Something of a mixed bag. Vocally it was very fine indeed with two outstanding voice – Michael Volle as a powerful and moving de Montfort – not the easiest role to make sympathetic and the young bass Patrick Guetti who had one of the most spectacularly resonant voices I have heard for a very long time; he in fact reminded me of Gottlob Frick, having that amazing floor-vibrating resonance – and he has a fine presence on stage too, towering over most others. All other roles were equally well sung, doing full vocal and stylistic justice to the work.
The updated setting (French Algeria) was fine – although I did not feel it added anything special to the understanding of the work which must be a central reason I think for relocating the time and setting of a work. I liked the use of dancers to represent important figures who died early on, viz Helene’s brother and Henri’s mother. It effectively bough home the important of the past to the central characters of the drama. Orchestra and chorus were, as ever, wonderful. Some ballet music was used (I think) and the use of dancers as objects of exploited attention by the occupying power was effective.
But –and here we come to the problems of this performance – the work itself, I think, is pretty dramatically flawed. Part 1 moved jerkily from one event to another, being rather episodic and I did not think that the director, Oliver Py, usually thoughtfully excellent, had really got a grip on the work. There were a fair few moments where the movements of either chorus or principals was either weirdly random or non-existent. And the climax, given it sensationalism came across as frankly, rather dull. But then the way the work ends very suddenly with that is one of the major dramatic flaws of the piece. And often the set did not help. A conceit was used in having a small theatre proscenium stage and boxes as a feature for much of the opera – and again, there did not really seem to be a strong dramatic reason why this should be the case. I can see a theory for using meta-theatre/theatre within a theatre/stressing artificiality of what we are seeing etc. etc., but there was nothing like that considered overview here; it seemed merely odd and, again, somewhat random, that this should be used. And in the ball at the palace, because of the setting of the stage, everyone, (and with the females in massive crinoline skirts) was crowded together at the front.
A pity; I have seen Meyerbeer at this theatre in excellent productions which really made the pieces work theatrically and so it was a pity that this was not the case here.