Verdi’s Giovanna d’Arco
Teatro alla Scala, Milan
December 23, 2015
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| Giovanna bears her cross triumphantly. Photo credit: Brescia-Amisano/Teatro alla Scala |
Lei: It’s always exciting to go to a show at La Scala where so many
of the operas we love first debuted. This time even more so because Verdi’s Giovanna
D’Arco was being performed again at La Scala 150 years after it was last
staged there (in 1865, 20 years after its 1845 debut). And it’s not like it’s a
La Scala issue, this opera is really rarely seen at any house around the world.
Part of the reason seems to be the difficulty of finding singers able to tackle
it. Which made this show all the more exciting. Vocal excellence! “New” Verdi!
La Scala glamour! (and the pre-show Marchesino aperitivo with its cups
of risotto alla Milanese remain a solid plus).
Lui: A much anticipated return to Milan’s Teatro alla Scala for the
second installment in our holiday season opera tourism, this time for another
rarity, a young Giuseppe Verdi’s Giovanna d’Arco. Only his seventh
opera, it’s really not the product of a green Verdi. Giovanna comes on
the heels of Nabucco and Ernani and will be followed by Macbeth
and Un ballo in maschera, among others, in quick succession.
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| Giovanna looks on as the king of her dreams is deposed. Photo credit: Brescia-Amisano/Teatro alla Scala |
Lei: First things first, here’s a recap of the little known plot,
which diverges significantly from both the Schiller source material as well as
history. We’re in medieval France, during the infamous Franco-Anglo Hundred
Years’ War. Enter the king, Carlo (Charles VII), very worried that his troops
may be defeated soon by the Brits and ready to give up his crown. He had a
dream where mysterious voices told him to go into the forest and lay his sword
and armor by a certain oak tree.
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| A father begins to suspect malfeasance. Photo credit: Teatro alla Scala |
Under Giovanna’s lead, the
French crush the British in battle and the king and his lady-warrior fall in
love, though Giovanna continues to hear voices and feels very sinful about the
whole love thing. While everybody’s happy celebrating the victory, Giacomo
publicly denounces his daughter of lustful behavior and witchcraft. Her
terrified silence is seen as an admission and she’s turned to the English. When
Giacomo hears her piously pray in the Brits’ prison, he understands her
righteousness, frees her and even gives her his sword so that she can go back
to battle. French army definitively wins, Giovanna dies on the battlefield and
ascends to heaven in saintly fashion, the king and her father despair.
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| Giovanna in ecstasy. Photo credit: Teatro alla Scala |
Lui: The production by Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier was
impactful and thought provoking. In their take, the protagonist is a disturbed
young woman who has been transposed from the French Middle Ages to
nineteenth-century institutional setting with a vaguely Freudian underpinning.
Apparently suffering from some sort of schizophrenic hysteria induced by
profound daddy issues, she aspires in her mind to a life of glory in the vein
of Joan of Arc. And so, everything takes place in the confines of her room in
the psychiatric ward, with armies, angels, demons, churches and statuesque
equestrian kings all appearing as a series of vivid feverish visions.
Packing all this action
into such a contained space emphasizes that everything is seen from Giovanna’s
point of view. It’s all in her head. Rather than being a cop out, it is
actually a clever trick to intensify the shaky plot of the opera. One of the
ideas that inspired the directors were a series of early studies of hysteria
conducted in the nineteenth century, documented by pictures of disturbed women
going through extreme mood swings, including ecstatic contemplation.
Interestingly, some historians have hypothesized that Joan of Arc’s saintly
visions and voices were in fact due to some sort of mental illness (though many
medical professionals disagree with such a diagnosis).
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| The patriarchy repents. Photo credits: Teatro alla Scala |
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| The visionary hears voices. Photo credit: Brescia-Amisano/Teatro alla Scala |
There’s no doubt that
Solera’s libretto diverges quite a lot from history: Giovanna is torn between
angelic and demonic “voices” (when she really only heard saints and angels and
was always adamant about her sacred mission), she has a love story with the
king Carlo (totally historically ungrounded), she is condemned by a bigot
father (false again, she was subject to inquisition by the church at the
request of the English) and she dies on the battlefield (though everybody knows
she was burnt at the stake).
And so, the libretto’s
propelling emotional forces are the love between Giovanna and Carlo and, most
importantly, the oppressive and obsessive father-daughter relationship of
Giacomo and Giovanna. Leiser and Caurier’s psychoanalytical take made the
dramatic tensions even more about sexual frustration (Giovanna wants Carlo but
her father and the angelic voices pull her back) being the propeller for the
heroine’s heroic deeds in the name of God.
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| Giovanna gives in to her baser desires. Photo credit: Teatro alla Scala |
The production here takes
those mildly avant-garde elements of time lapse and interiority and runs with
them. On the whole I found the poetic license of the directors to be engaging
and very satisfying, making the whole thing very deep and Freudian. Really poor
Giovanna is a young woman repressed by her father. At the same time, there is a
Don Quixote approach to the story where this simple peasant girl aspires to
battlefield glory in the name of God and for the good of her country.
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| The religious warrior suits up. Photo credit: Teatro alla Scala |
In fact, in moments, as in
the end of Act I, where she prays for the guidance of the Virgin Mary in her
early quixotic desire to wage holy war against her enemies and to vindicate the
king, I couldn’t help but think that the directors were also subtly drawing
parallels with the religious warmongers of today. Giovanna has delusions of
grandeur. Although her heart is seemingly in the right place, her desires are
out of step with reality for a poor girl kept under lock and key by her father
in some kind of convalescent ward. It was heartbreaking, oneiric, often
surreal, and very intelligently carried out.
