'Placido Domingo is masterly' in I Due Foscari at the Royal Opera House

3 / 5 stars
I Due Foscari

EVEN the Spanish opera star, in a baritone role, can't help elevate Verdi's rarely performed but structurally flawed story of torture, mendacity and carnival in 15th century Venice; while Handel's Alcina combined sublime voices and and Vivienne Westwood costumes

opera, review, Verdi, I Due Foscari, Handel, Alcina, Clare ColvinI Due Foscari: Domingo’s portrayal is masterly[HERWIG PRAMMER]

The Venice of today’s romantic weekend break is a good five centuries away from that of I due Foscari. The curtain rises on designer Kevin Knight’s oppressive slab of a wall inset with cell windows and an overhead gantry from which tortured prisoners are suspended. We are in the Renaissance police state on the Adriatic that fascinated the 19th century Gothic imagination.  

Byron’s historical drama The Two Foscari inspired Verdi’s 1844 opera which centres on the conflict between duty to the state and paternal feeling. The ageing Doge Francesco Foscari has already lost four of his sons and now the surviving Jacopo is accused of treason by the Council of Ten.  Leading the accusers is the Doge’s old rival Loredan.

Despite pleas from Jacopo and Jacopo’s wife Lucrezia, Foscari refuses to intervene, saying that though he “wears the mask of the Doge a father’s heart beats within.” Small comfort to Francesco Meli’s Jacopo, as he emotes through the bars of a cage in mid-air. Maria Agresta’s fiery Lucrezia meanwhile attacks the evil Loredan (Maurizio Muraro) with every high note at her disposal.

Placido Domingo, at 73, has no plans for retiring because, as he said in a recent interview, “I can still sing.” He proves this again in the baritone role of Francesco Foscari, which follows his portrayal of another Doge, Simon Boccanegra.

The Doge of I Due Foscari is a markedly different character, though - old, ill and depressed, all the fight gone out of him. At the end, he is forced to relinquish his title, and there is nothing left but death.  

Domingo’s portrayal is masterly, and in the pit Antonio Pappano brings out the brass and dark-toned strings of the score, but this doesn’t hide the fact that Verdi’s rarely performed opera is structurally flawed.  

Director Thaddeus Strassberger’s eccentric staging attempts to animate the static plot with diversions, from prisoners getting their feet flambéd by torturers to a riotous carnival with flame-throwers and acrobats.  

At the end a person in a mauve cloak processes irrelevantly along the gantry, distracting us from Foscari dying below. The performance on October 27 will be relayed live worldwide as part of Royal Opera Live Cinema Season. BBC Radio 3 will broadcast I Due Foscari on November 3.

opera, review, Verdi, I Due Foscari, Handel, Alcina, Clare ColvinAlcina: The English Concert gathered together an impressive trio of mezzo-sopranos [PH]

I’ve always thought that Alcina, legendary as the enchantress who turned men into beasts, got a bad press but I suspect Handel had a sneaking sympathy for her. In his Alcina, she comes across as simply a woman who wears her heart on her sleeve. In Joyce DiDonato’s portrayal it’s a highly dramatic sleeve, courtesy of Vivienne Westwood.

The game is rather given away by the knight Ruggiero who, after dallying with the glamorous Alcina, is called to order by his fellow crusaders, and apologises to his wife Bradamante with a feeble, “Forgive me, a spell was cast on me!” Sounds like an everyday excuse for matrimonial straying.

The English Concert under director Harry Bicket gathered together an impressive trio of mezzo-sopranos, led by DiDonato in the title role. Alice Coote’s dark cello-like tones as the knight Ruggiero complemented Christine Rice’s lustrous Bradamante.  

Soprano Anna Christy’s crystalline Morgana, Anna Devin’s bright Oberto, tenor Ben Johnson’s lyrical Oronte, and Wojtek Gierlach’s resonant bass Melisso completed the sublime blend of voices.  

Verdi’s I due Foscari, Royal Opera House, London WC2 (Tickets: 020 7304 4000; £10-£235, roh.org.uk); Handel’s Alcina, The English Concert, Barbican Hall, London EC2 (One night only, barbican.org.uk)

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