Mark Elder turns ‘Luisa Miller’ into a Verdian event at Les Arts | Culture

In the epilogue of his book Verdi, the Italian (2012), Riccardo Muti reflects on the operas of the Busseto composer that he would have liked to incorporate into his repertoire. The most prestigious living interpreter of the Italian operatic, now 84 years old, then expressed his desire to direct early titles such as Aroldo, Alzira, The battle of Legnano o The corsair. However, there is a later work that has always resisted him: Luisa Miller. “I find it very uneven; it has extraordinary, wonderful and fantastic moments, but also others that are quite boring, and it is the only opera that I don’t know if I will ever direct,” he confessed.

Very different is the perception of another great current specialist in Verdi, the British Mark Elder, who acknowledged to EL PAÍS a few days ago that, when he was offered his debut as chief musical director at Les Arts with Luisa Miller“I couldn’t believe my luck.” At 78 years old, Elder highlights the challenge posed by this 1849 title, a transition between the bel canto approaches of the first Verdian operas and the modern drama of the popular trilogy —Rigoletto, The troubadour y The wayward one—, a challenge that has been demonstrated since last December 10 in the theater pit designed by Santiago Calatrava, chaining memorable performances like the one last Saturday the 20th.

Elder performs with Luisa Miller exactly the same operation as in his already referential recording for Opera Rara of the original version of Simon Boccanegra: convert the magnificent Verdian orchestration into the authentic dramatic support of the work. This is already perceived from the opening symphony, a masterful monothematic sonata movement, of Germanic ambition and far removed from the usual Italian medley. The British conductor made it emerge from the dense strings of the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana in an authentic pianissimo, with the added coloration of the first violins playing on the fourth string, before underlining the contrast with the fortissimo and giving way to the exquisite intervention of the English clarinetist James Gilbert, guest soloist in the Les Arts orchestra.

At the beginning of the opera, with that unmistakable Bellinian air, everything flows flexibly: the strings, the woodwind and brass solos, and also the chorus. Elder was an admirable supporter of the voices, always through simple and precise gestures that translated into exact outbursts of an ideally balanced orchestra. He shone especially in the ensembles, as in the climatic finale of the first act. After the break, he managed to give full stylistic coherence to the transition from the second act to the third, where Verdi’s evolution towards the dramatic tincture of Troubadour and the intimacy of Traviata. And he turned the long final number—both the duet between Luisa and Rodolfo and the trio with Miller— Father! Receive the extreme… goodbye!— in the most emotional moment of the evening.

The opera culminates with that ending in which children from different social strata rebel against their parents and die of poisoning because they cannot experience their love. A plot that Salvatore Cammarano freely adapted from the drama Intrigue and love by Friedrich Schiller, set in Tyrol at the beginning of the 17th century. The peasant Luisa falls in love with Rodolfo, son of the Count of Walter; Although he reciprocates, he must marry Federica, a widowed duchess. Miller, Luisa’s father, confronts the count and is imprisoned, forcing his daughter to renounce her love to save him from death. An intrigue articulated around a letter culminates with Rodolfo pouring poison into a cup that he shares with Luisa.

For this new production of Luisa Millerwhich Les Arts premieres in co-production with the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, stage director Valentina Carrasco transfers the action to a doll factory at the beginning of the 20th century. The proposal works with notable effectiveness until the third act. Carles Berga’s set design unifies this bourgeois and industrial environment by placing Count Walter on the upper floor as director of the factory and Miller on the lower floor as a simple worker. Added to this is the lighting by Antonio Castro and the costumes by Luciana Gutman, which affects the physical model that the dolls represent within an oppressive society dominated by paternal authority.

The direction of actors stands out, with interesting dramatic evolutions of some characters, especially the two protagonists, Luisa and Rodolfo. The dynamism of the factory guarantees an effective stage movement, with brilliant flashes like the quartet in the second act Introduce yourself to the Duchesswhose final a cappella section shows Walter, Wurm, and Federica manipulating Luisa as if she were a doll. However, everything drifts towards symbolism in the final act, with a stage populated by ill-fated dolls-children, to which is added the feminist gesture that Luisa does not die, but her doll.

The vocal cast was notable, although without outstanding flashes. The soprano Mariangela Sicilia, who replaced the initially planned Federica Lombardi, offered a solid and coherent Luisa in her vocal evolution towards the dramatic. The Italian singer successfully solved the coloraturas of the bel canto cavatina I saw it, it’s the first heartbeatalthough he stood out especially in the second act scene, with powerful highs and exquisite mid-voices in the cabaletta By songs, by songs, or perfidious.

Tenor Freddie De Tommaso showed greater inclination towards nuance and the construction of a dramatic progression in his Rodolfo. The Anglo-Italian stood out for his good legato and for some luminous treble in the famous aria When the evenings are peacefulthe most applauded thing of the night. However, he chose to emulate a verista vocality from the beginning of the 20th century, with slight sobs in the high notes, completely foreign to the Verdian style.

Germán Enrique Alcántara’s Miller was one of the great successes of the cast. This outstanding Argentine baritone, also the protagonist of the aforementioned Elder recording of Simon Boccanegrahas a lyrical voice endowed with the dramatic punch necessary for a great Verdian, as he demonstrated in his cabaletta from the first act Ah! my suspicion was right!.

Not far behind were the Italian bass-baritone Alex Esposito, as a solid and intense Walter, nor his compatriot, the bass Gianluca Buratto, who embodied an ideally perverse Wurm thanks to his cavernous timbre. Both shined in their somber and tense second act duet, The high heritage I have not longed for.

Among the secondary characters, the mezzo-soprano Russian Maria Barakova brought an aristocratic poise to Federica; The freshness of Lora Grigorieva, from the Center de Perfectionament, as Laura, and the Peasant played by Antonio Lozano, member of the brilliant Cor de la Generalitat Valenciana, also stood out.