Sterence.com

The Royal Opera’s first revival of their double bill L’heure espagnole and Gianni Schicchi opened on Saturday: in place of the originally billed Christine Rice, who amusingly was unable to take the rôle of Concepcion due to pregnancy, the star of the former was the Romanian mezzo Ruxandra Donose. Since Richard Jones had directed the show on its first viewing (the revival was handled by Elaine Kidd), parodistic over-characterization was to be expected, and was by no means in short supply. Concepcion’s two lovers were the tenor Yann Beuron, apparently channelling Peter Sellers at his most myopic, and a buffissimo Andrew Shore. The plot involves both of these hiding inside grandfather clocks which are transported up to Concepcion’s offstage bedroom by the muleteer Ramiro (Christopher Maltman) who, Concepcion belatedly realizes, is far the best material for an affair conducted during her husband’s absence each morning.

Maltman is good casting for Jones’s notion of Ramiro, being both heavily muscled and capable of impersonating intellectual vacancy. Given the stellar career he has enjoyed since winning the Lieder Prize at Cardiff in 1997 (Salzburg, the Met, etc.) it is somewhat surprising to see him back at Covent Garden in such a comparatively minor rôle; but nonetheless welcome. Here he is utterly the pawn of Donose’s vampy housewife – it seems there is no heavy lifting too arduous, which is just as well. Perhaps the only person working harder than Ramiro is Covent Garden’s trapdoor operator, deftly removing and replacing Beuron and Shore from the grandfather clocks without a second to spare. Antonio Pappano conducts Ravel’s fabulously atmospheric score with, as usual, a beautiful touch that could do with just a little more breathing space.

After the interval Puccini’s comedy of antique manners is ruthlessly updated, with the contempt for the bourgeoisie that is Jones’s specialism to the fore. Certainly the Donati family are mostly pretty vile in the first place, but the diagonally striped man-made fibres they are required to wear is a cruelty not to be found in Dante’s original. Curiously, the revival casting makes far more sense of the opera than the first run: Bryn Terfel as Schicchi was as thuggish towards both the Donati and the audience as we have unfortunately seen him all too frequently, while in the present run Sir Thomas Allen – though undoubtedly no longer blessed with the instrument the Terfel can wield, if indeed he ever was – brought charm, emotion (his response to O mio babbino caro was comedic, yet heartfelt) and a range of response to the Donati clan that made the hour-long opera seem like a show with proper character development rather than just a vignette. Allen has National Treasure status, undoubtedly, but he is still an artist who is looking for new characterizations.

Among the Donati Elena Zilio makes good sport as the old bag Zita, and Gwynne Howell, celebrated in the programme for his forty years since house debut, shows he can still handle the rôle of Simone (as well, as we saw earlier this year, as the much more demanding Schigolch in Lulu). Stephen Costello is a handsome young Rinuccio – who seems to be about to take on considerably larger parts in big houses such as the Met. It would be a shame if he were to sing out a pleasant voice that could do well in the lighter Italian repertoire. Anyway, he nailed some high B flats where needed. His intended was Maria Bengtsson, whose tone in O mio babbino was lovely, the voice excellently linked in this difficult aria.