A question of tastelessness: Les Vêpres siciliennes at the ROH
Les Vêpres siciliennes
The Royal Opera
Royal Opera House
Stalls Circle D31, £12
17 October 2017
ROH page
Why is Vespers so much more of a tonal challenge than other similarly gruesome Verdi operas? Is it the length? Is it all the set pieces? Is it all the rape? It’s probably all the rape. Not deterred by such things, the Royal Opera decided to launch this opera on the 21st century, and they probably hoped a director of Stefan Herheim’s reputation would somehow be able to make sense of it all.
He has a good stab (ehhhh, like a certain Jean Procida, am I right?) and there are moments of his Vespers that reflect and enhance the music’s insanity to hysterical effect. The production’s absurdly complex metatheatricality does nothing to hinder a telling as clear as it could be of the interrelations of the characters, and at times seems even harmonious with the opera’s form-ridden nature. Herheim navigates the opera’s complex sense of space with ingenuity, if not always with taste. Philippe Fürhofer’s designs are suitably spectacular. And Verdi’s triumph in this opera, the great Act III duet between Henri and Montfort, is allowed to shine in all its glory.
And yet the ingenuity and the lavish expenditure are insufficient covering, in Herheim’s approach, for the opera’s craggy gnarls. There are some things even Erwin Schrott in a massive ball gown can’t save. Thus even while admiring the joint sensualism and intellectualism of Herheim’s approach, and the magnificent stage designs, and the singing, and being several times moved to tears by the music’s bizarreness and anguished energy, I was still on average more bored than I was moved, more annoyed than I was enraptured, more offended than I was sympathetic.
But while I might not like the opera as a whole, bits of it are extraordinary. Maurizio Bernini, who left me so dismayed with his Don Carlo, almost completely acquits himself with his fervent and roistering account. He’s aided in the effort by some extremely loud male singers. The opera becomes a jousting ground for Michael Volle as Montfort, Brian Hymel as Henri and Schrott as Procida, and as the bookies could have told you Schrott wins hands down. The other two fare better when they let the competition go, but each delivers a characteristic performance, Volle leonine and a bit unwieldy, Hymel heroic and pingy in the extreme. Marlin Byström as Hélène sang with her usual classy, covered sound, but was rarely audible above her belting co-stars.
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