Verdi 200 Birthday BBC Radio 3

Giuseppe Verdi's 200th birthday tonight.  Celebrations have already started.

On Monday (with five days still to listen) Don Carlo from Salzburg with Jonas Kaufmann and Anja Harteros. Although the performance took place only a few weeks ago, it is so good that it's already spoken of as being one of the classics. Read my review of the filmed broadcast.

More Kaufmann and Harteros  in Il trovatore from Munich, on Saturday. .Sacrilegious thought : how similar this plot is to Fidelio! But that only goes to show, yet again, that good ideas can transport freely.

Anna Netrebko on Thursday, in Verdi's  Giovanna d'Arco, also from Salzburg. This opera is one of my favourites because I like Joan of Arc (and have been doing a series on her various incarnations in music and film).  Read more about another performance of Giovanna d'Arco HERE.

Throughout this week, Verdi will fill BBC Radio 3's afternoon slot at 1400, and "Composer of the Week". Also various talks and studies, some more promising than others. The BBC has, in fact, been broadcasting Verdi all year as part of the Verdi 200 series. Nearly every opera and non-operatic work has been or will be broadcast online. The Proms were a bit of an anomaly but also not so surprising when you really think about it. Good Verdi needs to be done very well indeed, and costs money, and good Verdi stagings don't come cheap, and there's a lot more Verdi around than Wagner. Besides, I'm glad that the BBC Proms splashed out to the max with Wagner. It was much more fun than if they'd timidly spread themselves too thin.

Salzburg Don Carlo Kaufmann Hampson Harteros

Verdi Don Carlo live from Salzburg. Vocally, it's ace. With a cast like this, it couldn't be otherwise. Visually, it's  much better than you'd guess from some sections of the press. "Sumptuous emptiness"? Only in the eye of the beholder. Peter Stein's production focuses on the underlying drama, allowing the music and singing to tell the story. Stein is now nearly 80, but his background was  cutting-edge theatre, and he's musically aware. So there's no way this Don Carlo would be retro banality. Sure, the costumes are "historic" but the way they're used is part of the overall concept. Like the drama, the set is stark and unyielding, like the situation Don Carlo and Elisabetta are up against. The costumes serve as contrast, making the point that luxurious trappings conceal barbaric cruelty. Glory and power are nothing if they result in mindless killing. The sumptuous colours here are in the lighting. They are illusion, just as in the drama. Verdi's anti-clericalism is in some ways even more radical than Schiller's original text. Anyone who thinks Don Carlo is costume drama needs to pay attention. Tu che la vanità conoscesti del mondo e godi nell'avel il riposo profond

etc etc, as Verdi makes perfectly clear.

 Jonas Kaufmann and Anja Harteros sang  the leads as they did a few weeks ago at the Royal Opera House in London, (reviewed here) but the contrast between the Salzburg and London productions could hardly be greater. Nicholas Hytner's production decorated the stage with silly Legoland images, trivializing the opera. So grotesque was the auto-da-fé scene that one might assume Hytner thought being burned at the stake was fancy floorshow. Stein's staging emphasizes the fundamental conflict. Church and State are depicted in sinister darkness, the monks dehumanized and robotic. Those who are to be burned alive are seen in extreme light, skies and clouds behind them. On film (very well directed) you can see details like bloodstains which probably weren't visible on the wide stage at Salzburg.

 In the final confrontation in the tomb of Charles V, Stein again emphasizes the unyielding coldness of stone, formality and death. Hytner's tomb was comic book with the words "CARLO" on the side so you wouldn't miss them. Like the Commendatore in Don Giovanni, the Old King drags the Young Prince into the grave. Hytner's approach is embarrassing. Stein, instead, shows a sinister figure slowly emerge, embracing his grandson. It's altogether more subtle and complex. Kaufmann expresses a range of emotions and smiles as he dies. Stein knew what Charles V represented in the Counter-Reformation, and also what generational power struggles represent in Verdi. If you want intellectual and musically informed, go for Stein at Salzburg, any day.

Kaufmann sang even better at Salzburg than he did in London. "Fontainebleau! Foresta immensa e solitaria!" he sings, immediately showing what the freedom of the forest means to the cloistered Prince. He commands the stage with energy and authority: no wonder Elisabetta falls in love. She's dressed in a truly hideous costume which looks like an accident in the curtain section of a thrift shop. At first I groaned, but seeing her elegantly dressed in later scenes, I wondered if the designer was trying to say something?  Elisabetta's tragedy happened because her father placed politics above love. She and Don Carlo have lots in common.

