The pageantry of the Easter Hymn is gloriously kitsch, with Michieletto’s preponderance for moments of dream-like magic coming to the fore, the statue of the Madonna coming to life and fixing Santuzza with an accusatory finger. Turiddu, in a black leather jacket that suggests James Dean, wanders listlessly, a drunk demobbed from the army and nihilistically courting trouble. (The baked goods that appear during the Easter celebrations – breads, pastries, colombina cakes – are a fabulous piece of naturalistic detailing, though they do leave one absolutely famished: eat before you come.) Alfio, here, is a petty criminal – perhaps a mafioso – who swaggers in with a polished motor and dishes out fur coats for the grateful crowd. It is set on a turntable, taking us into the character’s private anguish and out into the hurlyburly of religious public spectacle and male boasting. In “Cavalleria Rusticana” the action takes place inside and outside Mamma Lucia’s bakery – the complementary Eucharistic bread to the good wine that is toasted later in this Easter show. Michieletto’s contemporary production of this famous double bill places it amongst the rough rural poverty of Calabria, in ways that nods to the grime and grit of postwar Italian neorealist cinema. Replacements came in the form of Roberto Alagna (“Pagliacci”) and (wife) Aleksandra Kurzak in both operas SeokJong Baek, following a successful jump-in for “Samson” just a few weeks ago, took the role of Turiddu. Jonas Kaufmann was set to sing Turridu but withdrew, first partly and then wholly Ermonela Jaho and Anita Rachvelishvili also fell by the wayside. This revival has had its own fair share of changing places, though. Double-crossing, licentiousness, and the sad demise of a once popular showman: that was all going on down the road in Westminster while the Royal Opera House revived Damiano Michieletto’s double bill of “Cavalleria rusticana” and “Pagliacci.” Sightings of former prime minister Theresa May and former Johnson ally Michael Gove – himself ignominiously sacked by Johson during the performance, reports later ran – were the perfect aperitif for an evening of bloody high drama.
0 kommentar(er)
