Mad about the Girl - Manon, Royal Opera House, 24 January

Having missed my scheduled visit to the dress rehearsal of this production of Manon, I decided to treat myself to a discounted seat in one of the 'posh' areas of the auditorium - my usual seats either being restricted view or up in the amphitheatre!  But it wasn't just the thought of a good seat that had me greatly anticipating this visit.

Ermonela Jaho has quickly become a house favourite, a reputation initially gained by subbing for various ailing sopranos until she is now invited in her own right.   I had not heard her live before the performance but was greatly impressed by her performance as Suor Angelica which I caught when broadcast on the BBC.  So all in all this had all the makings of a great night at the opera.  Which it was.  Sort of.

First the good things.  This opera lives or dies on the performance of its soprano and it is no exaggeration to say that Ermonela Jaho is Manon...or became Manon, or whatever.  She totally embodied the part from start to finish, and although I found her particularly effective as the 16 year old schoolgirl (her petite frame lending credence to the illusion), she also found her hidden hedonist as Manon discovers pleasure and money.  And as I expected she was perhaps most compelling in the final tragic tableau - although it was the Chevalier des Grieux who finally managed to pluck at my  heartstrings.

Matthew Polenzani as the lovestruck young hero Des Grieux, may not initially strike many as the embodiment of love's young dream, but he uses that to his advantage, playing Des Grieux as gauche and inexperienced and totally under the thrall of Manon, hardly believing his luck that such a beautiful girl would look at him, never mind run away with him to Paris. Don't get me wrong, Polenzani is not unattractive at all, just a 'regular Joe' sort of attractiveness. More importantly, he has a wonderful lyric voice ideally suited to this role and his 'Ah Fuyez douce image' was one of the many vocal highlights for me.  And as I mentioned, it was his tragic cry at Manon's death that finally had me stifling a sob.

And yet.

And yet I still walked away from the performance not really knowing whether I'd enjoyed it or not! For a while I simply couldn't put my finger on why this hadn't been a totally involving experience for me.  Generally speaking I love French opera, have no particular problem with Massenet and the romantic/tragic nature of the story of Manon was one which should have guaranteed satisfaction.  And yet I came away with a definite feeling of dissatisfaction.

This is the first production of Manon I have ever seen (either live or on stage) so I have nothing really to compare it to, so I still don''t really know whether it's the opera I don't like or this particular production.  The thing that did occur me as I was watching, was that there was an awful lot of 'humour' scattered willy-nilly throughout, which to me seemed at odds with the tragedy unfolding.  Perhaps its because I am more familiar with Puccini's take on the story which concentrates on the passion and the tragedy.  Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a little lightness amongst the tragedy but it's so difficult to get right and I just felt the timing and quantity was a little 'off' here - again, I would have to see another production to know if this was a production issue or that Manon really is that funny!

The other disconcerting issue was that at one point I thought I had dozed off and woken up in a production of La Traviata.  In act 4 of Manon, we find ourselves at a big party with gambling, lots of chorus singing lustily, and finally to top it all of the hero's father turns up to berate his son, doing a reasonably good impression of Georgio Germont!  I'm surprised Verdi didn't sue Massenet for plagiarism.

The production itself, by Laurent Pelly, verges on the twee in Act 1, while the rest is suitably abstract for no good reason, although this has the affect of being able to concentrate on the singers.  The St Sulspice scene has the almost obligatory leaning pillars which add nothing to the story, and inserts a handy bed in the church, for the lovers to romp on at the end.   So all in all, a typical Pelly production.

Looking back at what I've written, it sounds like I didn't enjoy it.  I did, but I just felt I could have enjoyed it more.  The singing was fantastic without a doubt and for that I give thanks but I just left feeling a little deflated about the opera and/or the production.  Luckily I have another chance to revisit Manon, with another soprano in the title role.  I'm looking forward to hearing Ailyn Perez for the first time - and I'm going to give this opera another chance to win me over.

Tu es le diable, Carmen.

While hardly festive fair, the Royal Opera's reliable production of Carmen has been playing to packed houses over the Christmas period and I managed to catch a performance on 3rd January to get my opera-going New Year off to a tuneful if predictable start.

As my regular readers may recall, this blog started with a DVD review of the very same production starring Jonas Kaufmann and Anna Caterina Antonacci, so I was especially pleased to see the return of the Anna Caterina who replaced the originally scheduled Elina Garanca, who withdrew when she became pregnant.  The initial attraction for me was actually the chance to catch up with Roberto Alagna who I have not seen perform live for quite some time. A chance to see him in last year's L'Elisir d'Amore had to be abandoned so I was even more keen to see how the passage of time had treated him...or more specifically his voice.

I'll preface my review by saying that I actually like Roberto Alagna quite a lot. I remember being overwhelmed by his performance in Romeo et Juliette at Covent Garden way back in 1994 and thinking that this was definitely a star in the making.  And so it proved although I think it would be fair to say that there have been some ups and downs along the way.

Luckily, Don Jose is I think, one of his most congenial roles and it was for the most part well sung and reasonably acted.  I wouldn't say it was one of the most dramatically intense performances I have ever seen, but within his limits he creates a believable character and carries it through to the end.  I would say that his portrayal of Jose here is of the more conventional 'romantic hero' type but whether that is down to choice, or lack of rehearsal time I don't really know. His Jose, is the good guy led astray by a 'wicked' woman who then tires of him, leading him to the final desperate act of this opera.  Actually the final act duo was very well done as it slowly built from Jose's low key remorse and desperation up to his final terrible act of violence.

Anna Caterina Antonacci's Carmen is well known from the DVD and she didn't disappoint here, with her very earthy, sensual, sexual portrayal of Carmen. The voice is an unusual one, seemingly lacking the obvious dark sultry chest tones of a 'typical' mezzo and yet still utterly convincing. The chemistry with Alagna also worked well...I'm not sure how much rehearsal time they had together but they gave a game, professional performance.  Carmen can be many things to many people, but once again I came away with the slightly disconcerting feeling that I didn't really know who Carmen was.  One thing I did pick up on was the fact that (at least in this performance) Carmen did still seem to harbour some real affection for Jose even in the final act.  That fitted in well with Alagna's more restrained, less demented portrayal of Jose.

The rest of the cast were acceptable but probably that's the most that can be said. Veronica Cangemi as Micaela managed not to annoy too much (more the character's fault than hers) but Escamillo as played by Vito Priante was a charisma-free zone both in characterisation and voice.  Would it hurt to get actually get someone in to play Escamillo who can actually act and/or sing? Doesn't have to be a big name (although I wouldn't say no) just someone who can inject a bit of life into the part.

I'm not going to say that much about the actual production itself as it was pretty standard stuff.  I have to say though that it looks a lot better in close-up on DVD.  And while having Escamillo enter on horseback sounds like a good idea - it very rarely is.

So, all in in all, it was an enjoyable experience, even though in many ways this was a routine performance of a repertory standard.  Alagna is still in pretty good voice - even if he does lapse into some tenorial showing off.  Anna Caterina totally convinces as Carmen and brought the whole production to life - as every good Carmen should.

For those wondering what Alagna might be like in a less conventional production of Carmen, I see that Sky Arts2 are showing the Bieto production on Monday 6th January at 8pm,  which also features Beatrice Uria-Monzon as Carmen and Marina Poplavskya as Micaela.  Should be interesting