Simon Boccanegra, Opera North review - ‘dramatic staging’ proves its worth

Opera North have recently pioneered a way of presenting some big works which they call “dramatic concert stagings”, performing in concert halls as well as theatres, with the orchestra on the platform behind the singers and a minimalist set, and the principals in present-day costumes symbolic of characters’ type.

Some have had video projection as a backdrop, but it’s also been dispensable where necessary. This one has none, but the concept is much more than a concert performance and completely justified by its impact in theatrical terms.

They’ve opened in St George’s Hall, Bradford, as an early highspot of the “City of Culture” year there, rather than in their home base of Leeds, and it will go on to Nottingham, Gateshead, Liverpool, Hull and finally the South Bank Centre in London. The Yorkshire city’s Victorian edifice, speaking grandly of municipal pride, is well suited to a plot that hinges on historic political feuds – whether the internal architecture of the other venues will adapt so well will be for others to judge.And in PJ Harris’s production (and it is worthy of the word), with design by Anna Reid, the front of the platform is filled by a three-section, open-sided structure implying different places and the side-rooms to them: over the top is the moving plea for peace made by Boccanegra in the famous Council Chamber scene (quoting Petrarch) “I vo gridando, ‘Pace, pace, pace’”, and suspended banners on each side, along with campaigners’ coloured rosettes on their costumes, represent the warring parties of medieval Genoa – the Plebeians and Patricians whose fratricidal rivalry is the mainspring of the story.

And the entire building in Bradford has been used to stage the political clashes and near-riotous crowd scenes that surround the gradually unravelling relational tangle of the main characters, the Chorus of Opera North appearing at first on the sides of the circle seating as party supporters, and later singing as a distant choir for the off-stage wedding and also bursting in from the stalls-level side corridors as a baying mob. It works very well, with the help of two assistant conductors following CCTV screens as Antony Hermus, the company’s principal guest conductor, takes charge of all the musical impact of the score.

This was Verdi’s final, 1881 version of the opera first created by him 24 years earlier, with libretto mainly by Francesco Piave. In April last year Sir Mark Elder, with the Hallé and using the Chorus of Opera North, recorded the 1857 version and performed it in the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester – making a compelling case for its own merits which has been reinforced by the issue of the CD from Opera Rara around a week ago.

The 1881 version, revised in association with Arrigo Boito, the librettist of the late masterpieces Otello and Falstaff, is the one that gave birth to the Council Chamber scene (in place of a gaudy carnival finale that didn’t advance the plot or make any particular point about the story), and there’s no denying that the whole re-think brought us some of Verdi’s most brilliant dramatic music, as well as enabling him to tighten up and refine his earlier work in a variety of other places. The new scene had a message for his own times: as Italy was now formally united but still riven by factionalism, his hero’s appeal for peace and unity was a plea from his own heart, too.

The atmosphere of foreboding is set from the start (though the Preludio was shortened and lost its original punching vehemence in Verdi's later version) by the dark tones of the orchestra under Antony Hermus – the only point where balance seemed a trifle agley as it enveloped the male semi-chorus in its opening lines – but in every other respect the vocal lines were never under threat from the on-stage players and the totality of the huge textures Verdi creates was magnificent.

Though there is a love triangle, of a kind, within it, Simon Boccanegra is essentially an opera about politics – and the hard, lonely path trodden by a leader who appeals for reconciliation, not conflict. In the end, he loses his life because of it. The plot is notoriously complex: a Prologue is set 25 years before the rest of the action, in which we learn that Boccanegra, an ex-pirate, becomes Doge (Governor) of Genoa and fathers a child with the wife of his great enemy, Fiesco. A quarter-century later, the girl has grown up and is the ward of Fiesco – neither he nor Boccanegra knows that she, Amelia, is their grand-daughter and daughter, respectively. But she’s in love with a sworn enemy of Boccanegra called Gabriele. That’s all revealed by halfway through Act One, scene one, and there’s more to come – the word “vendetta” emerging strongly and repeatedly, as Paolo, the man who helped Boccanegra win the votes of the people in the first place, becomes both his enemy and a rival to Gabriele for Amelia’s hand. The casting of the principals’ roles has achieved a remarkable balance of mature and younger voices. Roland Wood in the title role (pictured above with Vazgen Gazaryan left) is an inspired choice – his maturity and ability to bring both authority and a noble purity of tone to it, combined with committed acting of the emotions it requires, are formidable, and there was great beauty in his “Piango su voi” in the Council Chamber scene. Vazgen Gazaryan (as Fiesco) has the rich low register appropriate for his character, and presents effectively the change of tone attributable to his ageing and bitter experience in the story. Mandla Mndebele as Paolo Albiani may not equal them for resonance but acts the thwarted power player and unrequited lover clearly – he is the out-and-out bad guy, but he finds depth there.

The young lovers are young singers (pictured above): Andrés Presno as Gabriele is a great heroic lover in the Italian tradition – he’s sung for Opera North before and is able to react intelligently and use his vocal potential wisely. And Sara Cortolezzis, making her Opera North debut as Amelia, inhabits the role that must be a stand-out in the story, as she alone brings feminine determination to reconcile the warring men. From the Act One aria “Come in quest’ora bruno” through to the end she shows a sustained ability to bring both fullness of tone at the top of the range and a lovely intermediate tone that floats through the ensembles, including the peak of the Council Chamber scene as she intervenes dramatically and ends the ensemble with a perfect delicate trill.

• Further performances on 29 April at the Royal Concert Hall Nottingham, 2 May at The Glasshouse Gateshead, 11 May at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, 17 May at Hull City Hall, and 24 May at the Southbank Centre London

• More opera reviews on theartsdesk