Verdi Opera Opens to Poor Reviews
AP 2004/10/18
London
Giuseppe Verdi's tragic opera "La Forza del Destino" arrived at Covent Garden clouded by controversy following conductor Riccardo Muti's abrupt withdrawal after a tiff over alterations in the scenery.
Covent Garden musical director Antonio Pappano had just four weeks to prepare to conduct, certainly not enough time in the estimation of two critics who roundly criticized the Royal Opera, which was staged based on the production at Milan's La Scala. A third, however, called the production a triumph over bad material.
"This is the kind of evening that gives Italian opera a bad name," wrote Andrew Clements in The Guardian newspaper. He complained of "dramatically implausible performers shouting at the tops of their voices while acting as if trying to get the attention of an audience somewhere in the next country."
In addition, he said, "the sets offer the kind of over-studied realism that is utterly unnatural; there are some stupendously ugly backcloths, many of them crudely ramming home the religious element of the tragedy."
Muti had sided with La Scala designer Hugo de Ana in refusing to accept changes to four pieces of heavy hanging scenery depicting a wall; the Royal Opera said the alterations were needed to meet safety standards.
The cast, which includes Salvatore Licitra, Violetta Urmana and Ambrogio Maestri, is unchanged from the La Scala production. But the Royal Opera House staging has used lighter and smaller versions of the hanging pieces in order to meet health and safety regulations.
The Italian theater said the London production couldn't carry the La Scala name because it wasn't "completely faithful" to the original.
Clements of The Guardian said Pappano "takes an up-and-at-'em approach to the score, perhaps judging that anything more subtle would be wasted on many in this cast," whose acting is "risible."
Urmana has a good sense of line and color, he said in his critique, "though her Leonara is dowdy and frumpish." Licitra, as Alvaro, "really should sing in tune more and try the occasional rudimentary bit of phrasing.
"Ambrogio Maestri, meanwhile, just bawls his way through the part of Carlo."
Writing in The Times, Robert Thicknesse said Muti's departure had sent the production "heading for the reefs."
"This is the slo-mo version of 'Forza.' It comes completely lacking in wit, as well as having no illumination, no intelligence, no theatre, plus a battle scene, a duel between two portly gents, feebly caricatured comic roles and a lowlife knees-up that is so hopelessly embarrassing it would stink out the meanest amateur performance," he wrote.
Licitra's Alvaro, Thicknesse said, was "wildly inconsistent, unstable, forced, bleating and devoid of art."
He liked Urmana's Leonora, which he said was "sung with a focus to grief to melt the marrow" and credited the chorus and orchestra with some fine work.
But overall, he said, this was "international opera at its most pointless."
Rupert Christiansen, writing in The Daily Telegraph, said the real problem is Verdi's creation: "The first 45 minutes are musically second-rate. The plot doesn't embody the force of destiny so much as implausible coincidence."
"Yet with this spectacular staging ... the Royal Opera has pulled the mess together," Christiansen added.
"Much of the credit must go to Antonio Pappano, who took over from Muti and proceeds to conduct the hell out of the score in a scorching reading of the Overture. There's all the brilliance which we expected from Muti, and rather more tenderness, too."
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