Opera review – Francesco Cilea’s ‘Adriana Lecouvreur’ is an unexpected jewel
Adriana Lecouvreur is an opera sneered at by cognoscenti. It’s by Italian composer Francesco Cilea, 1866 – 1950, who “composed some decent piano music which is little known”, according to one sniffy commentator. First performed in Milan in 1902, Enrico Caruso starred in the role of hero/rotten scoundrel Maurizio – really a Count.
Despite frequently being dismissed elsewhere as mediocre it’s last performance during the current revival was the Met’s 81st – this time in a Sir David McVicar tour de force, co-produced with London’s Covent Garden. The Met has been loyal to Cilea down the years. Rightly.
Francesco Cilea abandoned his operatic career in 1907 when “Gloria”, conducted at La Scala, Milan by Arturo Toscanini was booed off after two performances. The rejection hit hard and Signor Cilea thereafter devoted himself to teaching and occasional composition.
I don’t care if Signor Cilea didn’t compose much. I’m glad he composed Lecouvreur and wish he had composed more. He and his librettist, Arturo Colautti 1851 – 1914, created a work of swooping melodies – some memorable, needle sharp dialogue and a whirling storyline based on historical fact that, with its sumptuous McVicar production, easily holds its own with the usual 19th century indefatigables populating the regular repertoire.
Arturo Colautti was a piece of work. He was foremost a campaigning journalist; a “Dalmatian irredentist” – claiming Dalmatia for Italy, in the midst of the nationalistic furore kicked up by Garibaldi. In his Andrea Lecouvreur libretto he draws on all his journalistic skills. There are no repeats, every phrase moving the action on, or adding new colour. Sometimes in arias he is quite the poet.
I won’t précis the entire plot. I can’t. A précis would take until Brexit is done and dusted, even with an Article 50 extension. Complex? Whew! I was hanging on by my fingernails. Let’s just say lots happens and not all of it’s obvious while it’s happening. So, essentials only.
Many turn of the 19th century operas are pure fiction and carry plot beyond the boundary of disbelief. Adriana Lecouvreur is reality-based and the plot almost understates the bizarre life stories of the main characters.
Here goes on the history and plot essentials. This is Paris 1730, high Rococo, which Sir David captures perfectly. Settings are; backstage Comédie Francaise; the villa of Madame Duclos, an actress in bitchy competition with the great Adriana Lecouvreur; the palace of the Prince de Bouillon, married to a villainous Princess; finally, Adriana’s “solitary retreat” – looked pretty classy and unsolitary to me – in the last scene.
Sir David has set the production in period, no surprising modernist twists, a whiff of decadence ascending from every candle flame, of which there are many, in teetering candelabra and wall sconces.
Adriana was the great actress of the age, her unique selling proposition being delivering her lines with a directness at the audience, never attempted before. Adieu, simpering behind fluttering fans. She was in love with the illegitimate son of the Duke of Saxony, in the opera – just to complicate things – Maurizio, passing himself off as a soldier in his real persona’s army. Spoiler alert. He’s really the Count of Saxony, a military hero and in search of a throne.
Adriana had a real life compétitrice for Mauritzio’s/the Count’s affections. In the opera it’s the Princess de Bouillon who lusts after him. Her husband – who doesn’t give a monkey’s about her infidelity – is enamored of Mme. Duclos, Adriana’s on stage competition. Still with me? Thought not. Pay attention at the back!
In fact, Adriana died in 1730, in mysterious circumstances never fully explained, foul play suspected. Sadly, Poirot had not yet been born. In the opera the Princess does away with Adriana by poisoning some violets the actress had given to Maurizio in the opening scenes, sending them back to Adriana in a box, implying Maurizio had finally rejected her.
The Princess had got hold of them nefariously. Her husband, the Prince, we are told in a micro second aside, is a dabbling, amateur chemist. And when, in the final Act, she returns them – withered, and lethal remember – to Adriana there is almost an involuntary Glasgow pantomime shout from the audience – “Don’t sniff the violets, Adriana”! But, this is the Met, so no shouting. Adriana …… yes, you’ve got there before me. Sniff and snuff.
I’d taken the unusual precaution of printing off and reading the libretto beforehand. I’m usually more cavalier and a synopsis is good enough. The libretto is only 25 pages and I wondered afterwards why I don’t read them more often. After all, sitting through any opera in partial ignorance is daft.
No, hush there. It’s not nerdy. It’s obvious. You wouldn’t pick up a novel in Serbo-Croat and pretend to enjoy it. Would you? Um … if you actually speak Serbo-Croat, I suppose you might. I apologise unreservedly. “This is a cheap ethnic jibe from my past, which may have fitted the historic context of the era, but with which I am now ashamed to be associated in these more enlightened times. Notwithstanding, I see no reason to resign as Governor of ….. zzzzzz.” Anyway, the point is, why go to an opera and miss half the plot? Read the libretto.
