The Joker is Wild

RIGOLETTO

Birmingham Hippodrome, Wednesday 6^th November, 2019

 

Welsh National Opera is back in town and they’ve brought with them this revival of James Macdonald’s 2002 production.  Set in what looks like Nixon-era America, the production gives us the Duke as a womanising, presidential figure, complete with Oval Office – How prescient!  His courtiers are besuited, secret service types, and his jester, the title character, is a lounge-type entertainer in chequered blazer.  Rigoletto’s humour is cruel, of the roasting variety, and it soon lands him in trouble when the butt of his jokes pronounces his curse upon the comic.  The notion of being curse obsesses Rigoletto for the rest of the story – it’s how he views everything that happens from that point, while everyone else is going around enjoying themselves, playing ‘hilarious’ pranks, falling in love, and did I mention the womanising?

David Junghoon Kim is a magnificent Duke, sharp in his tuxedo with a tenor as clear as a bell.  Verdi gives him the best tunes, the most seductive melodic lines – it’s like the Duke’s superpower, or supervillain power, because we have to keep in mind, this chap is the bad guy here.  When he sings with Rigoletto’s daughter, this is not two people falling in love, although he later admits “her modesty almost drove me to virtue”.  He’s a fine one to talk, in that most famous, most jaunty aria, that women are fickle and not to be trusted.  Pot/kettle, mate.  It is this dim view of the ladies that lets him treat them so badly.

Mark S Doss, limping and shuffling around, is superbly plaintive and melodramatic.  It’s not the most enlightened approach to keep your daughter shut indoors but we sense that it comes from deep love for her and a desire to protect her from this environment that treats women as objects for male enjoyment.  Rigoletto’s impassioned plea and his final heart-wrenching grief are powerfully done.  Quite rightly, he gets the hump!

As the daughter, Haegee Lee is quite simply the best Gilda I’ve ever seen.  Innocent yet inquisitive, she has inherited her dad’s sense of the melodramatic, and there’s a naïve nobility in her self-sacrifice for a cad who doesn’t deserve it.  Lee almost steals the show, whether it’s duetting with Doss or Kim, or singing solo.  A towering performance from such a diminutive figure.

There is strong support as ever from the WNO chorus – including offstage when they give voice to the wind during the stormy climactic scene – and from Woytek Gierlach’s burly assassin Sparafucile, a powerful bass that seems to come from his boots, and from Emma Carrington as the assassin’s sister Maddalena, bringing a sleazy touch of humour to proceedings.

Alexander Joel’s baton elicits stirring emotion and a sense of foreboding from the orchestra.  It all comes to a head for a flawless third act of high drama and high emotion.  With a clarity of storytelling, superlative vocal and acting talent, and excellent production values, this is Verdi how he should be presented, a gripping emotional ride that thrills and exhilarates.

Bravo!

Bear with me: Mark S Doss as Rigoletto (Photo: Richard Hubert Smith)

 

Sing Like An Egyptian

AIDA

Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton, Monday 21st November, 2016

 

Producer and director Ellen Kent is renowned for the lavish spectacle of her productions, yet this new staging of Verdi’s grandest opera seems somewhat scaled down.  A versatile, almost Romanesque set serves as the backdrop for each scene, and from the overture, the presence of stone walls is prominent, foreshadowing the tragic fate of the lovers.  (Spoiler: they get walled into a tomb, buried alive!)

As the prisoner/slave Aida, Olga Perrier sparkles.  Many of this production’s highlights are her solo arias, just Perrier in a spotlight, emoting her head off.  Similarly, Liza Kadelnik shines as the scheming Princess Amneris, suitably evil and cruel, although in her scenes with Perrier, the acting seems more mannered and more like melodramatic, silent-movie posturing.  In fact, the whole production style seems like a throwback – the show feels more like a reconstruction than a new staging.

There is strong, authoritative singing from baritones Vadym Chernihovskyi as High Priest Ramfis, and Oleksandr Forkushak as the Egyptian King.  Iurie Gisca makes a powerful impression as Amonasro, Aida’s cross and vengeful dad, but for me,  the standout performance comes from handsome teno Giorgi Meladze as the heroic Radames.  Meladze’s singing is robust and stirring – and he has a nice pair of legs!

The cast is augmented by extras from Theatre Workshop Birmingham and elsewhere, and while the choral singing is rather good, the acting leaves something to be desired.  Some of them look fed up or at a loss.  Standard bearers trudge across the stage as if they’re on their way to the job centre rather than taking part in a triumphal parade.  I applaud the involvement of local groups and appreciate the pressures but there is a sense that this bunch are under-rehearsed.

That being said, this is still an evening of superb singing.  The leads are all magnificent and Verdi’s score, under the baton of Vasyl Vasylenko, is unassailable, rousing and glorious.

Fascinating Aida: Liza Kadelnik and Olga Perrier

Glitz and Clamour

NABUCCO

Birmingham Hippodrome, Thursday 19^th June, 2014

 

Verdi’s retelling of the story of Biblical king Nebuchadnezzar is given a pared-down treatment by WNO – in terms of staging; they don’t stint on the music. For the first act, the stage is bare and the company wear present-day clothes. It is as if we are watching the last run-through before the dress. This makes it difficult to differentiate between the Hebrews and the Babylonians but it does allow the score and the singing to hog the limelight. And such beautiful singing it is too, with a clutch of impressive soloists and a chorus that is nothing short of heavenly, Verdi’s music hits you like a wall of sound.

Kevin Short’s warm bass sets the ball rolling as high priest Zaccaria, and Robyn Lyn Evans’s plaintive tenor voice rounds out his Ismaele, despite him being dressed like a nerd, although at times he is a little drowned out in the ensemble singing. Baritone David Kempster’s Nabucco looks a bit like Bill Bailey as Gadaafi before his Lear-like descent into distraction and dishevelment while his evil daughter takes his throne. Kempster portrays Nabucco’s contrasting scenes excellently – there is top-drawer acting in this production to match the quality of the singing.

After the interval, Ben Baur’s set design really comes into play, with glitzy gold curtains and an illuminated dais that goes up and down as Nabucco proclaims his apotheosis. Director Rudolf Frey is more playful in this longer second half, but the evening belongs to soprano Mary Elizabeth Williams as the villainous Abigaille, who brings a good deal of humour to this melodramatic role.  One aria is delivered like a Las Vegas showgirl number, with men in balaclavas wielding ostrich feathers around Miss Williams in an unexpected moment of high camp.

Unsurprisingly the Hebrew slaves’ chorus, Va Pensiero, is the highlight – the number we’re all waiting for, and the superb WNO chorus do not disappoint.

It’s a Nabucco you warm to, as you grow accustomed to the staging and the outbreaks of hand-jive choreography (like directing traffic crossed with big-fish-little-fish push pineapple, shake the tree) – Personally I’d prefer a little more Cecil B DeMille and a little less TK Maxx.

Give ’em some unexpected razzle-dazzle. Mary Elizabeth Wiliams as Abigaille.