I Due Foscari, starring Plácido Domingo, Royal Opera House - opera review
Verdi’s early opera I due Foscari may not have the stylistic assurance the composer was later to acquire but it deserves the occasional outing. And the willing involvement of Plácido Domingo, undertaking the latest of his baritone roles in the Indian summer of his career, encouraged expectations of another sure-fire success.
Sadly, Domingo makes a somewhat muted impression in the role of the Doge. At the age of 73 it’s remarkable that he can sustain a line as well as he does but there’s no pretending that his delivery is as commanding as it once was.
The role calls for a full-blooded baritone, while Domingo’s tonal colouring is that of a tenor pushed down a notch or two. As a result it has neither baritonal weight below, nor a clarion top.
The star of the show is actually his son in the opera, Francesco Meli as Jacopo Foscari. Meli’s ringing tenor really does make you sit up and take notice, while Maurizio Muraro’s Jacopo Loredano also has the requisite vocal authority. Maria Agresta shines more intermittently as Jacopo’s wife Lucrezia.
The problem with I due Foscari is, however, not so much the music — which already demonstrates some of the promise to be realised in that later doge drama, Simon Boccanegra — as the drama. The Byron play on which it’s based is long on rhetoric, short on action.
Verdi himself dismissively referred to the gloomy monotony of his opera and Thaddeus Strassberger’s inert production does little to help. The chambers and subterranean vaults designed by Kevin Knight and lit by Bruno Poet are not unimpressive but the evil machinations of the Council of Ten — impaling and holding feet to the flame, among other horrors — sometimes acquire a Pythonesque quality.
Antonio Pappano’s handling of the score is wonderfully sympathetic, with a particularly memorable halo of harp and shimmering strings at the end of the love duet.
Until Nov 2 (020 7304 4000, roh.org.uk); live screening October 27.
