Opernhaus Zürich (live streaming), 27/09/2020
Donizetti : Maria Stuarda
Philharmonia Zurich
Enrique Mazzola
Unlike yesterday's Boris Godunov, tonight's production is a revival of a spring 2018 show, and although I had not originally intended to watch, I was curious to see what the company would do with it, since there is a chorus here too, which would have been on stage. The answer was pretty straightforward; once again chorus and orchestra were set up in their rehearsal space, while masked extras substituted on stage, a fraction of the numbers, but sufficient for the purpose.
Not having seen the original production, I don't know how much (apart from the chorus) has been altered to try to preserve a reasonable degree of distancing. There were certainly one or two moments that looked a little peculiar that could well have been as a result of precautionary measures. Although the singers do sometimes come very close, there is a fairly clear effort to avoid having them sing directly into each other's faces. On the other hand, this is a David Alden production, one can expect some eccentricities. The massive felled horse on which Elizabeth's throne is set is just one of them. Cecil skulking around like Sparafucile from Rigoletto (and looking like him too), waving a dagger, is another. The setting is a stone hemicycle, like castle walls, sometimes with a large blue drape covering part of it, to indicate an interior.
Costume (again, like yesterday) is all over the place, a mix of 19th and 20th Century. The English crown - the actual jewel, I mean - features prominently, but it's the Imperial Crown, created in the mid-19th Century - Alden may have worried that his audience wouldn't recognise an earlier version of the St. Edward Crown as that of England. Donizetti's sympathies are pretty clearly with Mary Stuart, and Alden doubles down on that, with his Mary an elegant blonde in a golden-yellow satin dress, while Elizabeth is a whey-faced harridan in blacks and reds, with improbably magenta wigs sometimes in preposterous crimped bunches, sometimes poker-straight. It's an unflattering look, to say the least.
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| Diana Damrau and Salome Jicia Anna Bolena, Opernhaus Zürich (© Monika Rittershaus, 2020) |
The rival queens are Diana Damrau, reprising her Maria from the original staging, and Salome Jicia as Elisabetta. Although both are sopranos, it is Jicia, in this case, who has the darker timbre. In a production which is, in the end, somewhat sterile (and I say that without referring to present conditions), they successfully strike sparks off each other, and Damrau's imprecation at the end of Act 1 was splendidly venomous. That said, the last Maria Stuarda I saw was the McVicar production at the Met, with DiDonato and Van den Heever, and I preferred DiDonato's take on that moment, which came from outraged majesty rather than outraged femininity. Damrau is singing beautifully (and I'm not her greatest fan normally), the timbre transparently lovely, and her Maria is soft and vulnerable, more woman than queen. Jicia, on the other hand, comes across as cold and calculating, and even her jealousy doesn't quite seem real, but a ploy, which I think is pushing it a little too far, because Donizetti certainly sets her up for it. The doubts expressed at the start of Act 2, the reluctance to sign the decree of execution, because of the precedent it sets (and it was a terrible precedent indeed, at the time), although perfectly articulated musically, don't quite come across dramatically.
This impression may be influenced or enhanced by the ridiculous treatment of Cecil. It seems to be a terrible waste of André Courville, who sings very well but cannot be taken seriously in this operetta-villain guise. Cecil is not a villain, he is a strong and very rational political voice, one to whom ultimately Elizabeth pays heed, not this piratical thug Alden shows him as. That whole business of signing the order of execution in Cecil's blood was frankly ludicrous (though on a par with several other ghoulish touches). It may be part of Alden's general view of Mary/good versus Elizabeth/bad, for the two other male principals, who are both on Maria's side, are treated with more simplicity, if not with more outright sympathy.
Talbot's big scene with Maria in Act 2 was delivered with great tenderness, Damrau and Nicolas Testé (her husband, off-stage) very much in accord, and quite magnificent. Paolo Fanale was a little more problematic. Leicester is a terrible role, because it's impossible to listen to him and not want to smack him upside the head for sheer stupidity. Nevertheless, he has some lovely music to sing. Fanale has the voice for it, and the agility, as well as some very nice dynamic control, but there's a thin quality to his sound that wasn't very satisfactory., almost as if he was too light for the role. He's not, but it's not a comfortable sound, and makes the character seem immature.
Curiously, more than last night, there were quite a few slips between stage and orchestra. Of course, without being present in person (although I believe the stage was transmitted to the rehearsal room as well) there was not much Enrique Mazzola could do to rectify things immediately. Fortunately these were still rare enough not to perturb too greatly. Otherwise, chorus and orchestra were good, sensitive to mood and eloquent in the most lyrical passages.
The production, like many of Alden's productions, is an irritant, one or two really good ideas amongst a host of idiocies - the random skeletons, for example. However, musically, on the whole this is very good, and the adaptation for sanitary measures has been skilfully done, Zurich Opera deserves felicitations for its initiatives, and long may they continue.
[Next : 30th September]