Rigoletto, at Covent Garden, Seven magazine review

David McVicar’s popular, returning production is almost ruined by the preening of miscast tenor Vittorio Grigolo

Rigoletto performed at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. 
Ekaterina Siurina as Gilda, Vittorio Grigolo as Duke of Mantua
Rigoletto performed at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Ekaterina Siurina as Gilda, Vittorio Grigolo as Duke of Mantua Credit: Photo: Alastair Muir

Even in the ego-charged world of opera, there is not always enough room for two strong wills. Certainly not in the messy mêlée of Covent Garden’s Rigoletto. When the tenorissimo Vittorio Grigolo is strutting his stuff, not even such an assertive maestro as John Eliot Gardiner seems able to impose himself on the performance.

Probably no one could control Grigolo, who in the short space of time since tasting stardom has become a vulgar, preening artist. Miscast as the Duke of Mantua, which requires a more elegant tenor, his vocal delivery is gusty and he needs to take stock to avoid the burnout that so easily afflicts fast-rising singers of this type – or else he might regret having called his recent solo album “Arrivederci”.

Though he looks unaccountably set to become a house tenor at Covent Garden, it’s really the sort of performance you’d be grateful to discover in a provincial Italian theatre.

But it’s not all Grigolo versus Gardiner. In those scenes when the Duke exchanges the audience for his dressing-room mirror, the conductor delivers a strong and darkly driven account of Verdi’s score. This is Gardiner’s first Rigoletto, yet already he finds its own special tinta and holds the work’s contrasts in much better balance than David McVicar’s one-dimensional production itself, which slavers over the plot’s underbelly at the expense of everything else.

Not even Gardiner has succeeded in silencing the screaming and whooping of the opening scene’s orgy, which unbalances Verdi’s meticulously written textures. Now in its sixth revival, McVicar’s staging is a case of diminishing returns, but it does showcase some fine performances.

Dimitri Platanias projects a powerful baritone as the tormented Rigoletto, carrying off the scabious, cockroach-like characterisation well, and Ekaterina Siurina brings delicate focus to his daughter, Gilda. Matthew Rose brings musicianship even to the assassin Sparafucile, Christine Rice is feisty as Maddalena, but Gianfranco Montresor delivers a curiously tame curse as Monterone.

At Covent Garden, to Apr 21; www.roh.org.uk

This review also appears in SEVEN magazine, free with the Sunday Telegraph

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