Sonya Yoncheva, Fedora; Piotr Beczała, Count Loris; Rosa Feola, Countess Olga; Lucas Meachem, De Siriex. Conductor, Marco Armiliato; Director, David McVicar; Set Designer, Charles Edwards; Costume Designer, Brigitte Reiffenstuel; Lighting Designer, Adam Silverman.
Rather to my surprise, I enjoyed this more than I was expecting. The reviews I saw were for the most part tepid about the work , and there are indeed some oddities – the aria about the bicycle, for instance. The plot is confused – it’s never quite clear what the motivation is for Fedora getting together with Loris in Paris. She could have shopped him to the police at any time for her husband-to-be’s murder, and with the St Petersburg police chief wanting to avenge the death of his son there’d be enough of a case against Loris not to worry about a confession. Anyway – to use an annoying phrase – it is what it is, and the cast gave ‘it’ to us at full throttle.
There are enough big tunes to make it musically interesting, as well as the famous if brief tenor aria that Jonas Kaufmann had sung at the Berlin Phil New Year’s Eve concert 2 weeks ago (“Amor ti vieta”). Some of the musical doodling at the less inspired moments could have got moved on faster by the conductor, but on the whole Marco Armiliato got the orchestra playing with passion and accuracy, sweeping the singers up in the orchestral surges and climaxes.
Sony Yoncheva was the reason for this new production. The role is a very demanding one – quite a lot of low notes and phrases for a big soprano role and at the same time a lot of singing at the top of the range and Yoncheva was brilliant in tackling the demands of the role, bashing out the top C’s. Maybe there was quite a lot of vibrato at points but this didn’t bother me though it might others. She acted well enough too, particularly demanding and important since this was being filmed. If I were to have any criticism it would be that there wasn’t much variation of tone – but, on the other hand, it is such a gutsy powerful role – subtlety isn’t needed. Similarly, Piotr Beczała gave his all and seemed in very good voice. He’s more of a stolid actor than Yoncheva but he gave an absorbing performance. Rosa Feola made as much as she could of the Musetta-like Countess Olga. .
The set and direction were certainly not likely to get in the way of appreciating the work regie-theater style. Arguably they didn’t illuminate the work particularly but it would be very difficult to do anything very different from what McVicar and Edwards provided, apart from providing less over-the-top sets and costumes. McVicar talked during the interval about what it must have felt like to be present at the first performance – modern clothes, new inventions, current political issues (Russian anarchists). But to try to mimic that sense of shock – modern clothes, an Extinction Rebellion protest that goes wrong – would just be daft…The directorial innovation was to have the ghost of Fedora’s husband to be appear at intervals but that confused things at one appearance – why was Fedora dancing with someone she’d just learned to be unpleasant and mercenary?
Probably I will probably never see the work again in my lifetime but it was a good evening out
John's musical journey 