Luisa Miller review – a treat for the ears, if not the eyes

Chances to experience Verdi’s Luisa Miller have been few in London recently, and if you have been longing to hear it, then the Coliseum is the place to go. English National Opera’s cast is notably fine, the chorus and orchestra are on top form, and the performance that Alexander Joel conducts has urgency, breadth and bite, right from the start.

If you’ve been longing to see it, you might not be in such luck: Barbora Horáková’s busy yet stark production is harder to love. Andrew Lieberman’s white-walled set gets progressively messier as a liberal amount of black paint is smeared around. The chorus, who start off as sinister monochrome clowns, get progressively more “normal”; but the handful of dancers, looking like half-dressed 18th-century Voldemorts, remain distractingly restless. There’s almost no hint of the class aspect to this story of doomed love, and no way to feel even a shred of sympathy for Count Walther, whom we first see doing menacing things involving more black paint and a nearly naked boy delivered in a plastic sheet. More intriguing, if still fussy, is the presence of Luisa and Rodolfo’s child selves, reminding us of the innocence all on stage have lost. There’s humanity in Horáková’s direction, but her insights seem slapped on like all that paint.

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And yet all this is a frame for some outstanding singing, including several house debuts from some really big voices. David Junghoon Kim sings Rodolfo in a supercharged, ringing tenor. Olafur Sigurdarson is incisive as Luisa’s father, his tone appealingly direct even if it lacks shade; it’s generally a good night for hearing the English words of Martin Fitzpatrick’s translation. Better still is the US bass Soloman Howard, singing in a fabulously velvety bass and bringing a touch of ambiguity to horrible henchman Wurm: repulsive, yes, but also tall, handsome and ripped. James Creswell’s Count squares up to him vocally, and Christine Rice shines all too briefly as the duchess. Above all this, Elizabeth Llewellyn’s silvery, supple soprano brings out all Luisa’s goodness and pain, and if it doesn’t always dominate the stage, it soars where it counts.