to the gritty milieu of Brassaï's Paris. But unlike Miller, Elaine Kidd has imbued these characters with life and vigour. The colour scheme may be drab - the action is anything but.

She's not great with the crowd scenes - the blocking doesn't highlight the key characters nearly enough. And I think it was a mistake to make the stage so narrow and shallow - it spreads out the action too much.  But the fewer people on stage, the more their beautifully detailed interactions tell. Bohème is after all about relationships, and this production gives a stronger emphasis than usual to Marcello and Musetta, to Rodolfo and Marcello, to Colline and Schaunard. Instead of a simple romance played out against a backdrop of secondary ties, there's a real sense of interwoven lives. Purists may carp, but with Rodolfo and Mimi less central than usual, the story doesn't sag in between their scenes.

And there are some wonderful performances. Aldo Di Toro sang Rodolfo gorgeously, just occasionally dipping beneath the orchestra. Mimi's vulnerability can grate if overplayed, but Linda Richardson made her a more modern, self-sufficient character - I shared Rodolfo's surprise when she finally slipped away.

Marcello seems just as prominent as Rodolfo in this telling, with his vast smeary école de l'art menstruel canvases dominating the stage in the apartment scenes. Grant Doyle sang strongly and energetically enough to handle Hye-Youn Lee's endearingly feisty Musetta.

Robert Dean set a cracking Tour de France pace for the orchestra. Tender romantic moments suffered, and so did the pathos of the final scene, but the rest crackled with energy.

The rain brought out a plague of frogs on Holland Walk afterwards. Here's one of the little fellers:

Pen pushing in Petersburg

For a few brief weeks of summer, the sun doesn't set on St Petersburg. (So that's why Gergiev looks so shagged out....)

These 'White Nights' have given their name to a two-month music festival founded by Gergiev, which according to the Mariinsky's website "is one of the capital cities on the world´s music and theatre map and has emerged to be one of the most popular and grandiose music forums in terms of content and scale." Rite.

One of the highlights is a run out for the Mariinsky Opera's Ring cycle before they bring it to Covent Garden at the end of the month.

And last Friday, there was a gala concert featuring Gergiev, the ubiquitous Lang Lang, and two amazingly talented young Mariinsky singers who visited the Barbican last winter, Kristina Kapustinskaya and Alexei Markov. They both won young singers prizes sponsored by posh pen makers Montblanc, who brought over glamorous Eva Green (back to her natural auburn) for some belle et bête photo ops with Gergiev and others.

 

Comprehensive slide shows below, including bizarre pre-concert dinner with ballerinas pirouetting between the tables:

White Nights Festival Reception and Gala Dinner(June 25, 2009 in St. Petersburg)

White Nights Festival - Gala Concert (June 26, 2009 in St. Petersburg)

 

White Nights Festival Award Ceremony And Montblanc Press Conference (June 26, 2009 in St. Petersburg)

Un ballo in maschera at the Royal Opera House

Un ballo in maschera - Royal Opera House, 26 June 2009 (first night)

Although there's not much actively wrong with this show, very little of it really hit the nail either. It made for an unusually yawny evening by Covent Garden standards. I even toyed with the idea of walking out after the first act. Then I remembered how much I'd paid for the ticket.

Most of the problem is Mario Martone's production itself, starting with Sergio Tramonti's sets. They look like entries in a theatrical design contest. Attractive enough, but it's as if each was designed by a different person. The story doesn't have chance to get going and flow smoothly.

And although we're supposed to be in civil-war era Boston, the sense of time and place isn't clearly communicated. A room in Riccardo's house is bare, and as literally interpreted as the olde historical costumery. But it's followed by stacked scaffolding representing Ulrica's house which could have come straight out of a dodgy continental Ring cycle (not helped by Elena Manistina's timid Ulrica) . And why is the gallows scene set in what looks like a bombed-out church? Where are we supposed to be? If Martone's making a statement, it's not in a language I understand.

The direction doesn't offer many clues either. It looks as if all of the cast are just doing their own thing. Ramón Vargas comes out of it best. Riccardo is a great role for him. It capitalises his strengths - that firm, ringing tone, his innate likeability - but his weak point, dramatic rigidity, comes across here as elevated nobility. Some of his top notes were a bit thin, but otherwise he had a great night.

The audience favourite though was Anna Christy's puckish Oscar. After a nervous start, she ripped through the coloratura with ease, and impressively trod the line between irritating the rest of the cast and irritating the audience.

Angela Marambio's Amelia was more problematic. She had the ideas, but not the execution. Her phrasing was intelligent and her colouring appropriate, but they couldn't hide some unpleasantly screechy noises and a vibrato bordering on wobble. Perhaps she'll improve as the run continues, but I wouldn't count on it.

Changhan Lim in the small role of the sailor Silvano was surprisingly more impressive - strong, firm singing and a confident stage presence.

Good job I didn't leave early - the best bit of this production is the final scene. The mirrored back wall is raised and angled to reflect a second pit upstage, where the 'offstage' band play for the ball. It's almost too ingenious and fascinating - I barely noticed Renato stabbing Riccardo to death. Time to applaud the scenery?

 

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