This is the fourth time that Nicholas Hytner’s staging of Verdi’s sprawling masterpiece, first seen in 2008, has been revived. As before, it’s the final version of Don Carlo that’s being performed – in five acts, and sung in Italian – and in most respects it is a routine revival. Though it is conducted by Bertrand de Billy with requisite attention to the score’s astonishing colours and fluctuating dramatic pulse and superb orchestral playing, the problems of the staging remain unresolved. In particular the third act’s auto de fé, which should be one of the climactic set pieces – a vivid depiction of the opera’s central clash between church and state – is still visually and dramatically a mess, cluttered and unfocused.
But the selling point of these latest performances was always going to be Lise Davidsen’s casting as Elizabeth de Valois, her first major Verdi role, and she at least doesn’t disappoint. But the whole performance takes a while to stir into dramatic life, and Elizabeth’s meeting with Brian Jagde’s Carlos in the opening Fontainebleau scene is rather prosaic – it’s loud certainly, for Jagde shows more concern for volume than elegance, but lacks a sense of who either of these young people is.
