The latest collaboration between the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and the European Opera Centre, also based in Liverpool, is a concert staging of Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, conducted by Domingo Hindoyan and directed by Bernard Rozet. Bryn Terfel returns to the role of the titular opportunist, which he first sang at Covent Garden in 2007, while the avaricious Donati family, whom he eventually defrauds, are played by the EOC’s young singers.
Rozet is hampered by the need to cramp the action into a narrow strip of space in front of the orchestra, though his direction can be astute, the comedy sometimes very dark indeed. He updates the opera to the 1960s, and his Donatis are a grotesque crew that might have strayed from Fellini or Buñuel, barely attempting even a semblance of grief at Buoso Donati’s death and casually stepping over or kicking his corpse, which is dumped at the foot of Hindoyan’s podium. Terfel’s knowing Schicchi observes them with both irony and contempt before turning on them, eventually driving them from the platform to seek refuge among the audience. He is in fine voice, his performance at once very funny and wonderfully subtle, always leading the young cast around him yet never upstaging them.
