Rigoletto, English National Opera, review

Replacing Jonathan Miller’s much-loved 30-year-old “mobster” production of Rigoletto was never going to be easy, and I sympathise with ENO’s desire to find something completely different. But although the first-night audience showed enthusiasm for Christopher Alden’s vision of the piece, I doubt it has the sturdy legs of its predecessor.

The curtain rises magnificently: Michael Levine’s set reproduces the panelled salon of a Victorian gentlemen’s club, complete with ottoman sofas, Turkey carpets, pot plants and a fug of smoke. Here Rigoletto, one assumes, functions as some sort of major-domo or butler. Women are procured to pleasure the, ahem, members, and the whiff of aristocratic debauchery is rancid.

But Alden isn’t interested in superficial realism and come the second scene, he begins to ignore the libretto’s specifications and scramble a straightforward melodrama with dream logic – very much the same strategy he adopted for his more persuasive production of Tosca for Opera North.

The club setting is permanent: no attempt is made to render Rigoletto’s suburban house or explain Gilda’s cloistered existence. The chorus of dandies moves in comical robotic formation; Gilda is fixated on a portrait of her mother; Rigoletto spends much of the time slumped obliviously in a chair downstage.

Oddest of all is Alden’s idea that the murder plot in Sparafucile’s downtown tavern is nothing but an after-dinner entertainment, played out as a charade in the centre of the salon with the gents as its languid audience. The storm music incites them all to orgy, but finally the stage clears completely, leaving Gilda lying on a white sheet scattered with rose petals in an empty room.

By this point I had quite literally lost the plot, and wish to press charges against Alden of wilful obfuscation and perversity intended merely to baffle. There’s much less going on here than meets the eye; what starts off enthrallingly ends up a bit silly and boring.

But the energy level of the performance is high, fuelled by Graeme Jenkins’s vigorous, shapely conducting and three vocally excellent central performances notable for clear projection as well as firmness of tone.

Hawaiian baritone Quinn Kelsey was a stormer of a Rigoletto, Anna Christy made a cute little doll of Gilda and Barry Banks sailed breezily through the Duke’s arias. With strong support from Peter Rose and Justina Gringyte as Sparafucile and Maddalena, Verdi’s score was honoured even if Victor Hugo’s drama was shortchanged.

Until March 14. Tickets: 0207 845 9300; eno.org.uk