It's getting one at Trafalgar Square, Canary Wharf and other UK locations on 3rd July:

http://esales.roh.org.uk/bp/screens/

I enjoyed it very much.  The performance makes it clear that this is a very great opera. 

The highlights were the conducting and the playing of the ROH orchestra and superb performances by Keenlyside, Furlanetto and Halfvarso.  The latter managed to be both a convincing 90 year old and utterly terrifying. 

Poplavskaya was fairly good but her upper register was weak and by the fourth act I was wincing in anticipation of the next high note.  I thought Villazon was a bit shaky in the first act but sang attractively once he warmed up.  His acting is old-school and he just does not convince as a man that the two main female characters are supposed to be obsessed by.  Any reasonable woman would be chasing Simon Keenlyside.

My very restricted view seat didn't give me much of a sense of the design. 


Villazon

Whenever Hvorostovsky is mentioned, I always think of Lady Dover Hyphen Sole.....

Wasn't aware of Villaizon's vocal problems, Ruth....I know he was always being derided for having a 'small' voice but I was VERY impressed by him in Eugene Onegin, a role outside his usual repertoire.

Thanks for the heads up about the broadcast, igi....not surprised that Halfvorson impresses: he's been great in everything I've seen him in.

IGI,

Thanks for posting your thoughts (which I've only just spotted - note to self, must check here more often).

I agree with a lot of what you say. I bought the Abbado/Scala version after having been swept away when WNO brought it up here a couple of years ago. I was deeply disappointed by the relegation of the opening scene to the appendix - without I don't really find Elizabeth's decision to marry Philip credible. It is also hobbled by the least Francophone singing imaginable, which seriously grates on my ears. It also seems to have been semi-staged (or it certainly feels that way - which is mostly a good thing, though sometimes the balance between singer and orchestra isn't ideal).

I found Matheson much more enjoyable, and I would thoroughly endorse both the views that no fan of the work should be without it but also that it is not all that great a choice as a sole version. I think Matheson can't quite get what others can in the orchestral scenes (the ballet drags). I also find Posa weak. Also, rather annoyingly, despite a lavish libretto, Opera Rara seems to have forgotten to include any biographies.

My ideal would have been Giulini in French.... without that, I think the live ROH version is probably my favourite - how I wish it was a fuller text and that I had been alive to see it.

regards, Tam


p.s. can't wait until Saturday!

Cast would be an interesting question and one I'm ill-equipped to answer seeing as a critical question is how they cope with the French (for as Abbado shows, when they don't, it isn't good - though maybe a dialogue coach might have helped there).

However, in Italian I prefer the live cast.

Didn't realise you were going to be there tonight. Oh well.

I agree with your comments though. Mine will follow when I've finished typing them up.

Many thanks for this review, Tam. I agree about the version used, especially the mask swapping scene; I'm sure I've seen (or heard) that scene reinstated, but without the ballet, and it works fine.


How I agreed!!

I think the Auto-da-fé was Hytner's biggest risk in this staging and, to me, it worked superbly; the bells, the clamouring mob, the Priest Inquisitor declaring the charges against each of the condemend in a terrifying rant - heady stuff.


You sound almost disappointed!!  

Btw, I cannot quite understand Giulini's decision in the 1958 ROH production to end Act IV with Posa's death. Last night's programme has an interesting article on the opera's performance history by the RO, including a copy of a memo sent by Lord Harewood criticizing the cut.