An effort to go to town on a Sunday as it means I seem to have spent most of my life on the train to Liverpool Street, but boy was it worth it. This is a brand new production of a Verdi opera which is not performed as often as it should be, with Rolando Villazon in the title role returning to the stage after an extended break due to exhaustion and stress. Have to say that if I was choosing the role to make my come back at Covent Garden, I wold not have recommended this one as it is a pretty hefty sing and, quite frankly, I thought he was having difficulty.
Don Carlos was first performed in Paris and was deemed too long at the time and has suffered from cuts and rearrangements ever since. Back in 1958 an all time great performance took place at the Royal Opera House which was referred to extensively in the programme yesterday. This starred, amongst others, Jon Vickers, Tito Gobbi and Boris Christoff, sets by Visconti and conducted by Carlo Maria Guilini. Quite a shock to my system to realise that I was there and saw it - fifty years ago!
So how does this production compare? It's way up there I can assure you. I liked the sets and the lighting, particularly the scene in the monastery where all was dark and grey and mysterious, the auto 
da fe scene was red and gold and sumptuous and the overall concept full of brooding and menace. At the end of each scene/act a curtain came down isolating Don Carlos in a pool of light at the front of the stage, emphasising his aloneness and isolation. However, reading various reviews shows that not everyone feels the same as I do.
This opera is full of the most superb confrontations and duets: we have the famous Carlos/Posa duet in the second act (at the end of which the audience went potty); scene with Posa/King Phillip; the magnificent scene with King Phillip and the Inquisitor; wonderful moving duet with Carlos when Posa is dying, one could go on and. It is also interesting to note that all of these magnificent moments are between the male protagonists and the female interest seems relatively less. Eboli has her big number O don fatale and Elizabeth in the last act with her aria Tu che la vanita, but the main drama and interest lies elsewhere. The Rodrigo (Posa)/Carlos dynamic is at the heart of the opera, Rodrigo providing the back bone which Carlos so obviously lacks, his obsessive love for Elizabeth, to whom he was betrothed before politics intervened making her the wife of his father instead, sapping his will and resolve.
Cast was excellent though, as I mentioned at the start of this post, I felt that Villazon could have vocal problems if he continues singing such heavy roles. "Rolando Villazon’s Carlos sometimes sounds stressed and even out of tune. It’s a role too big for his lyric tenor." Helen and I were sitting in good seats in the Grand Tier, for which I took out a second mortgage, and I felt that Villazon was seriously over parted. Not sure how well his voice would have carried to the back row of the amphitheatre. He is back later on in the year to sing the title role in the tales of Hoffman and this is another hefty sing. Worth remembering that Domingo has sung both these roles and his voice is much stronger with more at the bottom that Villazon possesses. He is a much lighter tenor and should be looking at Donizetti, and other Verdi operas, but not Rigoletto or this one. Still, that is just my humble opinion.
For me the star of the evening was Simon Keenlyside who sang Posa. "Simon Keenlyside is almost beyond praise in the excellence of his singing and concentrated acting" according to one reviewer and I am not going to argue with that. This is a gorgeous part, one of Verdi's plum baritone roles. Posa is a 
noble, loyal and honourable man interceding between Carlos and his father the king, protecting Carlos from himself and, in the end, dying for his friend. Plenty of lovely warm arias and solos and a wonderful farewell when he dies in the arms of Carlos. It was clear the audience were as one in their appreciation of his performance as the applause when he came to take his solo bow easily surpassed that for all the other soloists, even though Villazon got a pretty good reception.
Overall, it was a stunning evening with the audience on its feet at the end of the performance and unwilling to let anyone go home. I may have lived on bread and water for a week to pay for the tickets but it was worth every penny. I go to the opera three, perhaps four times a year, and the ballet the same. While I am happy to see a ballet from the amphitheatre I have decided that I am going to expend money on good tickets for the opera as it makes such a difference. While I can afford it, which may not be for much longer, I am going to make sure that I live the operatic high life.
A wonderful wonderful afternoon.
