Luisa Miller – Verdi – English National Opera
Image taken from the English National Opera website
Verdi’s Luisa Miller opened in Naples at the end of 1849. It was his fifteenth opera and regarded as the beginning of his middle period. Based on Schiller’s play Intrigue and Love it never has had the popularity of some of Verdi’s other works and indeed its UK debut at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London was not until nearly 10 years after its premiere.
Despite this it is a work of real quality although not always easy to produce and indeed at ENO the Director Barbara Horakova seemed to make hard work of it. The Set Designer Andrew Lieberman gave us white walled sets, which get smeared throughout the evening with black paint. The clown dressed chorus are sinister, but not as bad as the handful of zombie dancers who appear as an extension of the evening’s Mr Nasty by the name of Wurm. Did they or the child ‘alter egos’ of the principals add much to the evening’s storyline? Debatable! Certainly the production of a near naked young boy delivered in a plastic sheet to the Count was alarming and disturbing in equal measures.
However, musically this was such a high quality evening, led by the outstanding Alexander Joel in the pit. The orchestra and chorus were on top form all night and the musical performance had real passion and bite from the very first overture.
There probably wasn’t a weak link in the cast. There was no sympathy for the ringing bass of James Creswell as Count Walter who was on excellent form, as was the tenor of his son Rodolfo sung by David Junghoon Kim. Wurm was a repulsive character with a silky bass voice – as indeed he should be! – sung by the American Soloman Howard. Christine Rice is an admirable Duchess. The baritone of Olafur Sigurdarson is a suitable Miller, even if the voice was occasionally somewhat worn. His daughter Luisa sung by Elizabeth Llewellyn – good to see her back at ENO – has a wonderfully flexible soprano voice, although her focus and dominance could occasionally be more empowering. Her friend Laura should have been sung by the ENO Harewood Artist Nadine Benjamin, but she was unwell and it was delightful to hear her understudy from the chorus Claire Pendleton sing the role.
Congratulations too to a solid and worthwhile English translation by ENO’s Head of Music Martin Fitzpatrick.
ENO deserves plaudits for choosing this work. Luisa Miller perhaps deserves a higher priority in opera scheduling and even if this production doesn’t quite cut the muster, musically this was a high quality evening.
