Review - Un Ballo in maschera - Opera Australia

Moth Ball
It's regrettable that instead of an operatic setting by Verdi of Shakespeare's King Lear we got Un Ballo in maschera instead. In the spring of 1856 the San Carlo Opera approached the composer with a contract and he proposed King Lear. After the success of his setting of Macbeth in 1847 he had been contemplating King Lear, first suggesting it to his Il Trovatore librettist Salavtore Cammarano. Nothing eventuated but when the San Carlo offer was made Verdi proposed King Lear. At the premiere of La Traviata in Venice Verdi met the lawyer, playwright and patriot Antoni Somma. Verdi convinced Somma to work on a libretto of Lear and spent considerable time and effort making alterations to the Somma's text and metre while he went about re-interesting the singers who had been part of the initial Lear project five years earlier. Filippo Colleti (who had created roles in Alzira and I Masnadieri and for who's lower voice Verdi adjusted the part of Germont in La Traviata to suit) was to be Lear. Fascinatingly, he envisaged a contralto singing the role of the Fool and had at least three sopranos in mind for the role of Cordelia (even formally offering the role to one, Mariaetta Piccolomini, who in turn offered to cancel a lucrative contract for St Petersburg that season in order to undertake the new opera. With the libretto now complete Verdi even signed the contract with San Carlo which required the synopsis and list of sung parts to be delivered by the middle of 1857. Verdi however had second thoughts about whether he could get the right singers and began suggesting other plays to adapt. He had Somma prepare other scenarios, even when working on Lear he and Somma had prepared other subjects. One of them, a twenty year-old Italian translation of Eugene Scribe's play called Gustavo III di Svezia somehow got shuffled to the top of the pile and became the new favourite. The story, based on a factual event, where Gustav, King of Sweden is saved from an assassination by his close friend and valued minister only to be killed by him when he discovers the King and his own wife are in love.

Un Ballo in maschera is hardly Shakespeare and not even great shakes in the Verdi canon but is often performed. Opera Australia's production is over twenty years old and reflects the traditional and literal production style of that time. The production by John Cox is interesting to compare with the very new traditional and literal style exemplified by Francesca Zambello. Cox worked in the very best houses (Royal Opera and Glyndebourne as well Europe and the USA) at Glyndebourne he worked with important and influential directors like Carl Ebert (who had worked with Max Reinhardt) and Gunther Rennert and, in Germany, with Walter Felsenstein. Cox's production uses the original Swedish setting (Verdi ran into censorship problems and, forbidden to depict regicide, changed the setting to 17th century America and demoted the characters to a local Governor and his staff) incorporating a few allusions to the King's artsy nature. Gustav III founded the Royal Swedish Opera and Cox sets the initial action on a stage within a stage to no great dramatic effect but very confusing visuals (in the second scene the worried Amelia seeks advice from the fortune teller and 'enters through a concealed door' which is ignored here as she enters the fortune teller's hut down a huge staircase - exactly the same one the disguised Gustav entered by.

There are many other dramatically odd and unconvincing moments, many are as much due to the age of the original production scheme and probable compromises made in the current revival. Sandwiched in with so many new and recent productions these old house productions are usually brought out as vehicles for a star turn. Sadly the cast make it look very routine. As Gustav Julian Gavin gives a choppy vocal performance although he manages to slow down a bit when executing stage movements. The night I attended he had problems as early as the act one arietta "La rivedrá nell'estasi" just not being able to throw it off like a light and conversational aside. The theatre is big and and so is his voice and my money is on Gavin eventually taking on the 'heavy German' rep. and spending his career initially forging magic bullets then moving on to battling dragons and drinking love potions. Nicole Youl fares quite well as Amelia. Even though the part is a couple of sizes too big for her voice she does find a 'line' through the music in her big scene in act two that carries it musically and dramatically from start to finish. Michael Lewis, however, sounds like manna from vocal heaven. His powerful and well focused voice is able to shape and flavour even a few notes into a dramatically revealing phrase. In the third act when he confronts his wife over her supposed infidelity, even threatening their children in punishing her he takes over the story. Even in the few phrases before his aria "Eri tu" Lewis had clinched the character's humiliation and feeling of outrage. Instead of being a story about a King wrongfully killed by a jealous husband it became the story of a noble and loyal patriot driven by circumstances into threats of incredible violence and ultimately murder. Verdi would have been pleased, his early and middle operas have great parts for baritones and sopranos as well as occasionally tenors and they can swing dramatically to either protagonist's viewpoint without affecting the basic dramatic structure. Verdi may have cheated us of King Lear but he gave us a glimpse of what was to come in Otello.

The two important minor characters were both very well sung. Amelia Farrugia has a strong and very well focused voice (at times a bigger and more exciting tone than the principal soprano) and good stage presence, letting her voice do most of the acting. Madame Arvidson is usually the name given the fortune teller in the Swedish version. Here she is confusingly referred to as Ulrica, the name used in the censored plot. Milijana Nikolic has one of those rock solid deep mezzo voices that is not often heard here. Pity the part is not bigger so she could have big 'told you so' scene in Act three. There were some nice touches from the orchestra under Andrea Licata. The exciting introduction to act two was tense and atmospheric, the woodwind giving an hysterical edge.

The most successful scenes were Anckarström's scene in act three and Verdi's compact act two moving from Amelia's manic gallows search for the herb that will rid her of her guilty love then moving into a the big love duet and discovery by Anckarström. You have to love opera when it is played the way it is here. The soprano and tenor in clouds of stage smog singing a love duet directly underneath a couple decaying corpses hanging off the gallows while the smoke is not-so-discreetly replenished in huge puffs between aria, duet, trio and then ensemble! Cox has Gustav swish about a big gold throne too, which looks rather like a dodgem car. In the following scene Ulrica rides about in a black version, the lion head at front even sporting creepy red eyes which makes it look like a carriage on a ghost train. We know Verdi altered the location of the story to America but it was to Boston not Coney Island!

Un Ballo in maschera (1859) by Giuseppe Verdi
Gustavus III - Julian Gavin

Amelia - Nicole Youl

Count Anckarström - Michael Lewis

Oscar - Amelia Farrugia / Lorina Gore (7 & 10 May)

Mademoiselle Arvidson (or Ulrica) - Milijana Nikolic
Magistrate - Geoffrey Harris
Count Ribbing - Jud Arthur
Count Horn - Richard Alexander
Servant - Jin Tea Kim
Opera Australia Chorus
Orchestra Victoria
Conductor - Andrea Licata, assisted by Christopher van Tuinen
Original Director (1985) - John Cox

Rehearsal Directer - Louise Napier

Set Designer - John Gunter
Costume Designer - Michael Stennett
Lighting Designer - Nigel Levings

Choreography - Mary Duchesne, rehearsed by Matthew Barclay

State Theatre, The Arts Centre

16, 19, 22, 24 April 2, 7 & 10 May

180 minutes (including 2 intervals)

Picture: Michael Lewis (Anckarstroem) Nicole Youl (Amelia) [picture: Jeff Busby]