La Forza Del Destino, Royal Opera House, London
Destined to repeat the past
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Your support makes all the difference.After the Kirov's lamentable Aida last Friday, things improved markedly on Saturday for La forza del destino, the one opera Verdi actually did write for Russia. At least the Kirov here managed to field a cast of principals and a conductor, the Milanese-born Gianandrea Noseda, with some real understanding and experience of the Italian style.
Nikolai Putilin may be about 40 years too old to play the young student, but his Don Carlo is powerful and well-schooled, if slightly dry of tone; by contrast, the lachrymose Gegam Grigorian is a good old-fashioned beer-belly of a tenor, with an unashamed love of "can belto".
Irina Gordei, as Leonora, has a rich, lustrous voice, even if it doesn't always do all that she wants it to, sometimes leaving her pianissimi stranded in alt; but she is a passionate performer, and looks very good in trousers. Ekaterina Semenchuk, who was one of the more promising finalists in this year's Cardiff Singer of the World competition, makes much more than the traditional vamp out of Preziosilla, and almost succeeds in carrying off the warmongering Rataplan chorus (the one false note in all Verdi).
Again, one has to question Gergiev's retrogressive taste in productions. Like Aida, the Kirov's Forza is another museum-piece, unobtrusively directed by Elijah Moshinsky against faithful recreations of Andreas Roller's original 1862 sets. They're romantically attractive, it's true, with their almost permanently moonlit skies, but cumbersome and time-consuming to change over, resulting in a running-time of almost four hours.
More importantly, the Kirov also uses the original 1862 version of Verdi's score, rejecting the major revisions he made seven years later. So, in place of the familiar overture, there's a shorter, pot-pourri-style prelude (same themes, more perfunctorily treated). In Act III, the Schilleresque camp scenes, which usually bring the curtain down, are here sandwiched, more dramatically, between Don Carlo's deceitful discovery of the wounded Alvaro's true identity and the two former friends' falling-out; Alvaro gets an extra aria and cabaletta to sing as he staggers back from the duel, convinced that he's killed Carlo.
It is in the opera's finale, though, that we get the most radical reversal: instead of the familiar 1869 curtain, with the dying Leonora, repentant Alvaro and all-forgiving Father Superior united in a consoling trio of divine redemption, the 1862 version ends instead in a storm of blasphemy, as the demented Alvaro rushes to the top of a cliff, curses mankind and hurls himself into the abyss, as monks intone a Miserere. It certainly suits these melodramatic sets, but doesn't offer the sense of closure, of music as a healing art, afforded by Verdi's second thoughts.
The Kirov season continues: 'Otello' tonight, 'Requiem' Thursday, 'Don Carlos' Friday, Saturday, 020-7304 4000
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