Reviews 2007
Reviews 2007
✭✭✩✩✩
by Giuseppe Verdi, directed by Jose Maria Condemi
Canadian Opera Company, Four Seasons Centre, Toronto
April 10-May 11, 2007
Verdi’s 1849 opera Luisa Miller about corruption in high places, blackmail and the attempt of the older generation to stifle the younger can be an exciting, edge-of-your-seat opera as it was in 1997 when the COC last staged it. The COC’s new production, however, marred by stodgy direction, singers who can’t act and irrelevant design, is almost totally unengaging.
When a count’s son Rodolfo (Mikhail Agafonov) decides to marry the peasant girl Luisa (Serena Farnocchia), the Count’s evil counselor Wurm (Phillip Ens), who lusts after her, has her father (Alexander Marco-Buhrmester) arrested and condemned to death. To save her father Luisa must consent give up Rodolfo and marry Wurm. For unknown reasons costume designer Andrea Viotti has clad the supposedly Tyrolean peasants as Quakers and the Count and all the male courtiers as comically identical gilded versions of Henry VIII. The enormous crucifix dominating Act 3 is impressive but makes no sense of the action.
The COC Orchestra gives a fiery account of the overture but the drama remains in the pit as soon as soon as the curtain opens. Seemingly unmoved by either the story or Verdi’s rousing music, director Jose Maria Condemi simply moves the singers decoratively about the stage with little regard for dramatic sense.
Condemi’s hands-off approach to interpretation gives no help to Agafonov and Farnocchia who need it most. Agafonov sings with massive lung-power but virtually no subtlety. Farnocchia displays a lovely voice but seems to walk through the role as if hypnotized. The most memorable performances come from Ens as a man obsessed with controlling everyone around him and Marco-Buhrmester as a man whose fixed beliefs are shattered by the villainy of his “betters” and the independent will of his daughter.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2007-04-16.
Photo: Mikhail Agafonov and Serena Farnocchia. ©Michael Cooper.
2007-04-16
Luisa Miller