Up to Scene VIII the action is driven along at lightning pace often by two-word, rapid-fire exchanges amongst at least six of the characters, mainly the Comédie Francaise actors joshing about. Blink – and you’re lost. May as well wait for the interval to catch up.
I was sure the Met Titles editor would be completely overwhelmed, but I was wrong. The supertitle whizz kids were well up to the job. The Met’s surtitles are actually screens in the back of the seats – 3,989 of the things, with a wiring loop long enough to encircle Manhattan. The system is trademarked “Met Titles”. Now you know. The auditorium is too large to accommodate readable, projected surtitles onto the proscenium without them becoming a dominating distraction, hence the screens.
It takes five editors to compose the displays. Boy, they earn their corn. In Act I those screens were flashing like strobes on an NYPD Cruiser. Amazingly, they captured most of the relevant dialogue. I found, buried away in page 26 of the Playbill, the names of the “Met Titles Supervisers”. Step forward Michael Panayos and Cecilia Sparacio – you deserve your own bow – Bravo! Without your attention to detail, this production would have been incomprehensible.
The performance I attended featured Cleveland, Ohio, soprano Jennifer Rowley, an alternate to the better-known Anna Netrebko, who fronted the production, as Adriana. Make no mistake, Ms. Rowley was no “second string”. She was as compelling an ambassador for the medium of opera as a sublime, immersive experience as I’ve seen.
This opera would not have “come off” had not all the principals been top rate – as actors as well as singers. Jennifer Rowley blew the place apart with a lustrous voice that seemed effortless. She filled the auditorium – and projected even whispers well. In so far as anyone can be convincingly poisoned by damned violets, she was. Her sensitive, calibrated descent to oblivion was touching.
Signor Cilea avoids the Puccini error of having tubercular heroines on their last legs unexpectedly revive for a final, belting aria. His Adriana simply slipped away.
Piotr Beczala, the Polish tenor, who played Maurizio/ Count of Saxony is often quoted, a bit weirdly, as owing all his success to his wife, Katarzyna. But, as she was not on stage as far as I could make out, I’m going to put it down to his effortlessly lyrical voice and expressive acting. Sorry, Katarzyna.
Maurizio Muraro is a rumbustious Italian bass. He played the Prince of Bouillon with a devil may care abandon that I have to suppose is typically Rococo. The Prince’s amorality came through strongly.
Anita Rachvelishvili is a Georgian mezzo soprano (mercifully not Serbo-Croat) who knew how to use that wonderful register to full intimidatory effect as Princess Bouillon. I shall be on guard for any unexpected Amazon delivery of violets from her.
Michonnet, the Comédie Française’s stage manager, is, despite being her senior by 20 plus years, secretly in love with Adriana. He assists her loyally and touchingly throughout her misadventures. Ambrogio Maestri, an Italian tenor, played him with pathos and avoided the risk of descending into pathetic mawkishness as his romantic hopes rise and fall throughout the action.
I have one gripe – apart from the annoying violets. There is an Abbé, essential to the plot; the Abbé of Chazeuil, played by Italian tenor, Carlo Bosi, sidekick to the Prince of Bouillon. He lurks in the background as the Prince’s enforcer. Clearly an actress groper, dissolute and bibulous, this Abbé is intended to represent everything Martin Luther had been banging on about two centuries earlier. But he didn’t look like an Abbé at all. He just looked like another well-padded courtier, dressed similarly to his Prince. How to know he was an Abbé?
In a previous production I’d seen him portrayed as a lecherous, tonsured twat in a brown cassock – which was a bit overdone. But, his religious persona is a plot-driver, framing the ambiguity of all the characters. Go on, buy him some kit from Duffy and Quinn, Ecclesiastical Outfitters, 247 West 37th Street. I see they have a Purple Silk Zucchetto, “Dita Annibale Gammarelli” no less, on clergy holiday offer for $79.95. Job done.
In the pit was Gianandrea Noseda, a renowned Italian conductor about to take up the post of music director of Zurich opera in 2020 -2021. He is a Met regular. Signor Cilea wrote Andrea Lecouvreur in the emerging seamless style of the time – vide Verdi’s “Otello” – and Maestro Noseda wrung every ounce of emotion from the score. Plangent. That’s the word I’m looking for.
Part of the fun of opera-going is to occasionally stumble across an unexpected jewel, especially a work like Adriana Lecouvreur, which is widely ignored. Of course it has some thematic flaws – those bloody violets for a start. But, well produced, performed by a top-notch cast and with a Maestro in total command of the score, Signor Cilea and Arturo Colautti deliver a riveting evening, up there with the well-loved, old familiars.