A triumph for the Royal Opera: This magnificent Don Carlo is excellent in all departments

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Verdi: Don Carlo

Royal Opera House, London,

until May 25                                                             5/5

At last – a triumph for the Royal Opera.

After a season of disappointments, with too many misfiring revivals, this magnificent Don Carlo is excellent in all departments.

The star is, of course, Jonas Kaufmann as the 16th Century Spanish prince, but he is surrounded by a veritable Milky Way of other shining lights.

Jonas Kaufmann is sufficient an actor to convey Don Carlo's inadequacies, while at the same time sounding heroic in every line he sings

Jonas Kaufmann is sufficient an actor to convey Don Carlo's inadequacies, while at the same time sounding heroic in every line he sings

Anja Harteros is radiantly sophisticated as his love interest, Elizabeth, so much better than the pallid Marina Poplavskaya, who partnered Kaufmann here in 2009.

She looks good too, as does the Eboli of French debutante Beatrice Uria-Monzon.

All too often this mezzo role is assigned to old boilers, but Uria-Monzon cuts a glamorous figure, and no doubt her vocal command, which didn’t please everyone, will improve as the run progresses.

Don Carlo is a sort of Hamlet figure, infirm of purpose, and committed to fluffing his chances, for instance, to kill Eboli before she betrays him, or to assassinate his father, King Philip II, when the mob hangs back instead of arresting Don Carlo as the King demands.

Kaufmann is sufficient an actor to convey Don Carlo’s inadequacies, while at the same time sounding heroic in every line he sings.

For me he is fast becoming an artist of historic significance, well matched here by Mariusz Kwiecien as his friend, the heroic Posa, and by Ferruccio Furlanetto as a careworn King.

   

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Furlanetto is one of those rare basses who can reach down to any note, however low, with a formidable amplitude that fills the house.

Kwiecien won perhaps the biggest ovation of the night for his fine portrayal of the young patriot who lays down his life for Don Carlo.

Eric Halvorson pluckily sang through a cold to convey most of the awfulness of the blind old Grand Inquisitor.

Nick Hytner’s 2008 production wears well in this revival by Paul Higgins.

It’s faithful to Verdi’s intentions, and Bob Crowley’s sets strike an attractive balance between the traditional and the modern.

Only the Monty Python-ish auto-da-fé scene – in which the pointy-hatted heretics being paraded look like Ku Klux Klan trainees – sounds an unintentionally farcical note.

In the pit Tony Pappano contributes a vivid account of Verdi’s great score, while proving yet again that the orchestra never plays as well for anyone else.

Irritatingly, this magnificent production isn’t going into cinemas. Why ever not? Click here to purchase tickets


MELLOR'S CD OF THE WEEK

Britten

Violin Concerto with Tasmin Little

Piano Concerto with Howard Shelley (Chandos)

Tasmin Little is inspired throughout the Violin Concerto

Tasmin Little is inspired throughout the Violin Concerto

Perhaps the best new recording thus far of Benjamin Britten’s centenary year features three fine British artists.

Tasmin Little is inspired throughout the Violin Concerto, and Howard Shelley virtuosic in the Piano Concerto, which is often percussive in the manner of Prokofiev.

Ed Gardner has long been a Britten specialist, and he and the BBC Philharmonic provide an eloquently idiomatic backcloth.

Chandos’s recording is also, as ever, first-class.

Both are early works, and for me, a cause for regret that Britten was later so pressured by his partner Peter Pears to produce almost entirely vocal music.