(seen at the performance on 14th November 2024)
Another venture out of its comfort zone, into the world of classic opera. This time Verdi, Joe Green to his British chums. Act 3 contains 'La donna è mobile' (roughly translated in English as “who stole Donna’s bike?”), one of those tunes most of the audience is waiting for.
This production has been knocking around the ENO since 1982, a bit before James Fenton had had a crack at another Hugo inspired adaptation - “Les Misérables” translation for Boublil and Schonberg - and when director Jonathan Miller was at his height.
He transposes the action to Jazz Era Gangsterland USA, a swanky mob-run bar (lovely period design from Patrick Robertson and Rosemary Vercoe), “West Side Story” apartment exterior and a small local barroom on the waterfront for the final act.
As most operas of the time seem to be, the plot is of class warfare and mistaken identity glued together by forbidden love. This time, wise guy barman Rigoletto (Weston Hurt) goes a joke to far with Count Monterone (David Kempster).
Rigoletto’s daughter Gilda (Robyn Allegra Parton) gets kidnapped in revenge, dressed as a boy she is murdered by Sparafucile (William Thomas) in lieu of the real target the Duke (Yongzhao Yu). Rigoletto discovers this and realises that paying Sparafucile was a bad idea after all. Curtain on cursing the curse the Count cast in act one.
Did it grip the monkey as hard as its other opera outings? Honestly, not really. As usual, it cannot comment on the quality of voices as it does not have the experience.
What it did feel is that under Elaine Tyler-Hall this revival is a little static. It has noted in previous opinions, opera is “park and bark” – the complete opposite of musical theatre where actors animate as much as possible while singing. This time, comparing it to more modern revivals, it really did notice just how little movement there was.
Interestingly, it also noticed how Verdi used music to build tension, “Jaws The Movie” style in a street encounter between Rigoletto and Sparafucile. It also was highly amused at the “Sweeney Todd” melodrama, something at its zenith in Victorian England and seemingly also in 1851 Venice where this work got its premiere.
If the final set was a little oddly designed, placing the action behind actual transparent glass / screens seemed an odd way to cut off audience communication, the costumes throughout were excellent, particularly for the noble ladies.
Original lighting designer Robert Byan, with Ian Jackson-French for this revival also deserve note for making a dark alley visible without spoiling the evening menace of the music, and of course the orchestra under Richard Farnes sounded both lavish and lively as required.
Somehow not quite as sharp as the monkey’s previous experiences, it did not find the same depth of character development, and maybe wondered if the Miller staging is starting to wear a little with the years.
Still, an expansion to its list, and with another opera already in the diary, good reason why it hopes that, unlike Gilda, the ENO can survive financially led political assassination.
4 stars.
Photo credit: Tristram Kenton. Used by kind permission of the English National Opera.