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- Theodore Kuchar
- Mei Yi Foo
- rhythm
- Margarita Voites
- Nicolae Brânduş
- Lake Irrsee
- Edward Nesbit: Nativity
Admirable Clarity
MIKE WHEELER explores the complex plot of Verdi's 'Simon Boccanegra', as performed by Opera North
As opera plots go, Verdi's Simon Boccanegra is towards the more complex end of the scale, with a Prologue set twenty-five years before the main action, and with political conflict and personal relationships impinging on each other, to potentially devastating effect. The title character is the thirteenth-century Doge of a Genoa split by factional in-fighting between the plebeians and patricians, and trying to hold the ring between them (pleading, at one point, for a united Italy to be his legacy, a sentiment that would not have been lost on Verdi's contemporaries). Complicating his position is the fact that he had a daughter, Maria, with the daughter, also called Maria, of Jacopo Fiesco, his patrician enemy. In the Prologue, the older Maria dies, and by Act I, a complex sequence of events has resulted in the younger Maria taking the name Amelia, and living as Fiesco's ward; neither Simon nor Fiesco are aware of her real identity at this point. Also, she is in love with Gabriele Adorno, a young patrician, and therefore also Simon's enemy.
Andrés Presno as Gabriele Adorno and Sara Cortolezzis as Amelia Grimaldi in Opera North's concert staging of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra, at the opening performance at St George's Hall, Bradford, UK on 24 April 2025.
Photo © 2025 James Glossop
First completed in 1857, the opera was revised in 1881 by Verdi and Arrigo Boito, the future librettist of Otello and Falstaff. This quickly became the standard version, and it forms Opera North's summer offering this year - Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham, UK, 29 April 2025 - following the company's established practice of a 'concert staging', rather than a full theatrical presentation, for its summer productions. The orchestra, as usual, is on stage, behind the singers, who fully act out their roles, in appropriate modern dress. The acting area on this occasion is dominated by designer Anna Reid's framework structure, fully open, and divided into three separate but linked areas, allowing fluid movement between them.
Sara Cortolezzis as Amelia Grimaldi with the Orchestra of Opera North and conductor Anthony Hermus in Opera North's concert staging of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra, at the opening performance at St George's Hall, Bradford.
Photo © 2025 James Glossop
Roland Wood is a magnetic presence in the title-role. There is both tension and tenderness in the air as he enters Fiesco's palace at the end of the Prologue and finds the older Maria's body. In the Act I Council Chamber scene, he exudes a resolute natural authority in the middle of potential chaos, and he commands total sympathy as he falls dying in the final scene.
Roland Wood in the title role of Opera North's concert staging of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra, at the opening performance in Bradford.
Photo © 2025 James Glossop
Vazgen Gazaryan has the full lower range for Fiesco. His confrontation with Simon in the Prologue is a powerful moment, one of the opera's many duet highlights, while making his later reconciliation with Simon completely believable.
Roland Wood as Simon Boccanegra (left) with Vazgen Gazaryan as Jacopo Fiesco (right) and the Orchestra of Opera North conducted by Anthony Hermus in Opera North's Simon Boccanegra in Bradford. Photo © 2025 James Glossop
Sara Cortolezzis gives a riveting performance as Amelia, a not-quite ingenue even on her first appearance, tender in her Act I duet with her lover, Gabrieli Adorno, and her recognition scene with Simon, and electrifying as she intervenes to prevent Gabriele killing Simon in Act II.
Roland Wood as Simon Boccanegra (left) with Sara Cortolezzis as Maria Boccanegra and Andrés Presno as Gabriele Adorno in Simon Boccanegra.
Photo © 2025 James Glossop
Andrés Presno's Gabriele Adorno is convincingly impulsive - headstrong one moment, full of internal conflict at others. Mandla Mndebele brings an Iago-like slipperiness to the character of Paolo Albiani, Simon's supporter in the Prologue, turned sworn enemy by the end of Act I. Richard Mosley-Evans makes his mark as Pietro, who joins Paolo in shifting his allegiance.
From left to right: Richard Mosley-Evans as Pietro, Roland Wood as Simon Boccanegra and Mandla Mndebele as Paolo Albiani with the Chorus and Orchestra of Opera North in Simon Boccanegra. Photo © 2025 James Glossop
The singers of the Opera North Chorus are on incisive form - as contending partisans on opposite sides of the Royal Concert Hall choir seats in the Prologue, and plebeian insurgents bursting in around the auditorium in the Council Chamber scene. Incidentally, the Chorus also appears on the recent recording of the 1857 score on the Opera Rara label, with the Hallé Orchestra conducted by Sir Mark Elder.
Antony Hermus conducts with a sure feel for the opera's overall dramatic pacing, and the Opera North Orchestra responds with a command of Verdi's instrumental colours, not least at the start of Act I, pointing up the flecks of colour that evoke the sea at which Amelia gazes as she waits for Gabriele.
Director P J Harris' uncluttered staging handles the tangled relationships with admirable clarity.
Copyright © 7 May 2025
Mike Wheeler,
Derby UK
