Review: Don Carlos at Newcastle Theatre Royal

Jun 12 2009 by Barbara Hodgson, The Journal

Don Carlos at Newcastle Theatre Royal

GETTING on for four hours of Verdi’s mature best in as engrossing a staging as Tim Albery’s is what a night at the opera is all about. A revival of Opera North’s 1993 production, this Don Carlos has stood the test of time.

Philip II of Spain has married the French princess Elisabeth de Valois, originally the intended of his son Carlos.

We’re in the period of the Spanish Inquisition and to be in love with your stepmother, the Queen of Spain, is treason and heresy.

It’s the sort of premise that Verdi’s imagination thrived upon: rigid morality meets messy reality.

It’s a weighty business, here carried through on Hildegard Bechtler’s comfortless set, severity built into the towering walls, the shadows lit by the bonfires on which heretics taste the first flames of eternity.

Opera North music director Richard Farnes and the orchestra add their own fire, somehow combining tumultuous climaxes and pin-sharp detail while simultaneously allowing through virtually every word of Andrew Porter’s admirably clear English translation.

It’s the dramatic language that counts for most, and in an opera prodigiously endowed with extended arias and ensembles, this cast excels.

Julian Gavin’s Don Carlos and William Dazely’s Rodrigo are compellingly characterised in both voice and action, Janice Watson gilds a passionate reading with superb refinement as Elisabeth while her nemesis Princess Eboli is darkly seditious of voice.

Bass Alastair Miles, as Philip, is rivalled in stage presence and splendour of tone by Clive Bailey’s menacing Grand Inquisitor, their Act Three duet a study in gripping intensity contrasting with the big set-piece scenes. The chorus is bolstered by two dozen extra voices for that classic Verdi wall of sound.

Don Carlos can be seen again tomorrow.

Thomas Hall