Aleko on the Arno: Sir Bryn Terfel leads fine new double bill at Grange Park Opera

Aleko and Gianni Schicchi make unlikely bedfellows, but in these new stagings at Grange Park Opera, one bed serves both: in Aleko for illicit passion and in Gianni Schicchi for illegal profit. It is one of a few links across the works in Stephen Medcalf’s excellent productions. Jamie Vartan’s contemporary settings and single set serves both works largely without strain. A domestic interior is needed for the Puccini, and this is clearly one of the wealthy Buoso Donati’s many homes. And although in the opening chorus of the Rachmaninov the gypsies sing of sleeping “beneath the heavens” they always find “somewhere to pitch our camp” so seem to be turning these rooms into a temporary squat. 

The very dominant central character of each opera – Sir Bryn Terfel is the titular hero of both – belongs in neither space. Aleko is an outsider, living with the younger free-spirited gypsy Zemfira, and Medcalf’s direction places him as a man apart from these nomads, with them but not of them. Terfel’s physique is briefly a comic problem when, spying on Zemfira and her lover, he indulges in the traditional operatic art of lurking, but he is larger than any likely cover he can use. But his diminutive prey are concerned only with one another, and fall victim to his violent rage. As Gianni Schicchi, brought in to fix the problem of a will disinheriting Donati’s family, Terfel sports a full set of red biker leathers, at once voices his contempt for the grasping Donatis – “Such sorrow. Buoso Donati must have recovered.” – and arrogantly struts around as if he owns the place, which he soon will.

Terfel was on fine vocal and histrionic form throughout. His occasional hectoring manner was well under control, and actually suited both characters. Schicchi bullies and sneers at those soon to be his financial victims, cowing them into agreeing his plan minus a crucial last detail. As usual, the vocal mimicry of Buoso, to fool the notary and witnesses, felt more irritating than amusing, since it is difficult to disguise one of opera’s best-known voices. But we none of us believed he deserved his place in Dante’s Inferno (where his deception gains only a much-prized mule), so winning was Terfel’s performance. 

Magnetic too was his portrayal of Pushkin’s tragic outsider, quick to anger and a step away from extreme responses. The heart of the work, and of Terfel’s performance, was Aleko’s cavatina, once a regular recital solo for Rachmaninov’s friend Fyodor Chaliapin. This passionate lament was superbly delivered, rising to a self-lacerating climax, but also able to convey the pain of a lost love once so vivid, through intense quiet singing. Zemfira and her lover are killed, and Aleko is turned away by the gypsies, but the opera is his tragedy. After that cavatina, we realise his final “Alone, again”, movingly sung as he wanders away, is a living death.

The supporting cast rose to the occasion in such company. Luis Gomes as Zemfira’s lover in Aleko, and Lauretta’s in Gianni Schicchi, sang with ardour and a ring in the head voice. If in Russian he sounded less comfortable than in Italian, he was still persuasive as the gypsy encampment’s DJ and doomed youngster, rightly fearful of Aleko’s rage. The Zemfira of Ailish Tynan was fierce as befits that provocative character (a proto-Carmen), but she was especially affecting in the subdued acceptance of her death – “I die still loving him”. As Puccini’s Rinuccio, Gomes relished his lyrical encomium to “Florence... like a tree in flower”, his song as “sweet and resonant” as his claims for the River Arno. Lauretta was Pasquale Orchard, not quite ideally poised in “O mio babbino caro” (her “beloved father” offstage then for some reason), but sang with line and tone more than good enough to secure a familiar cheer for the hit number. She was at her best duetting with Gomes about their aspiration for a May Day wedding, sweet youth among money-obsessed elders. Sara Fulgoni and Robert Winslade Anderson also contributed fine singing to each half.

The BBC Concert Orchestra created an atmospheric sound for the four orchestral numbers in Aleko, and they and conductor Gianluca Marciano were idiomatic in both operas. The GPO Chorus, who carry a lot of Aleko, showed good ensemble and tone in the gypsy songs, as well as when, having “no laws, no executions”, but insisting they won’t have a murderer amongst them, quietly send Aleko away. Both tragedy, then comedy, are given full rein across the evening in these very effective stagings.