Lei: The orchestra was incredibly electric. I’ve never heard anything
quite like it and from the first fiery bars of the overture when, after the
soft start, the orchestra attacks the military triumphal themes, I didn’t know
what hit me. So vigorous, fiery and intense. My first thought was that they
were all on steroids, including maestro Riccardo Chailly who sported the
energy of someone half his age. We were in very good musical hands. The pacing
was thrilling. The opera sped along on overdrive, which contributed to the
haunted feeling that Giovanna is not well, not in her right mind, but
possessed, especially since the orchestra itself felt possessed.
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| Riccardo Chailly on fire. Photo credit: Teatro alla Scala |
Lui: The score was just fantastic, packed with sensational and
breathtaking musical moments carrying a very fast paced plot. It was fun to
discover that Giovanna contains a lot of Verdian musical nuggets that
the composer will develop more fully in later operas. Most of the demonic bits
reminded me of Macbeth, particularly in the forest and storm sequences
with the forest chorus sounded a lot like Macbeth’s witches. Other
times, Un Ballo in Maschera, Ernani and Traviata also come to
mind. And so, Rossini was not the only one to “recycle” bits of his operas...
Lei: Verdi’s use of the chorus in Giovanna d’Arco is
extraordinary. In this opera more than others the narrative importance of the
chorus (magnificently lead by maestro Bruno Casoni) came across, making
it really the fourth protagonist. It wore so many hats: poor folk, people
broken by war, “voices” of demons and angels, British soldiers and French
courtiers. The “voices” are particularly important as they play a central role
in pushing Giovanna to action (and then martyrdom), even more in this
production where everything is just in her head.
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| The chorus is an all-encompassing presence. Photo credit: Brescia-Amisano/Teatro alla Scala |
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| Giovanna is tossed in a sea of torments. Photo credit: Brescia-Amisano/Teatro alla Scala |
Lei: The core cast was sensational. The three leads were extremely
strong, with perfect voices for their roles. Anna Netrebko keeps getting
better each time we see her. She displayed a superb vocal range and
convincingly portrayed the fiery warrior but also the loving and mystical
maiden, inspired and idealistic (and very cuckoo too). She’s always had power
but now her sound is cleaner purer and her Italian more articulate. In fact,
the Russian soprano sounded much better tonight than in her live recording of
this same opera only two years ago in Salzburg. It is
exciting to see such a great artist grow over the years. Netrebko’s acting was
very specific and demanding, as she basically was always on stage one way or
the other given the directors’ choice to have this be all in her head. She
bounced around with youthful energy and intensely rendered Giovanna’s swings
from crazed demented girl to warrior to determined martyr.
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| Declarations of love. Photo credit: Teatro alla Scala |
Verdian baritone Carlos
Alvarez as Giacomo displayed a smooth legato, long lines and a wonderful
musicality. His role of the paranoid almost demonic father is a complex one and
he embodied it expressively, particularly touching in his final act of repentance
when he realizes he entirely misunderstood his daughter. Bass Dmitry
Beloselskiy in the minor role of Talbot, the English general had an
impressive stage presence (he’s extraordinarily tall and muscular) and an even
more astonishing voice, deep and dynamic yet extremely strong and effortless,
riding with ease over the orchestra and chorus.
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| The patriarch who cannot be trusted. Photo credit: Brescia-Amisano/Teatro alla Scala |
Lui: The sets created by Christian Fenouillat were deceptively
simple as they had as a base Giovanna’s room (with very few pieces of linear
furniture), but as the plot unfolds all of the protagonist’s visions come to
life in that same room. And that’s when the exciting stuff happens: the chorus
popped out now behind transparent portions of the walls at the ground level now
up above next to the ceiling, soldiers and spears broke through the walls
during battle scenes, very vivid videos of lusty desires and saintly
aspirations scrolled slowly across the walls, the massive cathedral of St.
Denis emerged from the floor to then descend in thunder at the end of Act III,
the statuesque golden king emerged from a trapdoor on his gold horse (very much
like a monumental equestrian statue, as that’s how Giovanna imagines her
ruler). And the very clever touch of having everybody but Giovanna and her
father disappear as half of the stage literally sinks underground at the end of
Act IV when she’s about to die and all her visions fade away.
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| Una spada ed un cimier Photo credit: Teatro alla Scala |
Lei: I have never seen the merciless and hard to please public at La
Scala go so unanimously wild with love and appreciation for all of the
performers, musicians and directors. Maybe it was because Giovanna d’Arco
is little known and rarely performed (and so the public does not have the tools
to trash it like it does with more mainstream repertoire). Whatever the reason,
this time there was none of the hooligan-like loggionisti behavior
booing and shouting colorful insults left and right, rather, people were
outdoing each other yelling “Brrrr-aviiiii!!!” at the top of their lungs
and literally going crazy calling the cast back at least three times even after
final bows. Not even at the stadium do you see such ardent displays of love and
support! And that in itself was the most sensational and surprising sight of
the evening.
– Lei & Lui
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| Unleash the ovations! Photo credit: Teatro alla Scala |
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| Giovanna's spirit rides on... and on. Photo: Place des Pyramides in Paris, France |
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