La Forza Del Destino ROH

Last night I saw the final performance given by Netrebko and Kauffman. As I mentioned earlier I saw both of them 11years ago in La Traviata which was just sensational, so because this was merely good I was quite disappointed! I had my doubts about Netrebko a few years ago when she was Mimi in La Boheme, but I was then very impressed by her Lady Macbeth last year. She really doesn't do more sympathetic characters like Mimi and Leonora that well. She's technically a superb singer, with a fabulous chest register and pinging high notes but she can't do vulnerability anymore and she's actually a quite boring singer with no feel for rubato and an inability to shape a musical line to make it come alive. Contrast that with Kauffman - he is a very musical singer who has much more feeling for a musical phrase but I now feel he's past his best - he sings a lot of the higher lying bits in an irritating mezzo voce that has become a mannerism. Both were out-sung by Tezier as Carlo.

Predictably it was well conducted by Pappano - the superb overture was wonderful and his pianissimo ending to the whole opera was the best I've heard.

The production was quite annoying - unnecessary back projection of characters in close up was just distracting, and a pointless dumb show in the overture, with the curtain going up and down three times before the opera proper started. The 'camp near the battle' scene at the end of act 3 was definitely more camp than battle with an almost Fosse-like dance routine and costumes that bafflingly seem to have been recycled from Faust.

Blimey...I saw on the ROH facebook page an upload of the Act 1 duet between Alvaro and Leonora from the recent cinema broadcast...how glad am I that I'm seeing a different cast next week!

I was also there on Tuesday and was utterly captivated. A brilliantly layered piece from Verdi. The orchestra under Pappano were fantastic, as one would expect. Monastyrska was good but I wanted a bit more focus from her on the big notes - her control in the piano sections was exquisite, but her vocal tone became rather broad when she put the power on. Kaufmann and Tezier were a sensation. I know people have mentioned that Kaufmann's voice isn't as powerful as it once was, but he was the stand out for me. His technique is incredible and the emotion that he conveys through his voice is unparalleled by any male opera singer I've seen.