by Giuseppe Verdi
Performed in Italian with English sub-titles
Directed by Nicholas Hytner
A Metropolitan Opera Production. Live in HD
December 11, 2010. Encore Broadcasts January 22, 2011 (12.30)
and February 14, 2011 (6 pm) at various Cineplex Entertainment cinemas

            Playing at almost five hours (with two intermissions), this Met production of Verdi’s five-act tragic romance is stunningly superb. Based on a sprawling work by Schiller, this opera was written in French for the Paris Opera, but Italian suits its passion and music better. Verdi tinkered with and reworked the libretto for almost twenty years. This Met version rewards him with a production that is shot through with various types of artistic genius, all coordinated and given a memorable gloss by director Nicholas Hytner, whose work here actually surpasses his over-praised Hamlet at Britain’s National Theatre where he serves as Artistic Director. Don Carlo has the typical Verdi dramatic and musical flourishes, only magnified and amplified five times to glorious effect, and Hytner ensures that his version is not simply filled with majestic tableaux but pulses with genuine emotion and a succession of glorious full-throated arias as it follows the tragic fate of Don Carlo, the noble but fragile prince who is destroyed by his own instability almost as much as he is by a concatenation of political, religious, and romantic conflicts.

            This opera is celebrated for five magnificent roles, all of which have weight and colour and proportion to make them all seem like major forces in a story where doom settles like a portentous, heavy dark cloud over the characters. There are, of course, the old king (Philip of Spain) and his young, defiant son. But there’s also Elisabeth, daughter of the French king, who is supposed to marry Don Carlo but who is suddenly claimed by Philip. This development becomes a reversal of Oedipal fortunes for Don Carlo, who sometimes resembles Hamlet, if only because he is caught in vicious court-intrigue and who finds that his beloved has become his step-mother. Rodrigo, the Marquis of Posa, functions as a sort of well-tempered Horatio to Don Carlo’s Hamlet, and he is far more complex than Shakespeare’s Horatio—especially as enacted by Britain’s Simon Keenlyside with a kind of craggy manliness that recalls Richard Burton’s charisma and dark radiance. But neither Schiller nor Verdi was re-writing Shakespeare, and in the Grand Inquisitor they gave us a chilling emblem of a massive corruption that affected not just individuals but an entire country by its rampant fanaticism.

            These five roles are well sung, of course, but this is to be expected from the principals. What is unexpected is their high, fine acting, the result, no doubt, of director Hytner who has inspired them to dive down to the very essences of their characters. Ferruccio Furlanetto’s Philip resounds with weighty implacability in public and pitiable miscalculation in private when he discovers to his deep disillusionment that he has never been loved by Elisabet. Roberto Algna’s prince doesn’t necessarily seem like a lamb among wolves, but he does plumb the young hero’s soul, relying on his supple tenor to counter Simon Keenlyside’s elegant baritone as Rodrigo. The beautiful Russian soprano Marina Poplavskaya is a square-jawed Elisabet, high in animal spirits, speaking or rather singing the truth as an icon of innocence. Eric Halfvarson’s old and blind Grand Inquisitor hobbles onto the scene in Act IV, and his is a massive performance of a vicious avenger swathed in red. There is also good vocal work from Anna Smirnova as Princess Eboli, lady of the court who is in love with Carlo, and from Alexei Tanovitsky as the mysterious Friar who appears at the tomb of Charles V.

            Conducted with finesse by Canadian-born Yannick Nezet-Seguin, who allows the singers a generous amount of latitude when it comes to finding their own pace and volume, this production is never laboured, never rushed. It unfolds with precise discipline and it never seems hollow or false. It would be easy to make such a huge libretto and its many tableaux seem marmoreal, but Hytner’s production has mass, scale, subtlety, and force that make it vigorously thrilling. Bob Crowley’s costumes evoke Velasquez but his splendid décor is spare yet effective, opening as it does with a wintry Fontainebleau (white trees and a zigzag pathway through snow) and moving on to a musty monastery and then an ornate gold cathedral for the elaborate auto-da-fe sequence. The biggest coup, however, is the use of a huge black wall with small cells of light that descends from time to time to cut off Carlo from the world beyond. Mark Henderson’s lighting complements the striking imagery from the décor, especially by its crisscrossing shafts of light at strategic moments.

            Filmed opera can be tricky, especially in close-ups where open throats can look grotesque, but not here. The camera work is excellent, and when some of the camera shots are kept low but pointed at the principals, the characters seem to grow in dimension and dramatic importance. Crowley’s dark brocaded fabrics look especially fine on screen, their textures gleaming with details. But, then, the technical richness of this production is balanced by the passionate conviction of the acting and the masterly phrasing of the voices. In short, this is a Don Carlo that should be treasured.

pic 1: Ferruccio Furlanetto as King Philip

pic 2: Marina Poplavskaya (Elisabet) and Roberto Alagna (Don Carlo)

pic 3: Simon Keenlyside (Rodrigo) and Ferruccio Furlanetto (King Philip)


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