Frank Ferville
That is the third time I’ve seen this Krzysztof Warlikowski manufacturing. I noticed it first as Don Carlos, in 2017, starring Kaufmann, Yoncheva, Tézier and Garan?a, then once more as Don Carlo, in 2019, with Fabiano, Automobile, Dupuis and Rachvelishvili. However any likelihood to listen to Verdi’s rating within the French model, practically full (together with that magnificent ‘Lacrimosa’ ensemble after Posa’s sacrifice), is to be jumped at with virtually any forged. So I jumped.
I described the manufacturing in full, in addition to I may after one sitting, in my 2017 publish concerning the French model, and added a paragraph extra about it once more in 2019, after I heard it in Italian and, to my shock and for no matter purpose, discovered the efficiency dramatically extra passable. It was in all probability as a result of Fabio Luisi, not Philippe Jordan, was within the pit: ‘The result’s extra dramatic general, and theatrically extra coherent and convincing, making higher sense of Warlikowski’s characteristically considerate manufacturing.’
This 12 months, it appeared to me the manufacturing had matured, if such could be stated, into one thing totally sound and deeply satisfying: a real repertory manufacturing. When it’s performed full, all the private and political implications and problems with Don Carlos are specified by full, making the entire expertise (‘plot’ appears too unambitious a phrase) simpler to apprehend and deeper, richer, extra complicated in substance. And Warlikowski tells it pretty straightforwardly, although after all – as an clever, considerate director – together with his personal slants, insights and nuances. Anyway, simply observe the hyperlinks above to see, if you happen to haven’t already, how the present unfolds.
Frank Ferville
As for the rating, so far as I do know, this 12 months Simone Younger used the identical one as Jordan in 2017: what’s known as the ‘rehearsal’ rating, i.e. every little thing Verdi initially submitted to ‘La Grande Boutique’ earlier than any cuts had been made, besides the ballets. Performances thus begin at 6 pm (robust on individuals with common jobs) and also you’re out to dine shortly earlier than 11.
In sum, this was night throughout, musically and theatrically. Little question among the best of my present season. However nevertheless good a efficiency is, all of us have ideas and impressions going via our minds as we sit there. I’ll define a number of of mine, however they’re on no account meant to detract from the affect of the night general: we left the home unusually glad.
Simone Younger has, I see, numerous followers on-line, wishing she had been invited to conduct in Paris extra usually. A few of them would little question like her to get the music director job vacant since Dudamel stop Paris so out of the blue and unexpectedly. My solely expertise of her work prior to now, was in Salome in 2022, and my ideas final Wednesday night match these I set down three years in the past: her conducting ‘was detailed and respectful (…), however to me fairly plain and uninteresting and dutiful, by no means letting rip in torrents of both pleasure or horror, by no means stretching the orchestra to its limits – removed from it.’ She’s visibly attentive to her gamers and singers and is little question a protected pair of arms: the efficiency goes by with out undue incident. And there’s maybe some benefit in a constantly reasonable strategy, extra dutiful and diligent than dazzling, that avoids mannerisms, eccentricities, and yanking the rating about.
Frank Ferville
However the consequence brings us nothing new, no surprises, no intriguing insights, and little reduction. Moments of excessive drama, the place you anticipate to be moved, shocked or thrilled, lack… effectively, excessive drama. Every thing passes by on the identical temperature (‘oddly placid’ had been the phrases I used of that Salome). Which is why I point out Younger’s conducting first: I believe she may have goaded the singers on extra at key factors within the rating and egged them on in delivering extra dramatic oomph to those highlights.
The refrain was in peak type: that is the sort of work that finds them at their greatest. The supporting roles had been effectively stuffed too, contributing to the general sense of a night with unusually few weaknesses. As Thibault, Marine Chagnon, although agreeable, was solely partially audible. However Sava Vemic’s resonant monk, Manase Latu’s Comte de Lerme and the Héraut Royal of Hyun-Jong Roh all made their mark. Their French was understandable, too, making them the exceptions in a night of fuzzy articulation and unique pronunciation (not one of the principals was French) – to not point out occasional reminiscence lapses if you suspected what you had been listening to was merely gobbledegook or rhubarb-rhubarb, made up on the spot.
In 2017, when this manufacturing was new, the Polish baritone Andrzej Filonczyk was one of many Flemish deputies. Now he’s been promoted to Posa. His voice is youthful, wholesome and clear, agency as a laser beam, maybe a contact dry and missing in variation in shade. It is going to be fascinating to see how he develops with age and expertise. Sadly for him, many within the viewers should nonetheless have had reminiscences of Ludovic Tézier in thoughts: nevertheless odious comparability could also be, it’s onerous to keep away from. ‘Ah, je meurs, l’âme joyeuse’ was inevitably not the identical with Filonczyk and Castronovo as with Tézier and Kaufmann.
