Review: Andrea Chenier, Opera North at Leeds Grand Theatre

UMBERTO Giordano's exciting verismo masterpiece is set mainly in 1790's Revolution-drenched Paris at the height of "the Terror". This luscious opera's neglect is difficult to explain since Giordano's music is replete with orchestral colour, gripping ensembles and showstopping arias for the eponymous tenor hero and his soprano lover - the poet Andrea Chenier and the noblewoman Maddalena di Coigny. The big Chorus scenes depicting "Les Miserables" - the starving Parisian populace - are surely echoed in Claude-Michael Schonberg's fabulous musical, composed some eighty years after Giordano's opera. Conversely, Opera North production director Annabel Arden's fluid handling of the crowd scenes involving the animated forty five strong Opera North Chorus might easily have been influenced by stagings of "Les Mis".

Joanna Parker's multi-level set is surrounded by a chain-link curtain. The chain-link symbolises oppression especially when seen in Fiona Kimm's haughty Contessa di Coigny's grotesque period finery. The dazzling costumes pepper 18th century pre-Revolution opulence with a dash of haute couture.

Aided by Peter Mumford's shadowy lighting, Arden stokes up the atmosphere of terror so effectively depicted in Giordano's score. The Revolutionary "kangaroo court" with the menacing black cloaked prosecutor and a baying crowd staring down from tiered grandstand seating is genuinely chilling. Scenes are interspersed with short readings of Chenier's poems reinforcing the fact that he was a real historical figure. The scary amplified sound effects can best be described as the rumble of an approaching train mixed with anxious-sounding human voices - a symbol perhaps of the terrifying inexorable momentum of the Revolution.

However striking the staging and visual imagery - and it is absolutely riveting - Andrea Chenier needs leading singers who can knock out the stalls, and an orchestra capable of bathing the music in a luxuriant glow. Mexican tenor Rafael Rojas in the title role nails the high notes and delivers a steady Italianate tone throughout. Chenier's Un di all'azzuro spazio had searing vocal passion. Annemarie Kremer as Maddalena wonderfully conveyed the character's suffering in her poignant aria La mamma morta. In the vocal passion stakes however, baritone Robert Hayward as the zealous revolutionary, Carlo Gerard, arguably surpassed even Rojas and Kremer. The Chorus is on scorching form and the Orchestra, impeccably conducted by Oliver von Dohnanyi, imparts the requisite translucent technicolour gloss to this thrilling score. The overwhelming force of the orchestral climaxes pinned me to the back of my seat.

Opera North's visceral new production of Andrea Chenier is unmissable.

There are just three more performances at Leeds Grand: February 2, 20 and 24.

Geoffrey Mogridge