Few works are more irrevocably embedded in the Royal Opera folk memory than Verdi’s Don Carlo. Veteran operagoers fondly recall the opulent, much-revived, Visconti production of 1958, with its parade of legendary names: Jon Vickers, Tito Gobbi and Boris Christoff were all in the first cast; the late Grace Bumbry among many distinguished singers to shine subsequently in the production.
Nicholas Hytner’s stimulatingly postmodernist take on the work, with sets by Bob Crowley, powerfully evoking the lethal conformity imposed on 16th-century Spain by the Catholic church, has already acquired something of a history of its own – Jonas Kaufmann in his prime featured in two previous outings – and this latest revival added a new star to the constellation: Lise Davidsen as Carlo’s inamorata, Elizabeth of Valois.
