‘I had to read this libretto six times before I understood any of it,” fumed the great Italian opera scholar Abramo Basevi in 1859. The work that had defeated him? Verdi’s opera Simon Boccanegra, based on a play by the same Spanish writer as Il trovatore, the longstanding sitting duck for potshots at contorted opera plots. Even the composer diagnosed Boccanegra as “too depressing”. Yet he was persuaded to return to his poorly received score, overhauling it with the help of Arrigo Boito (subsequently the librettist of his final operas, Otello and Falstaff). That revised version was a roaring success in 1881 and is staged quite regularly today – although marshalling its heavyweight lineup of principal basses and baritones, with only a single tenor and soprano to leaven the texture, remains a serious challenge.
No stranger to those, Opera North has taken Boccanegra as the latest candidate for “concert staging” treatment, after its success with Wagner in recent years. This performance at Royal Festival Hall was the finale of a tour that has already stopped off at concert halls across the north and midlands. Directed by PJ Harris, the opera’s dark doings in Genoa played out across the three “rooms” of a subtly lit metal frame stretching across the front of the stage, with marble columns, plinths and benches for a touch of civic pomp and banners for rival political factions hanging overhead. In a gesture Basevi would presumably have appreciated, characters wore election-style rosettes to show which side they were on. The 25 years that elapse between the opera’s lengthy prologue and its first act saw one character’s parka switched for a different vintage anorak and Simon Boccanegra’s sailor peacoat swapped for a political leader’s shirt and tie. But we were otherwise rooted in a historical no man’s land of ill-fitting suits.
Some principals inevitably fared better in this bare-bones set-up than others and the opera’s tell-don’t-show approach demands real singing actors even in a full staging. Alongside energetic vocal performances from baritones Mandla Mndebele and Opera North stalwart Richard Mosley Evans as the tireless plotters Paolo Albiani and Pietro and Andrés Presno’s hefty, heartfelt tenor contributions as political rebel turned romantic Gabriele Adorno, the scenes between Roland Wood’s sensitive Boccanegra and his long-lost daughter Maria (Sara Cortolezzis, in a promising Opera North debut) stood out as compelling and poignant. They were amply supported by the other stars of this show: Opera North’s excellent chorus – which poured down the aisles of the auditorium for an inspired, immersive take on the ever-powerful council chamber scene – and, above all, the orchestra. Onstage throughout with principal guest conductor Antony Hermus, the musicians served up a vivid and intensely committed performance, the strings a gripping, vital dramatic motor.
