Il Trovatore at Washington National Opera

I'm afraid this Il Trovatore was a bit of a rocky start to Washington National Opera's 22/23 season, with the company assembling some good fundamentals but turning out an inconsistent show overall. 

Latonia Moore's Leonora was the big draw here, and for good reason--the voice is a gorgeous fit for Leonora, combining an unimpeachable top with a rich chest sound that easily filled the KC Opera House. But unfortunately the big numbers just never made it past the level of a beautiful voice singing beautiful songs. These should be vocal and dramatic events driven by whatever the diva in question has to share, but Moore seemed to be largely coloring within the lines of the perfunctory tempi coming out of the pit. Also, she had a tendency to slide between notes in the more coloratura passages--making a bit of a hash of the cabaletta to Tacea La Notte and generally marring that beautiful sound with a sense that she wasn't fully in command where the score gets a bit thorny. 

Dramatically she was fine if a bit generic through the first Act or so, but really found her footing in the final confrontations with di Luna and Manrico which showed off some exciting Verdian fire. Hopefully the warm up was an artifact of opening night and more of that late energy will find its way into the rest of the portrayal later in the run.

Manrico was Gwyn Hughes Jones, who has one of those curious tenor voices that easily fills the hall despite an inherently light timbre that seems like it couldn't possibly be associated with that degree of volume. It is a generally appealing sound with a nice ping in the top, though can occasionally veer into too much of an unpleasant nasal quality. Ultimately I think his voice is just miscast for Manrico, who needs more heroic heft in his sound to balance the heavyweight female voices he spends most of his time competing with. While "Ah, si ben mio" isn't quite in the same league as some of celebrated statement pieces for the other principals, as with Moore, this was again some very pretty singing without a lot of style or dramatic urgency.

Christopher Maltman is of course familiar from lots of Don Giovannis, though is apparently moving into more Verdi per his bio, appearing as Count di Luna here. It's a big, imposing sound that is excellent for di Luna's authoritative presence in the ensembles and confrontations, and Maltman has a great facility for bringing out the text. But...he just lacks that extra element of vocal suaveness that makes the Verdi baritone parts special. "Il balen del suo sorriso" does not need to serve Hvorostovsky-levels of decadence but it does need to be a little prettier and more irresistible than what Maltman turned in Saturday night. His di Luna was also a pretty one-note villain, which, watching it again I realize is really 90-95 percent of the role on paper, but that's why the great exponents of the role know that you need to milk those rare opportunities to show something different for all they are worth.

That leaves Raehann Bryce-Davis's Azucena, which really stood apart among the principals on opening night for bringing vocal excitement and a top-to-bottom level of consistent characterization and commitment. She delivers a vocally complete Azucena with a deliciously cutting chest voice and ample power on top, but also memorable stylistic choices in Azucena's go-for-broke madness moments, sassy moments, etc. Other quibbles with the evening aside, finding a singer really owning and running with a great new take on Azucena is extremely exciting, and I hope Bryce-Davis has many more of these lined up.

Elsewhere in the cast we got the ridiculous luxury casting of Ryan Speedo Green, who is really in town for Orest in Elektra next weekend, as Ferrando. It's sometimes hard not to zone out during the prologue but he had me very hooked.

To be clear, the musical issues were broader than the principals and it really seems like this Trovatore may have just been a bit under-baked for opening night. Coordination problems with the pit cropped up in a number of scenes, and the big Act 2 finale had such a plodding disjointed feel that it seemed like the only explanation was some element of caution to make sure things didn't go off the rails. 

Perhaps that will clear up as the run goes on, though it was hard to tell what conductor Michele Gamba would have in store under more comfortable conditions. The oom-pah orchestra material definitely had an energetic verve, but for most of the show one did not get a sense of his capacity to really build drama in the scenes at more than one speed. As noted, whether a function of the singers or the leadership or both, readings of the big arias came off as very straightforward. Chorus work apart from the coordination issues was strong.

And then there is the production. So, if folks remember, right before the shutdown, WNO's 2020 spring season had Don Giovanni running at the same time as Samson et Dalila, and they shared the same set by Erhard Rom, sort of a deconstructed office building/sterile modern space, using different projections and configurations for the two shows. It worked well enough in the Don Giovanni where the contrast with traditional costumes seemed to echo the production's focus on modern "me too" themes, but now it appears WNO has revived that set again for this Trovatore (again with period costumes) and I am trying to figure out whether there is even an attempt at any artistic justification here or if they just own the set and times are tough. 

They've re-dressed it here and there with medieval Spain stuff and have added some new projections (including some effective animations for the exposition sections), but that just seems to emphasize that the modern set is not really supposed to have meaning within the production? Certainly wasn't picking up on much directorial intent beyond putting a serviceable Trovatore into the available physical space. There are also these huge gray walls that look like the side of the office building which they fly in for some of the scenes done upstage which are...very not good to look at. 

I now have a sinking feeling this set is also going to be used for the Elektra that opens next week.