Verdi’s Don Carlo is a perfect example of an opera whose action can be moved from its original 16th century Spain of Philip II to any other space and time, provided that the new contextualization is meaningful. With its conflicts between love and duty, secular and religious, self-determination and centralized power, it is well suited to different settings. Tim Albery has directed Don Carlo several times during his distinguished career. His latest attempt, premiered in Washington on Saturday night (a coproduction with Opera Philadelphia and Minnesota Opera), is not a reconstruction of any specific historical period.
Constance Hoffman's costumes are dark, mostly black and gray, evoking the severity predominant at Philip II’s Escorial, but the ladies’ dresses are rather 19th-century and men are clad in leather with some odd-looking military belts. Andrew Lieberman’s minimal single set represents a ninety degrees rotated church nave with the dome, pierced by skylights, being the back of the stage. The burnished coppery-gold side walls have black rectangular doors and windows maybe reminiscent of grave slabs or the royal crypt of El Escorial. In the second part, the dome is gone, seemingly due to an explosion, and is replaced by a static view of a cloudy sky.
On one side of the canted floor, a pile of debris and ash, might have been inspired by the background of Pieter Bruegel’s Triumph of Death, a depiction of the devastation brought to Flanders by Philip II’s armies. Conflating gardens, royal apartments, a prison, the scene of an auto-da-fé, into one single minimalist theatrical space contributes to a denser unfolding of the drama taking place in front of the spectators’ eyes. Some elements of the mise-en-scène called for too much attention though. A grille symbolizing both a garden and a prison became an obstacle during the confrontation between the king’s defenders and the insurgents. Several chairs were as meaninglessly moved around as those in Eugène Ionesco’s famous absurdist play. Everyone appeared to constantly need to rest on one of the chairs, preferably in the presence of the king, a totally unnecessary breach of etiquette. Even the condemned heretics were asked to sit, with their back to the public, while symbolically being burned at the stake by means of reflectors.
However, musically, it was a very fine performance. The opera was presented in the shortened four-act Italian version, leaving some musical reminiscences without their roots. Philippe Auguin, conducting his last opera as Music Director of WNO, led a supple orchestral apparatus, supporting the singers well without overwhelming them and allowing instrumental contributions – oboe, cellos, horns – to shine in their dialogues with the soloists.