The Force of Destiny

Fancy staging a new production of a classic and setting it in the period which it is written. It’s almost revolutionary in Australian theatreat the moment, where transplanting the time and context of a text isnow de rigueur.

And yet here was a production faithfully set in 19thCentury Europe, as written, that was every bit as fresh and shocking as one would wish from a contemporary performance. In this case as fresh as a wound which will not heal.

The Director Tama Matheson noted in the program, ‘The Opera is pervaded with deep, troubling and ineluctable doom. Its claws close over us from the opening bars and don’t release us until the end.’

The misery starts when the young lovers, Leonora and Don Alvaro, accidentally kill one of their parents. They flee to monasteries and the battlefield.

They spend the rest of the four hours feeling very sorry for themselvesin aria after aria. It could be a recipe for the audience also feeling very sorry for themselves.

But on the contrary, the production standard and singing were of such a high quality, that it made the opera soar high above the gloom of the subject matter.

The theme of the set was skulls, whether they be stacked high on a full stage backdrop or a giant size prop which you needed to climb stairs to reach its top.

Against the macabre, designer Mark Thompson created a delectable dress worn by Leonora in the first act. It peeled like an onion, each layer was more and more amusing.

Musically it was as close to faultless as you could wish. The orchestra and chorus were as tight as a drum which they mimicked with military precision, never missing a beat even when the Director made them go up and down perhaps once or twice too many times.

The star principals from overseas never disappointed. Svetla Vassileva as Leonora, and Riccardo Massi as Don Alvaro were each as spectacular as each other.  

Aided by the charming Rinat Shaham as the fortune teller Preziosilla and Australia’s own charismatic Jonathan Summers as the vengeful brother Don Carlo di Vargas, it was a first class night at the opera.

David Spicer

Images: Svetla Vassileva as Leonora and Svetla Vassileva as Leonora & Riccardo Massi as Don Alvaro. Photographer: Prudence Upton.

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