Harteros was impressive because she is good and very experienced in the role. Kaufmann dominated this time for the most part, but Harteros truly came into her own as she showed how Elisabetta develops as a personality during the course of the opera. In her private confrontation with Phillip II, her voice shows how the young Queen is becoming a mature adult. In the final tomb scene, Harteros characterizes with such depth and power that you hardly dare breathe and lose the moment.  Harteros's majesty comes from the strength of her portrayal. As she finds resolution, youthful freshness returns to her voice. It's as if she's being reborn, purged by suffering.

Thomas Hampson's Rodrigo, Marchese di Posa, was outstanding for much the same reason. Hampson's Rodrigo is fully-fleshed in personality, the edges that are creeping into his voice used intelligently to enhance portrayal. Hampson's Rodrigo is a strong father figure, a counterbalance to Philip II, even perhaps a ghost of Charles V. This is a characterization to be reckoned with, immensely enhancing the meaning of the opera.

Ekaterina Semenchuk's Princess Eboli also extended the role from relative sideline. In real life, as far as we know, the princess was ugly and blind, so the plot is rather cruel. Semenchuk, however, is beautiful in a fulsome way, and as elegant as the Queen, but the warmth in Semenchuks's timbre adds an interesting twist. She creates Eboli as a sympathetic person, driven to extremes by the frustrations of her place at court. She's a parallel Elisabeth, just as Hampson is a parallel Philip II. Singing of this exceptional quality brings out levels of exceptional interpretation. At Salzburg the singers were admirably supported by Antonio Pappano's impassioned, vivid conducting, inspiring the Wiener Philharmoniker to the high standards they should always aspire to. Like Stein's staging, Pappano's approach highlights the inner tension in the drama, with its interplay of luxurious excess and ascetic self-denial.

In real life, Philip II wasn't the villain he's depicted as in English history books. Like Charles V, who retired to a monastery and gave up ruling the world, Philip II wasn't fooled by the trappings of power. In his own way, curiously, he was a man of the counter-Reformation though he was too devout to lose faith. He chose a kind of "inner exile", letting the Church have its way for political reasons. In London, Ferrucio Furlanetto was outstanding. In Salzburg, Matti Salminen was less effective, though adequate.  He's only four years older than Furlanetto, but his voice isn't what it was in his glory days.  But then, neither  was Philip II. HERE is a link to the broadcast.and HERE is a link to my review of Stefan Herheim's perceptive Wagner Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg.

Salzburg Don Carlo - working link

Salzburg's Verdi Don Carlo will be broadcast live on Medici TV at 4.30 European time (3.30 BST) FRIDAY 16th.  I hope the link will work !You might have to pay to view but that's fair enough. It's fundamentally anti-art to expect everything free or cheap. With a cast like this only a boor would quibble:

Matti Salminen (Flilppo II) Jonas Kaufmann (Don Carlo) Anja Harteros (Elisabetta di Valois) Thomas Hampson (Rodrigo, Marchese di Posa) Ekaterina Semenchuk (La Principessa Eboli) Eric Halfvarson (Il Grande Inquisitore) Robert Lloyd (Un frate) Maria Celeng (Tebaldo) Sen Guo (Una voce dal cielo) Benjamin Bernheim (Il Conte di Lerma/Un Araldo reale) Members of the Young Singers Project (Sei deputati fiamminghi) Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus Wiener Philharmoniker. Antonio Pappano conducts

Verdi Don Carlo Royal Opera House London

Is it possible to upstage Jonas Kaufmann? Kaufmann was brilliant in this Verdi Don Carlo at the Royal Opera House, London, but the rest of the cast was so good that he was but first among equals. Don Carlo is a vehicle for stars, but this time the stars were everyone on stage and in the pit. Even the solo arias, glorious as they are, grow organically out of perfect ensemble. This was a performance that brought out the true beauty of Verdi's music.

Act One started a little tentatively. Perhaps it takes time for the drama to unfold and Kaufmann knew how much was yet to come. His pacing was deft: when he needed to stun, his voice rang out with ferocious colour. This was a Don Carlo one could imagine defying the Spanish Empire, its violence and tyranny. His vocal authority was matched by physical energy. Kaufmann embodies the part perfectly. His interactions were outstanding. His voice balances well with Anja Harteros (Elisabetta) and Mariusz Kwiecień (Rodrigo), and he allowed the duets and trios to work seamlessly. No big name ego dominance.
 
