By David Rubin
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Rubin.html

Don Carlo, Verdi’s sprawling historical drama of doomed love, colonial tyranny, and church-state relations during the Inquisition, based on a poem by Schiller, has been a pivotal opera in the history of the Met over the last 60 years.

A new production in 1950 opened the first season in the tenure of Rudolf Bing, who was to run the house for the next 22 years.

When James Levine conduced a new John Dexter production in 1979 it confirmed his arrival as the Met’s music director of the future. He has owned this opera at the Met, coveting it as his personal property and delivering many memorable performances in frequent revivals.

Now the Met has a new and gripping production from English director Nicholas Hytner, making his overdue Met debut. In the pit is the tyro Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the French Canadian who has been tapped to take over the Philadelphia Orchestra. His conducting was so natural, exciting and supportive of the singers that, blindfolded, one would have thought Levine was still in the pit. No praise can be higher in this opera.

Where the old Dexter/David Reppa production was realistic and sumptuous, this Hytner production, with sets and costumes by Bob Crowley and lighting by Mark Henderson (also in their Met debuts), is more subdued. It relies heavily on filtered lighting and a black and red color scheme that represents the darkness at the heart of Spain under Philip II and the blood of the Inquisition.

Hytner demonstrates in the opening scene in the Fontainebleau Forest that he has caught the essence of this grim masterpiece. A jagged black path in the woods divides the stage into two sections of snowy ground, surrounded by trees that have shed their leaves. The jagged path that splits the stage space underlines that this is an opera about serious divisions.

The first begins with Carlo, who believes he is to be married to the French Princess Elizabeth to cement peace between France and Spain. To his shock, and hers, Carlo learns in this first scene (the only one with even 30 minutes of happy music) that he has lost Elizabeth to his father Philip. King Henry of France, Elizabeth’s father, has decided to give her to Philip, not Carlo. This royal separation eventually drives Carlo mad and leads to his revolt against his father and, in the final scene, his death.

Philip is divided from his people who hate his harsh rule, particularly his brutal treatment of the Flemish. So unpopular is he that when his son draws a sword against him, no one will come to his aid except his one friend at Court, Rodrigo, the Marquis of Posa.

Philip is divided from his wife Elizabeth. He correctly observes this in his great aria "She never loved me," and indeed she didn’t. She loved his son, and Philip should have left well enough alone and let them marry.

Philip is divided from Rodrigo over the fate of the Flemish people. Philip sees them as revolutionaries, while Rodrigo sees them as helpless victims of Spain’s colonial tyranny.

Philip is also divided from the Church and its Grand Inquisitor, who does not believe that the King understands the danger posed to the Inquisition by Rodrigo. In demonstrating the power of the Church over the State, the Grand Inquisitor has Rodrigo assassinated.

While the rest of the stage settings do not attain the logic and beauty of the Fontainbleau scene, Hytner offers a St. Yuste monastery in Scene Two that is smoky and spooky, with pale light filtering through dozens of small square windows. One can easily believe that the ghost of Philip’s father, Charles V, who is buried there, does indeed haunt the place, as everyone seems to think. The St. Yuste setting returns at the end of the opera when Carlo and Elizabeth say their final goodbyes, and Carlo is murdered.

Elsewhere Hytner seems intentionally to reject portraying the bright Spanish sun or the green poplar trees that were a part of the Dexter/Reppa production (and that are in the libretto). His view is dark throughout. One always leaves a good performance of Don Carlo wrung out. It is, after all, four and a half hours of forbidden love, treachery, burnings, and murder. This production is especially brutal, but rightly so.

The Met has always cast this opera from strength. The six leads demand it, or the opera is not worth staging. Bing’s production offered, among others, Jussi Bjorling at Don Carlo, Cesare Siepi as King Philip, Robert Merrill as Rodrigo, and Fedora Barbieri as the Princess Eboli, mistress to the King and rival to Elizabeth.

For the premier of the Dexter production in 1979 Levine assembled Renata Scotto (one of his favorites) as Elizabeth, Sherrill Milnes as Rodrigo, Marilyn Horne as Eboli, and Nicolai Ghiaurov as the King. Not bad!

Cast members on December 11 proudly held their own in comparison to these past stars.

The greatest ovation went to tenor Roberto Alagna, as Carlo. He was in full command of his lyric voice from top to bottom. He sang confidently. He has an Italianate throb, an almost-ringing top, and a lovely soft voice. Carlo however is a crazed character, and Alagna is too much a doughy, open-faced bumpkin to look crazed or frightening. As an actor he lacks the intensity that Neil Shicoff brought to the part in the 1980s, but I wouldn’t trade Alagna’s singing for Shicoff’s acting.

Marina Poplavskaya, the Elizabeth, has a face that belongs in an Old Master painting. She looked regal and edgy. The close-ups for the HD Simulcast exaggerated her sturdy jaw bone, making her resemble a blond Joan Sutherland. Her voice has plenty of heft for the part. It doesn‘t have much velvet, but it’s accurate and pleasant. As an actress she was believable as the Queen, trapped in a loveless marriage but unable to acknowledge her love for Carlo, her "son."

The veteran bass Ferruccio Furlanetto, who made his debut at the Met in 1980 as the Grand Inquisitor in this opera, was a frightening but vulnerable King. He delivered "She never loved me" with pathos. His face-off with the Grand Inquisitor in which they duel over the primacy of church or state was hair-raising. (Is there a more galvanizing entry in all opera than the one Verdi provides to the Grand Inquisitor when he is led in to meet the King, accompanied by double bassoons, double basses and brass?) As the Grand Inquisitor, bass Eric Halfvarson, blind, gnomish, and terrifying, more than held his own in his encounter with the King.

The English baritone Simon Keenlyside offered a more devious and manipulative Rodrigo than is often encountered. Indeed, he is a Iago-like character, although no villain. It is clear in this production that Rodrigo is using Carlo to free the Flemish people. Keenlyside’s voice is not as large as that of Sherrill Milnes or as black as that of Eberhard Wachter. But it is accurate and fully up to the demands of the part. One felt he was always in full control.

That leaves the Eboli of Anna Smirnova, in her Met debut. She was the one weak link. Smirnova does not have the physical appearance for the beauty Eboli, mistress to the King. The close-ups in the HD Simulcast were not kind to her figure. She is not much of an actress. The voice is plummy and Slavic. The Veil Song in Scene 3 went for little. She did better with O Don Fatale, hurling out the notes and making clear her remorse for the problems she caused Elizabeth. But with all the American and Italian mezzo-sopranos on the scene today who are more camera-friendly, this must count as a casting miscalculation by Peter Gelb.

Eboli aside, Hytner and Nézet-Séguin provided a completely satisfying realization of Verdi’s most Wagnerian opera. This is a production that should last the next 30 years. For those who have never seen Don Carlo (and many in the Syracuse, New York audience with me had not) and who think Verdi means only Traviata and Aida, this production will be a revelation.

Details Box

What: Verdi’s Don Carlo, Simulcast Live in HD
When: December 11, 2010
Who: Metropolitan Opera
Time: Approximately 4 hours and 30 minutes
Where: Metropolitan Opera House, New York
Cast: Roberto Alagna, Marina Poplavskaya, Simon Keenlyside, Anna Smirnova, Ferruccio Furlanetto, Eric Halfvarson, Mark Henderson
Next simulcast: La Fanciulla del West, January 8, 2011 at 1:00 pm ET