Royal Opera Cav/Pag

This was amazing here's my rave for Sydney Arts Guide http://www.sydneyartsguide.com.au/the-royal-opera-house-presents-cavaleria-rusticanapagliacci/ This Opera, filmed at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden London on the 10th December last year, was presented as part of this years Palace Opera and Ballet season. Controversial director Damiano Michieletto has come up with a gut wrenching, visually stunning and emotionally gripping production which blends these two great operas together. These two ‘verisimo’ operas were first double-billed in 1893. The opera has been reset in southern Italy in the 1980’s , the characters from one opera appearing in the other .. At the start, in Cav, we see Beppe pasting Pagliacci advertisments on the walls of Mamma Lucia’s bakery, and in the Intermezzo, Nedda first meets handsome Silvio, here depicted as a lowly baker. In Pag’s Intermezzo we see the weeping Santuzza, (who is bearing Turiddu’s child) reconciled with the devastated Mamma Lucia… In Cav we see the children rehearsing for an Easter play; in Pag they charmingly perform it. Paolo Fantin has designed different sets for each opera, but both make major use of the revolve to give us different views of the action, from the shop front to the interior of the bakery, the school hall to the untidy dressing room, from public displays of grief under a single streetlight to moments of concealed agony. Both operas emphasise the intense Catholicism of the small village– in one scene there is an Easter procession in honour of The Virgin with the statue frighteningly coming to life, pointing at Santuzza , and increasing her sense of guilt. Musically and vocally this production is magnificent. Sir Antonio Pappano,who is steeped in the culture of southern Italy, dynamically led a wonderful orchestra. The opening opera, CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA, began with Turiddu discovered dead; offstage his ghostly voice chillingly sings “O Lola ch’ai di latti la cammisa.” Statuesque Eva-Maria Westbroek as Santuzza nobly suffers and expresses great drama with her thrilling voice. Veteran mezzo Elena Zilio is tremendous as Mamma Lucia , in many ways the emotional anchor of the work. Sometimes her movements said much more than words and there was great use of close up in her encounters with Santuzza. Greek baritone Dimitri Platanias , in rousing fine , gruff form , doubles as the smarmy Alfio in Cavallleria Rusticana, and plays the rather sinister and overbearing villain Tonio in Pagliacci. Latvian tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko appears as returned soldier Turiddu in Cavallleria Rusticana and plays Canio, the leader of the troupe in Pagliacci . Antonenko sings with excellent tone and great range, especially strong in the middle register, and his controlled, menacing yet despairing Vesti la guibba sent shivers up my spine. His Un bacio, mamma! Un altro bacio! was passionate and heartfelt, – it is as if he held a premonition of his death In the middle of the love-triangle in PAGLIACCI is Carmen Giannattasio’s Nedda. Hers was a terrific performance, (featuring a lovely lyrical line and enchanting high notes). portraying a rather hard woman, nervous and edgy. Her bitter relationship with her husband Canio is distracted by her relationship with Silvio, well played by a very handsome Dionysios Sourbis. Another twist in this production sees Pagliacci’s play-within-an-opera, similar to Hamlet’s Murder of Gonzago scene, blur the barriers of real life and illusion, coming across as projections of Canio’s jealousy. Other stand-out performances were Martina Belli playing a sultry Lola, and Benjamin Hulett as Beppe. This was a powerful and complex production. Running time – 3 ½ hours (approx). The screening included one interval during which there were interviews with the cast. The Royal Opera’s presentation of Cavalleri Rusticana and Pagliacci screened at Palace cinemas between the 22nd and the 27th January 2016