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Giuseppe Verdi: I Due Foscari, La Scala, Milan, 12 March 2016

Tim Wickens



I confess to a certain tingling with anticipation at the prospect of going to see Placido Domingo perform at La Scala in Verdi's "I due Foscari", notwithstanding it is in the 75 year old's reinvented guise as a baritone. He plays the octogenarian doge, Foscari the Elder, who is forced to uphold the Council of Ten's banishment of his son, Jacopo (Francesco Meli) , as personal feelings are subordinated to a sense of duty and impartial justice. As a result, his daughter in law's (sung by Anna Pirozzi) entreaties are ignored, and by the time it becomes clear that his son was indeed innocent of the crime with which he was charged it is too late as he has died having been forced in to exile without his family. The doge's reward for refusing to speak on his son's behalf  is to be forced from office by his political rivals, and this (or the the sense of a fathers -as opposed to a doge's- grief), kills him.
Alvis Hermanis' production benefits from 3 strong performers in the lead roles, with no one of the  three shining more than the others. As one would expect, Domingo has great stage presence (right from the opening scene when he is beside the statue of Venice's winged lion), and his gestures are charged with great feeling. However, Pirozzi (who only took up opera singing at 25, and has 'broken through' over the last couple of years was excellent as Lucrezia and had a lovely voice; I  also  particularly enjoyed Meli 's opening aria when he is musing about the things which Venice mean to him. The fact that is a difficult work in which to display a range of emotion, being 3 acts of unrelenting sorrow and injustice, is not the fault of the performers.

I liked the setting- costumes were 15th century, and liberal use was made of superimposed images of the Rialto Bridge, the Doges Palace  and contemporary prints of Venice. Less effective (for me) were Francesco Hayez's 19th century renditions of scenes from Byron's play (on which Verdi based his opera).  One effect I particularly enjoyed was the choreography of the gondoliers, whose stylised movements across the stage were most evocative. Much use was also made of the winged lion imagery- but this was far from all the same. When Jacopo gazes at the lion and sees the ghost of an old adversary, it is a lion with prominent teeth, a detail other carvings lacked. The Council of 10 were represented by masked characters (I think this is simply artistic licence?) but was initially disconcerting in that on their first appearance they were cavorting around the lion statues and I thought they were simply naughty children. (It has to be said, the Venetian ruling classes do not come out of the opera well, so you can understand why Verdi had the first performance in Rome rather than Venice ) .

Musically the production was strong, and  the chorus (representing the Venetian state) particularly so. Some of the most memorable parts were the 3 main characters singing on stage at the same time (four at the end, when Foscari's nemesis joins in triumphantly) Whether the cast warranted quite the number of curtain calls which they received is a moot  point; whilst undoubtedly good, I suspect it was perhaps more to do with a La Scala audience enjoying an old friend.

This was a well executed production, with a good set, cast and orchestra. However, I cannot get away from the fact that I find the work very one dimensional, with nothing remotely uplifting about it : whilst pleased to have seen this production, there are many many works which I have enjoyed more.


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