Realism Masked In Verdi Libretto

The Age

Friday April 18, 2008

John Slavin, Reviewer

UN BALLO IN MASCHERA

By Giuseppe Verdi. Opera Australia, State Theatre, April 16 until May 10. Running time: 170 minutes www.opera-australia.org.au

THE original story from which Verdi drew his libretto was about the assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden who was a homosexual, murdered by a religious fanatic. But Verdi ran into censorship problems and so placed his noble ruler in Boston as the governor of the British colony there. In this production, director John Cox has reverted to the composer's original intention. All mention of a gay monarch was dropped from the final version although here Gustav (Julian Gavin) seems attracted to a golden throne with large griffin wings sprouting from its backrest, evocative of that other gay monarch Ludwig II of Bavaria.

This is an old-fashioned production. John Gunter's sets are simple and effective, supporting the portrait of an 18th-century liberal monarchy. Although in love with Amelia (Nicole Youl), the wife of his secretary of state Anckarstroem (Michael Lewis), Gustav renounces licentiousness yet in spite of this enlightened rationality the dark side of belief, represented by the fortune teller Ulrica (the magisterial Milijana Nikolic), seeps into human affairs.

Is there anything going on here beside 19th-century melodrama? Verdi is mining his obsession with fate and free will but the production is wooden in its stage formalities and the large chorus seems under-rehearsed in the climactic masked ball.

The quality of the singing, however, saves the evening from ennui. Gavin is an attractive mixture of dramatic tenor with a ringing lyrical register. Youl sings accurately but shrieks her top notes. In the big love duet played out beneath two corpses on a gibbet, Gavin lifts her dramatic attack and it is one of the finest moments in the opera.

Amelia Farrugia sings the curious Cherubino-like role of Oscar with her characteristic vocal elan, while Lewis as the cuckolded husband does another lip-curling man of passion, although his voice falters in the vendetta aria of Act 3.

Verdi's musical gift for memorable changes of mood and style is vividly displayed by conductor Andrea Licata and Orchestra Victoria but the production finally didn't move me. It is like watching a master lepidopterist pinning down butterflies.

© 2008 The Age

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