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‘Nothing much happens but much smoulders’: Martina Belli (Lola) and Aleksandrs Antonenko (Turiddu), left centre, in Cavalleria rusticana at the Royal Opera House.
‘Nothing much happens but much smoulders’: Martina Belli (Lola) and Aleksandrs Antonenko (Turiddu), left centre, in Cavalleria rusticana at the Royal Opera House. Photograph: Tristram Kenton
‘Nothing much happens but much smoulders’: Martina Belli (Lola) and Aleksandrs Antonenko (Turiddu), left centre, in Cavalleria rusticana at the Royal Opera House. Photograph: Tristram Kenton

Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci; Zazà; Bournemouth SO/ Karabits; Arensky Chamber Orchestra – review

This article is more than 8 years old

Royal Opera House; Barbican; Hospital Club, London; Lighthouse, Poole
The director of Royal Opera’s controversial Guillaume Tell wins cheers, mostly, for a revealing new Cav and Pag

Hot blood is the catalyst, tears the result in the popular double bill almost inseparably twinned as Cav and Pag. Gaudy and raw, cliched yet full of truth, Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana (Rustic Chivalry) and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci unblinkingly confront the underbelly of life. Watch these short operas and see the wreckage of love, destroyed by jealousy, guilt and crimes of passion, spill out messily before you. Or look away in horror. This kind of realistic Italian melodrama, written in that short gap at the end of the 19th century when Verdi’s career was nearly over and Puccini’s had yet to flower, can feel like tawdry pleasure. Primary colours, fat tunes, thin plots but – and a vital but – all given veracity by the human voice at its most expressive, urged on by the technique of tugging one note to another known as portamento. As Antonio Pappano, conducting a penetrating new staging at the Royal Opera House, has said, tackled seriously and with care, these works reveal their strength.

This proved the case. These verismo operas are not about kings or emperors but the poverty-stricken villagers of southern Italy, where you may imagine the statue of the madonna, carried aloft on the Easter Day procession, pointing a crooked finger at you if you sin. Damiano Michieletto, who caused outrage with his Guillaume Tell for the ROH in July, has surely won new fans with this intelligent updating. The Sicily in Cavalleria rusticana is a stark mix of peeling plaster, yellowing tiles, satellite dish and scraps of religious iconography. All takes place in the family-run Panificio, the bakery that provides staple food for all. In this opera, almost nothing happens but much smoulders. Cavalleria is the B-movie of the double bill (and cinema has borrowed its music, at the potent opening of Raging Bull and at the close of Godfather III). Mascagni paints in bold gestures; subtlety is not his bag. Turiddu – the Latvian tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko, whose high notes dazzle – is two-timing Santuzza, the watchable, generously impassioned Eva-Maria Westbroek. Everyone is at mass. Mamma Lucia (Elena Zilio) weeps for her son. His rival kills him. We know the end is nigh when a low drum thuds out its warning pulse and the cellos snarl dark barks of menace. The Royal Opera orchestra was on magnetic form for both operas, with Pappano holding all in tight rein yet letting the music breathe.

The ‘fiery’ Carmen Giannattasio (Nedda) in Pagliacci. Photograph: Tristram Kenton

Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci is the stronger work, ingeniously orchestrated, full of detail and with a degree of subtlety. Hardly having a chance to show his worth as Alfio in Cav, the Greek baritone Dimitri Platanias came into his own as the hideous, rapacious Tonio, with Antonenko expansive and pathetic as the maniacally jealous clown Canio. His famous aria Vesti la giubba – when he puts on his motley to act out his own destiny – had the right balance of chill and misery, helped by Michieletto’s clever staging, designed by Paolo Fantin and lit by Alessandro Carletti. Using a revolve, which had speeded round rather too often in Cavalleria rusticana but at least helped given an illusion of action, the setting is a drab 1960s school hall with the troupe of travelling actors crammed on to a ridiculously small stage – Antonenko’s head nearly went through the ceiling – while the villagers watch the fictional and real drama unfold. A bit of a muddle at times, when it was not clear whether the action was offstage or on, it shocks and enthrals at the climax.

The Italian soprano Carmen Giannattasio’s Nedda – the good-time girl cause of the trouble (to follow the cliche) – had fiery style and panache. Praise, too, for Benjamin Hulett and Martina Belli. The chorus excelled. The audience roared approval, for Damiano Michieletto and his team too. A miserable claque had come along, presumably to punish him for his extreme Rossini. For a few minutes boos and cheers warred in antiphonal outburst. The cheers had it. Yet there was nothing outrageous here. It was like catcalling Andy Murray for losing the last match and ignoring the one he’d just won.

‘Raw feelings’: Ermonela Jaho as Zazà at the Barbican. Photograph: Russell Duncan

Opera Rara and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, with smart timing, have resurrected a later work Leoncavallo himself preferred but which never caught on. Zazà (1900) occupies the social-realist world of Zola and Balzac: a low-born heroine destroyed by love supposedly above her station. Patchy and sprawling, with underdeveloped cameos, the four-act opera nevertheless has a strong central role and a volcanic finale, giving the Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho as Zazà the chance to erupt. The music hall singer of the title falls for Dufresne, who accepts her naive, unbridled love without having the guts to tell her he is married with a daughter. This standard verismo tale gains edge not from Zazà’s selfless refusal to take him from his family – he wouldn’t have come anyway – but from the boldness with which she confronts his cowardice. Jaho’s voice has some unevenness, especially in the lower range. Yet her ability to express raw feeling makes her a heart-wrenching performer: the best kind. By the end she looked so devastated you could believe she needed help to get home.

Riccardo Massi was smooth and urbanely restrained as Dufresne. As her old friend and ex-lover Cascart, Stephen Gaertner showed warmth and conflicted wisdom. Fflur Wyn, Nicky Spence and, in the mawkish spoken role of the daughter, Julia Ferri, made their mark among the populous cast. Maurizio Benini conducted with urgency, and the BBCSO blossomed in this unfamiliar musical territory. The need for singers to keep their heads in their scores and their eyes glued to the podium meant at times we had to strain to hear, but still this was an incendiary night. Opera Rara has recorded it for release next year.

‘Absolute best’: Kirill Karabits conducting the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in Poole last week. Photograph: Esme James

Those of us hooked on Sibelius will regret his 150th anniversary year is nearly over. It’s hard to resist an opportunity to hear his Symphony No 7, the boulder-like single movement work which was his last completed effort in the form. Two arose this week. The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, a consistently impressive ensemble in every section, whose talent needs proclaiming, gave a searing, gleaming account alive both with detail and grandeur. Kirill Karabits, as chief conductor, get the absolute best from his players. The programme included Grieg’s Piano Concerto, with a fast-rising Finnish star, Juho Pohjonen, as the delightfully unassuming but bewitching soloist.

Watch the Arensky’s trailer

In contrast to the full forces of the BSO, the agile young Arensky Chamber Orchestra, directed by William Kunhardt, played the Sibelius in a nimble chamber arrangement for 15 players. The venue was the Hospital Club, a private members club with a special line in encouraging inventive music-making. Led by Hannah Dawson, this close-up and personal delivery at once laid bare the components of Sibelius’s orchestration and made you feel as if you were at the centre of an Arctic gale with frost on your chin. The ice may have come from the pink glögi cocktail, a mixologist’s dream of chilled Finnish vodka and little else which we were all served. Naturally in the interests of duty I took a mouthful, but only one.

Star ratings (out of 5)
Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci ****
Zazà ***
Bournemouth SO/ Karabits *****
Arensky Chamber Orchestra ****

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