BRYN Terfel had the delight of a lavish new production to make his role debut as Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger. Much acclaimed baritone Simon Keelyside had to make do with the season’s second fiddle piece, a revival of James Macdonald’s production of Verdi’s Rigoletto, for his debut as the hunchback court jester.
I doubt whether Keenlyside will care too much that Macdonald and designer Robert Innes Hopkins transposing of the story to JFK’s White House reduces the plot to near farce and weakens the pathos of the drama. With the excellent John Fisher at the helm of WNO it is singing that now matters and this shone through.
So while the opening night was marred by the lack of Gwyn Hughes Jones with cover Shaun Dixon ably if not spectacularly filling the gap. Rather than a dashing chauvinist womaniser (where Kennedy presumably came into Macdonald’s brain) he comes over as feckless. He manages La donna è mobile ably and there was no problem with his contribution to the magical Act Three quartet so the audience went home happy.
David Soar just gets better and better and here, in his last season under contract with WNO, he sings the contract assassin Sparafucile. This singer’s career will now blossom further here and across the opera houses. Welsh Mezzo-soprano Leah-Marian Jones sang Maddalena with aplomb.
Rigoletto’s daughter who is abducted and then raped by the Duke but who gives her life to save him from her father’s revenge is portrayed by Macdonald as a bobby sox wearing air head. But vocally Sarah Coburn’s coloratura singing is a delight. The famous "Caro nome” was gracious and moving.
I have been looking forward to Keenlyside’s Rigoletto since chatting with him two years ago when he judged the Welsh Singers Competition (this year’s competition is tonight at St David’s Hall). And while I would prefer to see him in a different production –where he does not fiddle with leg strappings - this was a well crafted performance. The despair was there at the end of the evening but some of the contrast between buffoon and tormented soul was lacking.
The orchestra was in the hands of a young conductor Pablo Heras-Casado and there was no harm in that.
Further performances Wales Millennium Centre, June 28 and July 2
Welsh Singers Competition, tonight, St David’s Hall, Cardiff
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