Jonathan Miller’s production of Rigoletto for English National Opera is now over 40 years old – and this is its 14th revival – but it’s still a classic. Miller’s note in the programme from the first run in 1982 makes for interesting reading in that he defends recasting the work in the ‘anachronism’ (as he indicates critics then condemned it) of a New York mafia setting in the 1950s. It’s testament to the work of exponents such as Miller in the intervening decades that modernising the theatrical canon and doing something other than the composer’s supposed original intentions doesn’t usually need an apology to opera goers today, at least not when directors don’t set out to provoke or shock, but introduce an imaginative new concept which runs parallel with the original scenario so seamlessly, as here.
This latest run (directed by Elaine Tyler-Hall, who has been overseeing its revivals since 2006) coincides with a brand new production of the same work by Welsh National Opera that is more quirky and mordant, and insinuates the drama’s tragedy more potently and graphically. But Miller’s reinterpretation is certainly still on-trend as like a theatrical equivalent of contemporary television or Netflix costume dramas and thrillers, with its exact evocation of a particular time and place. As such, it is also makes the drama less sensational, as well as having a little fun with its conventions (including the now-famous jukebox scene in which the ‘Duke’ finds the machine in Sparafucile’s bar jammed and so sings ‘La donna e mobile’ himself (here rendered ‘Women abandon us’) as though a handed-down set piece) so that it is overall more believable perhaps.
At least, that proves to be the case here with the central father-daughter relationship between Rigoletto and Gilda. Weston Hurt manages to sound both hollow as the troubled, dissatisfied mobster, and richly plangent in his mission to protect Gilda at all costs and avenge himself on the ‘Duke’. Robyn Allegra Parton (like Hurt, making a conspicuous ENO debut) is convincingly naive in timbre, while expressing herself with a pliant, wiry lustre which conveys her essential virtuousness, but she develops a strain of worldly understanding and determination by the time of the Act Three quartet. Yongzhao Yu is not so well cast as the womanising mafia boss (given the soubriquet the ‘Duke’ here). Although it’s good not to have the caricature of a carefree philanderer, here he seems merely louche at best – brutal cynicism and sheer selfishness are missing. He commands the soaring high notes of his vocal lines, but lower down his English enunciation is somewhat garbled and so doesn’t quite issue with the sort of swaggering confidence that the role really needs.
William Thomas is a suitably laconic Sparafucile, his unobtrusive efficiency as the hitman all the more unsettling in place of a more overt wickedness. Amy Holyland also seduces with a straightforward, but charming candour as Maddalena, who lures the Duke (as other victims) into Sparafucile’s clutches. David Kempster gives an urgent, striking account of the outraged Monterone, who curses Rigoletto.
If violence is lacking in the choreography on stage, an aura of implacable tragedy arises from the powerful, forceful reading of the score by Richard Farnes with the ENO Orchestra. There’s often a measured but emphatic purposefulness invested in the more driven passages, underpinned by some particularly prominent brass in the pit. But that’s contrasted with some delicate or nuanced sonorities elsewhere, such as the spooky tremolando strings which hover over Monterone’s jinx; or shadowy, doom-laden woodwind echoing Wagner (it’s striking that – although neither composer can have been aware of the fact – Verdi was writing this tragedy which turns upon a malediction at the same time that Wagner was sketching the scenario for the Ring and the music for Das Rheingold, which also revolves around the effects of a curse. Verdi’s opera was almost called La maledizione). The ENO Chorus make a resounding impact as the group of mafiosi who turn against Rigoletto and kidnap Gilda. In short, production and performance remain an engaging way into one of Verdi’s greatest masterpieces for newcomers and afficionados alike.
Further performances to 21 November
The post English National Opera – Rigoletto – with Weston Hurt, Yongzhao Yu & Robyn Allegra Parton; directed by Jonathan Miller; conducted by Richard Farnes appeared first on The Classical Source.