Alexander Tsymbalyuk, a Ukrainian bass, was new to me. There was one thing of the curate’s egg about his singing: some actually nice notes, particularly within the center vary, but generally an oddly fleshless, breathless sound. And although he’s labelled a bass, when he made his octave drop on ‘sire’, the underside simply fell out. I suppose that’s par for the course, although. At any price, his Inquisitor may have been loads blacker; there wasn’t sufficient distinction with Christian Van Horn’s Philip or sufficient flesh-creeping menace of their conflict, which must construct as much as one thing terrifying, however didn’t.
Van Horn is a singer I’d solely heard as soon as earlier than, as Narbal. I like his voice very a lot, a sort of butterscotch sound (work that one out!), clear but complicated and sonorous. I did surprise, although, whether or not Philip is mostly a logical function for him at this stage. Philip complains of previous age, of his white hair, however Van Horn, match and luxuriantly bearded, seems very very like King George V within the absolute pink, across the time of his coronation.
You wouldn’t be shocked if, ultimately, Elisabeth was fairly simply reconciled to her destiny. He made such a chic success of ‘Elle ne m’aime pas’, and I preferred his voice a lot typically that I hesitate to say it, nevertheless it’s one thing I appear to finish up writing in each publish, regardless of the opera and whoever the baritone, bass baritone or bass: his lowest notes had been weak. Maybe they need to all be despatched off to a particular college for particular programs to beef up their bottoms.
Frank Ferville
Ekaterina Gubanova is, in distinction, a singer I’ve seen so many instances, in so many guises – from Third Girl, Emilia and Suzuki, via Judith and Fricka, to Ortrud and, final 12 months, a powerfully-sung (i.e. not screeched and caterwauled) Herodias, having a ball – that I severely puzzled if there weren’t multiple mezzo with the identical identify. Hers isn’t an altogether typical Eboli: not a plummy, probably hammy monstre sacré, milking it for all it’s price, at any price.
Like Van Horn’s Philip, her Eboli is clearer than ordinary, and this readability, alongside along with her directness and precision, made the ‘Veil Tune’ much less tedious a set-piece than it might probably become. Oddly, within the third Act, she appeared much less confident and by some means fuzzier, and although, later nonetheless, ‘O don deadly’ was loudly applauded, it wasn’t the mezzo showpiece it often is, and didn’t have the viewers going wild and cheering to the rafters.
I’ve seen Charles Castronovo a number of instances, however lately he’d slipped off my radar. After I first noticed him, as Nemorino, getting on for 20 years in the past, I wrote he was ‘the revelation of this present,’ with a ‘rounder, darker’ voice than that of Juan Diego Flórez. Now, among the early reviewers of this run have claimed that Castronovo’s voice didn’t penetrate past the footlights into the Bastille. Maybe that was so on the premiere, when the critics had been invited, nevertheless it wasn’t the case on Wednesday, in any respect. Nonetheless, his voice, fairly than having apparent squillo, because it’s known as, is now fairly a ‘darkish’ tenor, à la Kaufmann (although much less highly effective), comfortable and smoky on the high.
As such, it isn’t effectively suited to the Bastille’s famously difficult acoustics. It might need been extra snug for Castronovo to take Carlos on at a much less demanding venue: whereas not the weak hyperlink some accounts have postulated, he appeared pushed to his restrict many of the night. Additionally, whereas Kaufmann broods and Fabiano seethes naturally, every in his completely different manner suiting Warlikowski’s imaginative and prescient of Carlos as tortured and suicidal, Castronovo is, even at 50, extra a little bit boy misplaced. There’s no manner he’s going to sprint off and save Flanders.
Disrupting the same old protocol, I actually needed to go away Marina Rebeka until final. I’d heard and skim loads about her however by no means seen her earlier than, one purpose I purchased tickets to see this manufacturing once more. As Elisabeth, she was merely sensational, vocally and dramatically. It was apparent from the very first notes: early on, my neighbor leaned to me and whispered, with audible satisfaction, ‘C’est une vraie voix.’ Her voice is gleaming and crystalline, with a robust flash of the dramatic soprano we don’t all the time get on this function, and a few metallic on the high. As such, an ideal soprano voice for the Bastille, hovering over the stage apron and pit into the huge auditorium in a manner Parisians witness solely too hardly ever. Her icily regal bearing fits the daughter of Henri II and Catherine de Medici, radiating a agency sense of her standing and the duties it includes.
She was clearly a notch above everybody else within the forged, even Van Horn, which is why I saved her until final. And I agree with an internet critic who wrote that if she will be able to simply give us one or two floated pianissimi, Caballé-style however with out overdoing it, she could be the Elisabeth of the current day. I hope I’ll have the great fortune of seeing her once more quickly, in Paris or elsewhere.
