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player ready...Some things are worth the wait. Count Lyric Opera’s “Don Carlos” among them.
Wednesday night marked the first time in the company’s nearly 70-year history that Lyric Opera presented not the Italian “Don Carlo,” as Giuseppe Verdi’s midcareer opera is often performed, but “Don Carlos” in French, the language in which it was originally written. This month’s performances fulfill a tenure-long pipe dream of Lyric general director Anthony Freud and coincides with the podium reign of Enrique Mazzola, Lyric’s music director and a dyed-in-the-wool Verdian.
The delay feels somewhat preordained. After all, “Don Carlos,” and the 1787 Friedrich Schiller play upon which it’s largely based, is all about self-denial. Its princely protagonist (tenor Joshua Guerrero, in a role debut) learns the hard way that no, he actually can’t throw his life away for the woman he loves (soprano Rachel Willis-Sorensen as Elisabeth, also a role debut) — especially not when that woman is your stepmom. In true tragic fashion, by the time Carlos takes that lesson to heart, it’s too late.
First, some housekeeping, much of which might be house-cluttering. Though technically a company premiere, musically, the French “Don Carlos” is the same Italian “Don Carlo” opera buffs know and love — just set to the language Verdi and librettists Joseph Méry and Camille du Locle originally intended.
The question, then, is exactly how much of Verdi’s music we hear. In all, the composer left behind several four- and five-act versions of the opera, all of which were more widely embraced in Italian translation. Some companies have historically gravitated toward one version over the other. Lyric, for example, long favored a four-act Italian version, last heard here in 1996, while the Metropolitan Opera swore by a five-act version, restoring — as do these performances — the first act setting up Carlos and Elisabeth’s love affair.
Lyric also marched to its own drumbeat when mounting this French “Don Carlos.” The Met’s “Don Carlos,” making a company premiere there earlier this year, differed significantly from Lyric’s: It worked from the same 1884 French version but restored some parts of the original 1867 production. In comparison, Lyric’s production is more faithful to that last “official” French version, as Verdi conceived it — in other words, without cherry-picked insertions.
In case you weren’t already lost: Sir David McVicar directed both these recent “Don Carloses,” but they are not the same production — Lyric’s originated at Oper Frankfurt in 2007.
Lyric’s revival of that dour McVicar production is directed with humanity and even the occasional warmth by Axel Weidauer, but he wasn’t exactly working with the most inspired packaging. Though not without its moments — black veils recur as a stirring, effective motif — this “Don Carlos” otherwise blots several squares on the McVicar/Lyric bingo card: a reliable if bland period setting, frivolous dramatic insertions (preceding the overture with a confusing flash forward, and giving Carlos an infant half-sibling, just ’cause), and symbolism about as subtle as a Looney Tunes anvil drop.
Set designer Robert Jones — whose blocky, unattractive white-brick set only budges marginally over the course of the production — is no help here. At one point, a 50-foot crucifix looms over the rear of the stage. Something tells me “Don Carlos,” set partly in a monastery and entirely during the Inquisition, needs no such assist.
Thank goodness for Brigitte Reiffenstuel’s costumes, always tasteful but plainly stunning in Act III, when Elisabeth and Philippe appear dressed resplendently before the public for an auto-da-fé.
If patience was the crowning virtue in bringing a French “Don Carlos” to Lyric, it certainly was during Wednesday’s premiere performance, as well. Musical elements only bloomed as the opera went on, particularly Guerrero in the title role.
Carlos is a complex, Hamlet-esque character. By design, Guerrero isn’t the scene-stealing firebrand here that he was in last season’s “Macbeth.” Even when his voice wasn’t the biggest onstage, Guerrero’s tenor bent but never broke, always snatchable over the orchestra and chorus.
Sometimes his vocal delivery — plangent, with a tight, feverish vibrato — could be consistent to the point of redundancy. But when it comes to pairing a talented young singer with a career-defining role, Carlos’s shoes fit Guerrero just fine. Now, to break them in.
Willis-Sorensen hit the ground running with her first Elisabeth. That role doesn’t traffic in vocal pyrotechnics, instead requiring the soprano to stoke a four-hour-long fire. Willis-Sorensen did so masterfully, her voice brilliant, flexible and engrossing throughout. On Wednesday, she was the whole musical and dramatic package, playing an Elisabeth so believable that it was hard to believe her story didn’t continue past Willis-Sorensen’s final, grief-stricken high B.
Clémentine Margaine is also a multilayered, sympathetic Eboli, a lady in Philippe’s court who has long had romantic designs on Carlos. Her agile mezzo made show-stoppers of both Eboli’s calling-card arias (Act II’s “Dans le beau jardin du palais sarrasin” and Act IV’s “Ah, je ne verrai plus la Reine”).
Of the principals, bass Dmitry Belosselskiy, as Carlos’s father King Philippe II, came off the most vocally stolid. For the most part, that suits the cipherlike role just fine — Philippe is his son’s antithesis, averse to emotional outbursts or anything that would dint his authoritative veneer. But that can all drop away in his Act IV aria (“Elle ne m’aime pas”), one of the opera’s most moving, in which Philippe reveals that he is as brittle and insecure as the rest of us. Belosselskiy sang the showstopping moment richly but at something of an emotional remove.
Though admittedly an unfair comparison, in scenes in which they shared the stage, Soloman Howard brought more vocal and dramatic command to his less-involved bass role as the Inquisitor, singing with a blazing wide-set vibrato and impassioned delivery.
Even had he not been singing alongside such primo operatic talent, this “Don Carlos” is worth hearing for Igor Golovatenko alone, as Carlos’s best friend Rodrigue. The Russian baritone first made a splash in the role at the Vienna State Opera, singing opposite Jonas Kaufmann as Carlos. Then as now, Golovatenko’s baritone balances both tenderness and effortless power, Rodrigue’s lyric lines seeming to pour directly from the heart. And despite having more baseline vocal heft than Guerrero, Golovatenko blended beautifully with his colleague in Carlos and Rodrigue’s famous Act II duet (“Dieu, tu semas dans nos âmes”).
All in all, it was a charmed night for Lyric debuts. Bass Peixin Chen was an elemental, magnetic presence as the Monk (who may or may not be Carlos’s grandfather in disguise — let’s leave that for another column). Then, first-year Ryan Center baritone Laureano Quant, as the Count of Lerma, managed to radiate plushness, warmth and dependability even in a bit part.
The one overall casting whiff was Ryan Opera soprano Denis Vélez as Thibault, her voice and presence lacking the necessary confidence for a character that’s already little more than a dramatic afterthought.
At the other end of the spectrum, Lyric’s “Don Carlos” is also a gleaming showcase for those regulars of regulars, the Lyric Opera orchestra and chorus. The chorus — prepared, as usual, by Michael Black — sounded especially arresting in this repertoire, never more so than in the Act II treble chorus and the heart-hammering auto-da-fé.
From the pit, Mazzola embraced Verdi’s luxuriant orchestration without luxuriating. Thanks to his expert pacing, four hours of dense royal intrigue practically winged by.
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Long live “Don Carlos” — and don’t hold that S.
Hannah Edgar is a freelance writer.
The Rubin Institute for Music Criticism helps fund our classical music coverage. The baiduhai maintains editorial control over assignments and content.
Review: “Don Carlos? (3 stars)
When: Through Nov. 25
Where: Lyric Opera of Chicago, 20 N. Wacker Drive
Running time: 3 hours, 50 minutes
Tickets: $50-$330 at 312-827-5600 and lyricopera.org
