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by Gaetano Donizetti, directed by Stephen Lawless

Canadian Opera Company, Four Seasons Centre, Toronto

April 25-May 21, 2014

“Sondra Radvanovsky Triumphs as Elizabeth I”

Musically the Canadian Opera Company’s first-ever production of Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux was an enormous success.  Devereux is the third part of Donizetti’s so-called “Tudor Trilogy” of three operas he wrote about famous monarchs of the Tudor dynasty – Anna Bolena in 1830, Maria Stuarda in 1835 and Roberto Devereux, ossia Il conte di Essex in 1837.  There is no evidence that Donizetti intended them as a trilogy but they have been performed as such ever since Beverly Sills popularized them as the “Three Queens” trilogy in the 1970s.

Toronto audiences have already seen the Maria Stuarda of Stephen Lawless’s production of Donizetti’s complete “Tudor Trilogy” in 2010, but this will not prepare them for the peculiarities of his staging of Devereux.  Despite this, the singing is some of the most glorious heard at the COC this season and will long remain in the memory of Toronto opera-goers.

All three operas of the “Tudor Trilogy” are presented in a unified production.  Set designer Benoit Dugardyn has created a stage-upon-the-stage inside an English Renaissance theatre reminiscent of Shakespeare’s Globe with a semicircle of two wooden galleries overlooking the central playing area.  Unlike Maria Stuarda, Lawless gives the action a frame that is both unnecessary and intrusive.  During the overture an aged, haggard Elisabetta totters into what seems to be her own version of Madame Tussaud’s Museum in Richmond Palace.  There she admires waxwork figures of her father Henry VIII, her mother Anne Boleyn, and a figure of herself as a girl encased in three large vitrines.  Magically, the figures of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn come alive and tug at either arm of the young Elizabeth in an unsubtle depiction of family strife.  Next, what seems like a child’s history of the Elizabethan Age ensues with an impish Shakespeare popping out of a basket to direct Elisabetta as Titania in a (rumoured but unsubstantiated) performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Devereux appearing as Bottom in an ass’s head.  Laster Elisabetta destroys the entire cardboard Spanish Armada with a single pistol shot.   

To try to reinforce a connection of Devereux to real history is pointless since the Salvatore Cammerano’s libretto has so little basis in fact.  Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex (1565-1601), was one of Elizabeth’s favourites.  He was put under house arrest not condemned as a traitor upon his arrival in England after concluding a peace treaty in Ireland without the Queen’s permission.  His love affair with Sara, the Duchess of Nottingham, is pure fiction.  He was condemned as traitor when he and his followers attempted to seize the court by force.  Cammarano seems to believe that Elisabeth I abdicated the throne in favour of James VI of Scotland rather than merely naming him as her successor on her deathbed.  The opera works best if Cammarano’s excellent plot is considered on its own terms, apart from history, since it provides each of the four central figures with complex moral dilemmas.            

Lawless’s historical intrusions seem silly but not absolutely awful when they occur during the overture.  They are unforgivable, however, when they return during Elisabetta’s final aria “Quel sangue versato al ciel,” one of the most difficult arias in the Donizetti canon.  To signify that Devereux is the last of a trilogy, Lawless rolls in the waxworks again, this time of operas’ three victims – Mary Stuart, Anne Boleyn and Devereux.  When they disappear, an empty fourth vitrine rolls in forcing Elisabetta to sing the conclusion of the aria while opening its door and shutting herself in as a display just after her final note.  In her last line, “Lo voglio... Dell'anglica terra sia Giacomo il re”, the chorus unfurls a banner covering both galleries reading “Jacobo Primo, Re d’Inghilterra” as if we had not understood what Elisabetta had just sung.  Our attention should be solely on Elisabetta and her reflection on her life – not on all this senseless stage activity. 

Fortunately, the opera is anchored by four extraordinary performances.  Sondra Radvanovsky, in her role debut as Elisabetta, is simply spectacular.  Last seen at the COC as Aida in 2010, she astonished everyone by her seemingly effortless move into the bel canto repertoire.  She retains the same richness of the voice, but the increased agility, runs and leaps Donizetti demands seem only to give new freedom to her natural expressivity.  Her high notes, whether beautifully floated or attacked full on, are stunning.  Her detailed characterization of Elisabetta from her height of pride, vanity, and obsessive love to the depths of jealousy and despair is absolutely riveting.  Radvanovsky won such applause for “Ah! ritorna qual ti spero” she stopped the show causing conductor Corrado Rovaris to put down his baton until the applause subsided. 

Her Devereux for opening night and the following two performances was Leonardo Capalbo.  His singing is as muscular, well honed and agile as his physique.  His unusual tenor has the dark, velvety timbre of a baritone even in his highest notes.  Though Lawless hampers his acting by having him pose rather too much with hand on hilt, Capalbo always emanates an intensity that commands the stage.  He received the greatest acclaim for his prison scene sung with gorgeous legato and undeniable emotion.  For performances May 10, 15, 18 and 21, the role will be sung by Giuseppe Filianoti.  

As Sara, mezzo soprano Allyson McHardy sang her aria “All'afflitto è dolce il pianto” so beautifully the applause nearly stopped the opera as soon as it began.  McHardy never loses the golden creaminess of her tone even in the most rapid passages and the depth of her characterization lends variety to a figure who is in a perpetual state of anxiety throughout the action. 

Baritone Russell Braun is such a fine actor he manages to convey the sense of the Duke of Nottingham as an emotional tinderbox even beneath his initially innocuous exchanges with Sara and his fervent defence of Devereux.  It is therefore no surprise when he finds the scarf Sara had embroidered for Devereux that his stunned reaction should turn into the unstoppable rage that is so frightening in his Act 3 scene with Sara.  Though Braun is able to chill the natural warmth of his voice, he added a plaintive note to Nottingham’s fiercest scenes with Sara and Devereux that make clear that his anger is driven by the profundity of his suffering.

Corrado Rovaris’s conducting is notable for his well-judged tempi, the precision of the changes between them and the inexorable forward momentum of his pacing.  At the curtain call, each of the principals had the expected single entrance, the house erupting in wild bravas when Radvanovsky appeared.  The audience called the collected cast and conductor forward at least five times, before Braun on one side and Rovaris on the other pushed Radvanovsky forward to take another solo bow to which all those on stage joined in with the tumultuous applause the audience so justly accorded her.  It was a triumphant evening for all the singers and musicians but especially for Radvanovsky as she enters an exciting new phase in her career.     

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review will appear in Opera News in July.

Photos: (from top) Leonardo Capalbo as Roberto Devereux and Sondra Radvanovsky as Elisabetta; Sondra Radvanovsky as Elisabetta (far right); Leonardo Capalbo and Allyson McHardy as Sara. ©2014 Michael Cooper. 

For tickets, visit www.coc.ca.