Simon Boccanegra

So where do you start with a convoluted, inexplicable plot like this one?

Perhaps with the singing, which is sublime - even if the often wooden acting offers little help in sorting out the story. Verdi himself had two goes at this medieval tale set in the politically fractious court of a Doge of Genoa.  

For this Opera Australia production in 2000, director Moffatt Oxenbould set it at the time of Verdi’s second attempt, in 1881, to underline the composer’s intention to remind his Italian audience of the worth of their newly reunified nation. 

Oxenbould also resorts to a reframing by showing us a seaside community initially gathering to re-enact this ancient story, like some traditional celebration or warning on the perils of disunity.  One hopes they got more out of that than we did!

Peter England’s set is both palatial and natural, even mystical, with its rough tiled circle, sweeping staircase and splayed columns, before a huge window to the sky, both ancient and space age. This old and new duality also colours Russell Cohen’s rich long coats and costumes. 

With conductor Renato Palumbo, Matthew Barclay directs this revival with an impressive mostly international cast of leads and a large OA chorus. 

Romanian George Petean stars convincingly as Simon Boccanegra, a sea captain who somehow looses both his sweetheart and their daughter just as he’s swept to power as the hero of the Plebeian faction.  Decades later he finds Emilia, sung beautifully by Natalie Aroyan but with a characterisation little clearer than her lost origins.  Bass Giacomo Prestia rumbles magnificently as her lost grandfather, Simon’s great enemy, but, again, plays little more than three hand gestures.   Diego Torre as the lover Gabriele is heavy and diminutive but his tenor voice cuts through all before it.

Verdi’s superbly nuanced score sweeps to the most arresting dramatic moments, especially with Torre, and Barclay directs with good crowd control.  It’s not however matched by a  capacity to more intimately move his singers dramatically.  We were spoilt here by the award-wining hand of director David McVicar in his new Cosi fan tutte the week before.

Martin Portus

Images: Lightbox Photography