Verdi  prepares us from the start for the turbulence that will meet Elizabeth of Valois. Even before she leaves home, Elisabetta experiences extreme changes of mood within a compressed period of time. Anja Harteros delineates these intense feelings deftly, without exaggeration, so they arise naturally from her singing.  When she bids goodbye to the Countess of Aremberg (Elizabeth Woods), Harteros sings as though she were bidding farewell to life itself.  Indeed she is, for Elisabetta is now alone, trapped in an alien world. Harteros creates Elisabetta with such conviction that she dominates the drama even when she is silent. Her presence is felt even when others are singing about her. When Harteros sings "Tu che le vanità", we feel that Elisabetta has reached valediction, after a long and tortured journey. She sings of Fontainebleau and her brief day of happiness so tenderly that the agony of "Addio, addio, bei sogni d' or, illusion perduta!" becomes truly overwhelming. Harteros and Kaufmann have taken these roles before together. Here, in London, they achieved transcendence.

Ferruccio Furlanetto was equally outstanding as Philip II. His years of experience in the part give him authority. Verdi writes the part to reflect the personal austerity for which the historical Philip II was known. A solo cello introduces his big aria "Ella giammai m'amò", emphasizing the King's loneliness., despite the trappings of wealth and power around him. Later, violas and basses extend the mood of melancholy. Furlanetto sings with force, but with colour and tenderness. Because he makes us feel the man beneath the public persona, we realize that the tragedy involves Philip as well as his wife and son. Furlanetto makes us realize that the king is just as much trapped by the system as they are. "Beware the Grand Inqusitor!" he cries, for the Grand Inquisitor is perhaps the only truly evil character in this opera.

Verdi introduces the Grand Inquisitor with music that exudes menace. Slow, low rumbling sounds, suggesting a snake slithering, oozing poisonous slime. Eric Halfvarson was indisposed with a cold, but this didn't affect his singing. The Grand Inquisitor is supposed to sound diseased.  "Did God not give his only Son to save the world ?". Theology is twisted for evil purposes.

Mariusz Kwiecień  was a clean voiced, muscular Rodrigo, and a perfect complement to Kaufmann's Don Carlo. The dynamic between them is very good: they're both relatively youthful and fresh. This similarity is important, for it reinforces the tragedy, and the theme of sacrifice. When  Kwiecień sings Rodrigo's last aria, "Per me giunto è il di supreme", he infuses it with warmth and love, so it connects with Elisabetta's farewell to life.

One of Béatrice Uria-Monzon's signature roles is Carmen, so when she sang the Pricess of Eboli, she brought a Carmen-like sharpness to the role, which was entirely in order. Her Veil Song was a showpiece, but the song is a mask, since the princess's true feelings are also hidden behind a veil. When she realizes her mistakes, her personality disintegrates. When  Uria-Monzon sings of the convent, she suggests the horror of living death.

Dusica Bijelic sang a sprightly Tebaldo. Even the Flemish Deputies made an impact greater than the size of their parts: extremely tight ensemble, yet individually characterized. Robert Lloyd sang the apparition of Carlo V credibly. The Royal Opera House Orchestra and chorus, always excellent, were on even better form than usual.  Verdi is Antomio Pappano's great strength. He's inspired towards a highly individual but vivid reading which emphasizes dramatic detail. He's also a singer's conductor, who lets voices breath, as we heard so admirably.

This would have been an almost perfect Verdi Don Carlo, but is lamentably let down by the production. Originally directed by Nicholas Hytner and revived this time by Paul Higgins, it was first seen at the Royal Opera House in 2008.  The designs (by Bob Crowley) feel outdated, serving little dramatic purpose. Huge expanses of space are filled with grids of holes. Perhaps these represent windows, walls or even the spying eyes that are ever present in tyrannical regimes. If the image had been developed well,  it might have enhanced the paranoia that runs through this opera. Instead, the image lies inert,  like a weak joke endlessly repeated.  In the scene where the ladies of the court listen to the Veil Song, there's a wall of red plastic cubes which look like they've descended from Legoland for no obvious reason. 
 
The greatest weakness of this Don Carlo was that the staging missed the deeper, more challenging levels of the opera.  The monastery of Yuste is depicted by the tomb of Charles V with the name "Carlos" engraved in huge letters so they can't possibly be missed.  Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, renounced his power and retreated into the monastery where he died ten years before the Revolt of the Netherlands.

Opera isn't history. But when a composer like Verdi adapts history for art, there is a reason. In this production, the political aspects of the story are downplayed. Even the asceticism of Charles V and Philip II is sacrificed to decorative imperative, although the words " addio, bei sogni d' or, illusion perduta!" pertain to more than Elisabetta. This is the kind of production that gives modern staging a bad reputation. Yet because it's comic book cute, it's probably popular. Staging is much more than decor. Like every other element in a production, it should contribute to meaning and drama, rather than distract. A cast of this exceptional quality deserved better.

A longer version of this review with full cast details will appear in Opera Today. 
 Photos : Catherine Ashmore, courtesy Royal Opera House