© Helen Murray
Some productions are tremendous on their first outing and never quite manage to recapture the same brilliance in subsequent revivals. Others discover that they need an initial outing before they find their feet, and the Royal Opera’s Rigoletto, from its Director of Opera Oliver Mears, would seem to fall into this latter category. It first appeared last September, but, aided by an outstanding cast, its first revival feels leaner and meaner in a great many ways. The good news is that once such productions hit their stride they tend to retain what they have achieved, meaning we have many good revivals to look forward to yet.
Based on Victor Hugo’s play Le roi s’amuse, Giuseppe Verdi’s 1851 opera does not possess the same moral dimension as the majority of operas. While many works see the innocent suffer and die, there is usually a sense in which virtue has triumphed if only by remaining defiant in the face of evil. In the case of Rigoletto, however, it is the most powerful, callous and self-centred character who walks away scot free while those around him suffer.
Set in the sixteenth century, the story revolves around the Duke of Mantua’s hedonistic lifestyle and womanising ways. In his employment is the jester and hunchback Rigoletto whose job it is to entertain everyone, especially the Duke. He goes about his task with a merciless zeal, so that the victims of his mockery become irate in the extreme. At the same time he is a loving father to his daughter Gilda, who he tries to keep entirely apart from his public life. When the courtiers do, however, learn of her existence, the problems created by this are compounded by the fact that Gilda has fallen in love with the Duke.
The latter’s infatuation with her is more temporary, but she has fallen so completely for him that when things come to a head she voluntarily puts herself in his place to ensure that she is killed instead of him. Thus Rigoletto, having conscripted the assassin Sparafucile to kill the Duke, is presented with a sack that he discovers contains his own daughter’s body.
When Mears’s new production first appeared it was all too easy to see it as a reaction against David McVicar’s previous version, which premiered in 2001 and enjoyed its final revival in 2017. This played up the Duke’s licentious ways by emphasising the hedonism, and it felt as if Mears, in an effort to put space between his creation and its predecessor, went to the opposite extreme. For example, the Duke sang ‘Questa o quella’ before a group of practically statuesque women, which may have illustrated the way in which he saw them as objects, but did not provide the type of swing that the music demands.
Luca Salsi (Rigoletto), Rosa Feola (Gilda), Rigoletto ROH 2022,
© Helen Murray
This time around, with Danielle Urbas as the revival director, it becomes easier to appreciate how a more understated approach works in its own right. This is attributable to many factors, but chief among them are the qualities of the cast. The performers last time around were undoubtedly good, but the current crop feature some exceptional voices and make their presence felt in a variety of ways. This is especially important because the setting for the action is quite unspecific, with Ilona Karas’s costumes covering both the sixteenth century and modern day, and the Duke owning Titian’s ‘Venus of Urbino’ and ‘The Rape of Europa’ but seemingly as a latter day art collector. The lack of a single clear context in which the action plays out can encourage emotions to be explored in the abstract, but there is so much knowing detail in the current performances that the characters’ feelings certainly do come across. In this way, they know how to work with Simon Lima Holdsworth’s set, which comes into its own as a result. Its central ‘rusted’ orange wall becomes a strong backdrop for the principals to perform against, and in turn we are able to focus on them, free from excessive distractions.
It does mean that in the second scene of Act I there is no clear moment when Rigoletto leaves the street, having lamented his life, and enters his house to become a ‘different person’, as instead Gilda rushes out to meet him. However, while this may blur the all important divide between the jester’s public and private life, the whole point is that he is ultimately unable to keep them separate. In fact, by reducing the three areas of the street, the courtyard and the house to just the first and last of these it simplifies things, and forces interesting choices to be made so that Gilda and the Duke ostensibly rendezvous in the open street, while Gilda sings ‘Caro nome che il mio cor’ in her bedroom rather than the courtyard. In this way, the scene is set up well to carry a more understated approach to Gilda’s kidnap at its end. Instead of half of the courtiers invading Rigoletto’s house, just two climb to Gilda’s bedroom and they chloroform her so that she is not seen struggling as they carry her away. This does not make what they do any more acceptable, but it does hand the scene a more restrained air.
Luca Salsi is outstanding in the title role. He has an extremely firm baritone that feels powerful at its very basic, and which he can lift even further for the most climactic moments to create something truly overwhelming. He also acts the part well so that he feels a different person in every way when he removes his jester’s make-up and hat and becomes just a normal, loving father. His performance benefits from not being hyperbolic so that, while he does have a hunchback, he does not stoop on crutches. In fact, when he sings ‘La rà, la rà, la rà, la rà’ as he laments losing his daughter, he is clearly not attention seeking because he does not initially realise anyone else is even present.
Francesco Demuro (Duke of Mantua), Rigoletto ROH 2022, © Helen Murray
Francesco Demuro is a tremendous Duke whose supple tenor is intriguing because his seemingly straight forward sound can then be asserted to meet any requirement of the role, with magnificent results. When he sings ‘Parmi veder le lagrima’ we are nearly fooled into thinking that something inside him has changed, which only makes it all the more shocking when we see him snap out of his remorse at the earliest opportunity.
As Gilda, Rosa Feola is possessed of a beautiful and feeling soprano, Evgeny Stavinsky is a suitably menacing and dark voiced Sparafucile, while Aigul Akhmetshina really shows how being complicit in so many murders has taken its toll by making Maddalena a depressed alcoholic. Kseniia Nikolaieva and Phillip Rhodes provide excellent support as Giovanna and Monterone respectively, while Germán E. Alcántara, Blaise Malaba and Egor Zhuravskii delineate the characters of Marullo, Ceprano and Borsa far better than in many other productions. Stefano Montanari’s conducting is highly persuasive as he captures both the beauty and danger that are inherent in the score, while never sacrificing precision or an ounce of musical detail. This production with its September 2021 cast and conductor will be broadcast to selected cinemas around the world on 10 March, with some venues also showing encore screenings on subsequent days.
By Sam Smith
Rigoletto | 21 February - 12 March 2022 | Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Photos: © Helen Murray
the 10 of March, 2022 | Print
Comments