Andrés Presno as Gabriele Adorno and Sara Cortolezzis as Amelia Grimaldi in Opera North’s Simon Boccanegra. Picture: James Glossop
OPERA North did obeisance to Bradford’s status as UK City of Culture 2025 by opening its annual springtime concert staging there. And how.
This thrilling P J Harris production was much more a staging than a mere concert. Indeed with the orchestra in full view on stage, this was red-blooded Verdi in tooth and claw, conducted with immense verve by the company’s principal guest conductor Antony Hermus.
The relatively narrow stage remaining for the singers was divided by designer Anna Reid into three cubicles, as if adjoining rooms, but without back walls so that the orchestra was visible beyond.
Banners proclaiming “Plebe” and “Patrizi” hung above, the one in yellow-edged red, the latter in blue-tinged purple. Helpfully, the various characters wore rosettes and even scarves in these colours proclaiming their allegiance.
Topically we were faced with an election in Italy, if in Genoa rather than the Vatican. Otherwise there was little in the way of props, apart from a desk in the council chamber and a rostrum.
Vazgen Gazaryan as Jacopo Fiesco in Opera North’s Simon Boccanegra. Picture: James Glossop
All the principals wore smart casual, modern dress. Singers in concert performances routinely use scores; there were none here. All were left free to act.
The casting of this intense political drama is key to its success. Here the company lands a
tremendous coup, with three singers new to the company, two of whom are also making their British debuts. The only female among the five principals is Amelia (née Maria Boccanegra), sung here with considerable finesse by Sara Cortolezzis.
It is a propitious first appearance in this country, enhanced by instinctive acting. A diminuendo to a pianissimo at the top of her range was spine-tingling; her duet with
Boccanegra (Roland Wood) in which they discover that they are father and daughter brought tears to the eyes as it built to an ecstatic cabaletta.
Wood’s splendidly forthright baritone cuts a commanding figure, not least in the pivotal Council Chamber scene, bringing his daughter’s abductor down to size.
Here Harris makes a virtue of the cramped conditions on stage by lining the hostile populace down the sides of the stalls, with further chorus members hurling crisp fury from the balconies. The resulting “surround sound” plunges the audience into the heart of the action. Opera does not come more hair-raising than this.
Roland Wood as Simon Boccanegra and Mandla Mndebele as Paolo Albiani in Opera North’s Simon Boccanegra. Picture: James Glossop
Andrés Presno’s Italianate tenor as Gabriele makes him the perfect partner for Cortolezzis and their combined decibels generate plenty of electricity. There is sufficient menace in Mandla Mndebele’s baritone, another British debutant, to justify his opponents’ hostility and cast Paolo as the villain in this tale.
Vazgen Gazaryan’s bass, new to this company too, lends a never less than ominous gravitas to his Fiesco. Richard Mosley-Evans, stepping up from the chorus, holds his own in this company as Pietro.
It almost goes without saying that the chorus relishes its emotional interjections to the utmost, its basses in particular. The involvement of the orchestra, too, is total, personified by the way its leader acts her role with her entire torso.
It is one of those evenings where teamwork reigns supreme: morale is clearly sky-high. Alas Bradford didn’t know what it was missing on this first night. There were too many empty seats.
Review by Martin Dreyer
Further performances at Hull City Hall, May 17, 7pm (box office, hulltheatres.co.uk); Southbank Centre, London, May 24, 7pm (southbankcentre.co.uk).