Germany Verdi, Il trovatore: Soloists, Chor der Hamburgischen Staatsoper, Philharmonishces Staatsorchester Hamburg / Paolo Arrivabeni (conductor). Staatsoper Hamburg, 5.4.2025. (SRT)
I occurred to be in Hamburg throughout what the Staatsoper referred to as its ‘Italian opera weeks’; six weeks that includes seven Italian operas back-to-back. It’s a pleasant mini-festival inside their (very spectacular) primary season, and one in every of its main promoting factors is the debut of a number of artists in primary roles. I discussed two of them within the earlier evening’s La fanciulla del West (evaluation right here), and the large information on this revival of Il trovatore was the function debut of Olga Peretyatko as Leonora. She’s finest identified for bel canto (corresponding to Norina in Don Pasquale at Covent Backyard, evaluation right here), and in an interview within the Staatsoper journal she says ‘for me, all the pieces is bel canto.’
Good headline, however it would possibly clarify why she doesn’t but sound like a Leonora. Bel canto wants agility and, most of the time, vocal lightness to leap between the notes, and there’s solely just a little of that in Verdi’s Leonora. Extra incessantly, the lightness of Peretyatko’s voice is an issue relating to the 2 nice arias, each of which sound fragile and brittle. There isn’t a overarching sense of luxurious in both ‘Tacea la notte’ nor ‘D’amor sull’ali rosee’, and within the greater ensemble numbers Peretyatko’s voice dangers getting misplaced within the general texture. It’s a promising starting, however her voice has a number of rising to do earlier than she will be able to name herself a Verdi soprano. Somewhat that, nevertheless, than Marco Berti’s considerably approximate Manrico, which sounded frayed on prime even when singing ‘Di quella pira’ transposed down, and the frequency with which he bellowed didn’t recommend a voice naturally blissful within the function.
The true vocal pleasure on this efficiency got here from the decrease voices, notably Kristina Stanek’s firebrand Azucena, a wealthy voice that’s virtually contralto in locations, bringing terrifying pleasure to the function of the gypsy. Finer nonetheless was George Petean’s Depend. His is a extremely beautiful baritone which he wasn’t afraid to shade right down to some actually quiet singing, however with thrilling energy within the climaxes, too. Because of him, ‘Il balen’ was the spotlight of the night. The orchestra sounded nice all through, and Paolo Arrivabeni introduced form and energy to the night in order that there was by no means any sense of rattling by means of the numbers.
The manufacturing, described barely confusingly within the literature as ‘after Immo Karaman’ makes use of one set for each scene, which is sort of all the time a warning signal. That set is a bombed out stately residence, initially Leonora’s however then, presumably, the Depend strikes in along with his retinue. The primary half appears to recommend an expressionist leaning, with Azucena’s recollections turning into wild hallucinations, a flaming pram the best of those. Nevertheless, issues change into weird to the purpose of offensiveness within the second half. A gang rape takes place in the course of the Troopers’ Refrain – as a result of why not? – and a number of other members of the Ku Klux Klan present up throughout ‘Ah si ben mio’, earlier than returning once more in the course of the ‘Miserere’, presumably as a result of that they had left one thing behind. That form of exemplifies the variations between operagoing tradition in Britain and in Germany. Maybe as a result of they’ve a lot extra opera obtainable to them, the Germans shrug these items off with a smirk, but when these photographs had appeared on a stage in Britain there had have been a narrative within the papers about it.
Simon Thompson
Manufacturing:
Director – Immo Karaman
Costumes – Herbert Murauer
Lighting – James Farncombe
Video – Philipp Contag-Lada
Dramaturgy – Ralf Waldschmidt
Refrain director – Christian Günther
Solid:
Leonora – Olga Peretyatko
Manrico – Marco Berti
Depend di Luna – George Petean
Azucena – Kristina Stanek
Ferrando – Hubert Kowalczyk
Inez – Marie Maidowski
Ruiz – Aaron Godfrey-Mayes
