By James Karas
The English
National Opera has revived Jonathan Miller’s production of Rigoletto at the London
Coliseum. This production premiered in 1982 and that may rate as Methuselahian
longevity in operatic production history but Franco Zeffirelli’s La
Boheme (1981) may claim priority. An attempt to replace it was quickly
shelved.
Miller imagined Rigoletto
as taking place in New York’s Little Italy during the 1950’s where the show was
run by the Mafia. The Duke of Mantua becomes a Mafia don and everyone is having
a grand time is a classy bar where Rigoletto is the caustic bartender. He lives
in a tenement with his daughter across the street from Ceprano (Andri Bjorn
Robertsson), the man whose beautiful wife (Joanne Appleby) the Don fancies and
whom Rigoletto ridicules.
Nicholas Pallesen and Sydney Mancasola in Rigoletto from ENO
Placing the
opera in a Mafioso setting was an inspired idea and there have been numerous
re-imagining since them. The latest Metropolitan Opera production set the opera
in a Las Vegas casino. In Miller’s Little Italy the men are dressed in
well-pressed suits, the women wear beautiful gowns and the atmosphere of power
and decadence under the control of an absolute boss works well.
Baritone
Nicholas Pallesen is young and impressive as Rigoletto. When he struts around
the stage begging the heartless Mafiosi for his daughter he is moving and when
he discovers the trick played on him at the end of the opera he is
heart-wrenching. A fine vocal and acting performance.
Sydney Mancasola
is an up and coming lyric soprano that gives a good accounting of herself as
Gilda. She has the same constraints as the others in singing in English but we
like her voice and believe that as Gilda she is nice girl but not too swift in
her love of the dissolute Mafia boss.
Tenor Joshua
Guerrero made his London debut with this production and he displayed the
swagger and devil-may-care attitude of the Don with gusto. He is a young singer
honing his skills and deserves kudos for his singing especially executing “La
donna è mobile” in a “strange” language.
The question of
whether opera should be sung in English rather than its language of composition
is not discussed as frequently now as it used to be. The arrival of surtitles has
made watching non-English opera much easier. Besides even opera sung in
English, relies or surtitles to be properly understood.
The production
is sung in English with surtitles because without them we will not understand
every word that is sung and not know exactly what is happening.
Joshua Guerrero
and Sydney Mancasola
What is the
effect of listening to a familiar work in English? It is mixed. The initial
issue is that we are simply used to hearing
Rigoletto performed in Italian. Many of the arias are very familiar with
the result that we know some of the lyrics by heart. But even if we get past
familiarity, there are issues.
The fundamental
issue is the difference between the structures of Italian and English. We need
the musicality of Italian and those open vowels that let the singers belt out
those notes and emotions with abandon. When sung in English it frequently
sounds like the singer is fighting impediments as if going through mud when he
needs a flat meadow. A simple phrase like “io l’amo” with that “a” and “o”
gives the singer scope for expression. Try singing “I love him” and you get
some mileage from the “o” and feel you have tripped over something when you try
to get anything out of “him.” Try singing “mia figlia” and then “my daughter”
and you get a further idea of the difficulty.
Nevertheless the
singers in this production soldiered on and we followed them despite the
obvious difficulties.
The ENO
Orchestra was conducted by Sir Richard Armstrong. Patrick Robertson and
Rosemary Vercoe were the designers.
If the
production has not aged, Jonathan Miller gives a good impression of being past
middle age. The 82-year old, leaning on a cane, came on stage with
Elaine-Tyler-Hall, the Revival Director, for a bow and was greeted with a
thunderous ovation. Well deserved.
______
Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi, directed by Jonathan Miller, opened on February 2
and will be performed nine times in repertory on various dates until February
28, 2017 at the London Coliseum, St. Martin’s Lane, London. www.eno.org
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