Deutsche Oper, Berlin (live stream), 14/03/2021

 Zandonai : Francesca da Rimini

Chorus and Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin

Carlo Rizzi

Created in 1914, Francesca da Rimini is one of the finer examples of a kind of pre-Raphaelite genre in opera that became quite popular around the turn of the last century.  Settings were inspired by Antiquity or by the Renaissance, and both plots and music tended to be quite heavily inspired by Wagner's Tristan und Isolde.  I have to admit that I'm particularly fond of these, operas like Francesca, Respighi's La Fiamma, Eugen d'Albert's Die toten Augen, Korngold's Violanta, Giordano's La cena delle beffe, Schreker's Die Gezeichneten, Montemezzi's L'amore dei tre re, Pizzetti's Fedra and the ultimate masterpiece of the genre, Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande.  The rich orchestral colours, and the heady, sensual atmosphere they all share tend to be very attractive, but most of them don't get much of an outing on stage, although most have, fortunately, been recorded at least once.  

Deutsche Oper, Berlin, and director Christof Loy seem to have decided to explore some of this repertory; Loy has already staged Korngold's Das Wunder der Heliane, and plans to go on to do Schreker's Der Schatzgräber, and possibly (and I sincerely hope so) La Fiamma.  Heliane, which DOB made available for a short period online recently (and which has been released on DVD) was already an impressive show, but I think Loy has outdone it with this strong and expressive Francesca.  The setting has been removed from its original medieval period, but there is still a suggestion of old families, as the room setting has a late-19th C feel to it, and through the windows of the veranda at the rear, one can occasionally see a magnificent painted backdrop reproduction of a Claude Lorrain landscape, complete with picturesque ruin.  Dress is modern, but in Act 3, Francesca put on a sumptuous black brocade gown which, combined with her flower crown, and her strawberry-blonde hair, gave her a certain look of a Renaissance portrait, a Bronzino or such like.  

Sara Jakubiak (Francesca) and Jonathan Tetelman (Paolo)
Francesca da Rimini, Act 3
(© Monika Rittershaus, March 2021)

As usual, when a setting is updated, there tend to be discrepancies with the libretto; the nature of the conflict in Act 2 is unclear, crossbows as weapons is certainly odd.  On the whole, however, it didn't jar too much, and there were some other, very interesting touches.  Francesca's sister, Samaritana, was presented as seriously ill; she appears only in Act 1, and came on stage in a dressing gown and slippers, heavy shadows under the eyes and a wan complexion.  When Francesca and Biancofiore have a conversation about her in the last act, the implication is strong that she has died in the interim, and it's a further source of distraction for Francesca, as it is in the first act which aids in the deception her family plays on her regarding her prospective husband.  Gianciotto comes across more as an elderly man besotted with his young, beautiful, trophy wife.  Francesca herself channels her anger at the bait-and-switch act perpetrated on her by voluntarily provocative behaviour; her relations with Malatestino are extremely ambiguous, and her actions, in the first scene of Act 4, send out very mixed signals.  Malatestino himself, meant to be an adolescent, is clearly adult here, which makes his malice much more calculated than the wilful psychopathy of a boy disturbed by growing up in a constant state of war.  Loy's production is direct and legible, and remains engrossing from start to finish.

Musically, too, it was very strong.  There were a couple of issues due to performance circumstances.  There was no chorus on-stage, they were singing from a rehearsal room, and the sound was fed into the theatre.  This actually works well with this opera, as quite a lot of the choral work is intended to be off-stage in the first place, and Loy had plenty of extras running around so that there was no impression of a gaping vacancy in the staging.  On the other hand, the orchestra was extremely prominent in the audio mix.  Fortunately, they were well worth hearing; Rizzi delivered a vibrant, passionate reading of the score, with plenty of detailed playing and excellent expression of the leitmotifs of the work, but the plateau was tested to its limits, sometimes just barely audible, and this applied to all singers equally.  When they release the DVD of this production (which is definitely on the cards) I hope they're able to redress the balance a little.  

I wasn't, unfortunately, able to catch the full cast details.  Although the names of all singers are available, their assignation, apart from the top four, was kept to the end of the show, and I wasn't able to rewatch any part of the video feed afterwards.  So, special mention to the Biancofiore and the Minstrel and my apologies for not being able to name them.  Charles Workman was a strongly-voiced Malatestino, in a role that can often be given to reedier voices, while Ivan Inverardi was a suitably resonant, brutal Gianciotto.  Jonathan Tetelman had the looks for Paolo, and a clear, expressive tenor voice combining strength and lyricism in appropriate measure.  Finally, Sara Jakubiak's warm soprano and strong stage presence made for a sympathetic title role, confident and self-aware, not willing to be any sort of pawn, and assuming the consequences of her own actions.  This was an excellent performance all round, well worth seeing.  The only other production I have seen of this opera is the Metropolitan Opera's visually gorgeous Faggioni one, but musically this was far superior to the Met's latest outing.  The DVD will be a welcome addition to the catalogue.