Each early spring the Opéra national de Lyon imagines three operas within a vague thematic framework to comprise its Winter Festival. This year the theme is “Se saisir de l’avenir” which means “grab hold of the future,” implied is the qualification if you can, could have or wanted to.
The centerpiece of the 2025 festival is Verdi’s fifth to last opera, his La forza del destino wherein two lovers, Alvaro and Leonora, almost defeat fate. The tale is an operatic setting of the eponymous 1835 play by Spanish dramatist Ángel de Saavedra, a work recognized as the first monument of Spanish Romantic theater. The play itself is indeed epic in scope.
In Lyon German stage director Ersan Mondtag envisioned Verdi’s tragic love affair within a world that glorifies war, each scene immersed itself in the makings of war (there was always a lot of smoke). At the St. Petersburg premiere back in 1862 the distraught Don Alvaro threw himself into an abyss, in remorse of the tragedy he had wrought. Verdi later revised the ending, leaving him alive to endure what fate had dealt. In the Lyon militaristic setting just now stage director Mondtag found yet another resolution — he abandoned Don Alvaro to the gun sights of a squadron of soldiers.
Ersan Mondtag, a Berlin theatrical wunderkind, creates a world of atmospheres in the stage settings he himself conceives, designs and directs. Often he creates the costumes as well. Here, however, the costumes were designed by Teresa Vergho who works well within German avant-garde standards — there is no easy explanation for the rabbit eared headdress on the women who make the bombs and nurse the wounded, nor the weird epaulet shapes that adorn the blue uniforms of Don Alvaro and Leonora’s brother Don Carlo in their disguises as heroic soldiers (lead photo: Ariumbaatar Ganbaatar as Don Carlo [left] and Riccardo Massi as Don Alvaro).
The Mondtag atmospheres are intentionally arbitrary, not identifiable reference to an actual location. Verdi’s famed concert piece overture was staged against a huge and magnificent neoclassical structure that served as frames for a formal tableau of rabbit eared women who then descended to stir the minerals they used to assemble the bombs we saw piled on tables and the floor. It was dimly lighted to imply excavation, tracked metal carts, like in Spanish Empire mines maybe, brought the Peruvian grandee Don Alvaro to his confrontation with Leonora’s father, the Marquis of Calatrava [a castle near the libretto’s Seville].
Ersan Mondtag then imposed a lengthy, curtained interval. We sat in semi-darkness while the scene changed (lots of clanking). It opened, finally, onto a monastery courtyard, the libretto’s inn, that was a huge wall and porch of made of sculls and skeletons, at once mixing Aztec and Mayan rites with the infamous Spanish Inquisition. White costumed penitents, complete with capirote (conical pointed hats), crossed the stage after the gypsy fortune teller Preziosilla gave a breezy celebration of war and teased vengeance ridden Don Carlo. His sister Leonora then convinced the Padre Guardiano of her sincerity to become a hermit.
A forty-five minute intermission ensued. Somewhat exhausted by its length, we re-entered the theater, the curtain rose on a sort of WWI military medical camp (rabbit eared nurses) over which hung operating theater lamps. Half of the stage however was consecrated to distressed, stadium style theater seating. Another lengthy scene change occurred as we sat in semi-darkness. There was yet another lengthy scene change, this time a vista (we watched the transformation), with lots and lots of smoke, air raid sirens howling and howling some more, the maestro patiently waiting, the chorus arriving finally to beg some bread to keep them alive.
Truly exhausted by the Ersan Mondtag epic staging we were stunningly smitten when at last Leonora emerged from the libretto’s cave — here a door of the skull covered monastery — to recognize her long lost lover Don Alvaro. It was a hugely felt scene, fully justifying the price (time) we had paid to arrive, finally, at this moment. Verdi’s La forza del destino had actually attained the truly exhausting epic proportions its libretto sorely lacks.
Payoff, however, had been assured from the initial, famed thematic statement, the Opéra de Lyon’s music director Daniele Rustioni magisterially presiding. It was a virtuoso performance of the overture, the bright sound of the Opéra Nouvel (named after its architect) adding considerable excitement and import to Verdi’s unstoppable counterforce to ineluctable doom. The maestro’s rhythmic force remained epic, a constant through the struggles over the acts of the protagonists, the exhortations of the gypsy fortune teller to the soldiers, the Padre Guardiano’s admonitions to the monks, and the suffering of the masses.
Leonora was sung by Uzbekistan born, German finished soprano Hulkar Sabirova. Until recently her signature role has been Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus. She has now taken on some of the later Verdi heroines — both Leonora’s (Trovatore and Forza), Hélène in Vêpres and Aida. She is a true Verdi soprano of a purity of sound that soars to impeccably voiced high notes, never losing a spinto force nor her innocence of tone. Her Act I “Me pellegrini ed orfana” reassured us that this emotionally complex role would securely unfold.
Mme. Sabirova in Act II convinced the Padre Guardiano (and us) of her sincerity, returning, hours later, to beg God for peace ,— “Pace, pace, mio Dio” — by that time a sentiment we sorely shared, as stage director Ersan Mondtag’s wars raged on. It was a deeply felt, and sublime prayer.
Don Alvaro was sung by Italian tenor Riccardo Massi who sang Puccini’s Dick Johnson in last year’s Winter Festival, as well as singing the Verdi heroes on the world’s major stages. Mr. Massi is obviously a born singer, he possesses a quite beautiful voice that moves throughout the tenor range with strength and ease. Once a Hollywood stuntman, he moves on stage with suave ease and knowing assurance. his Act III aria “O tu che in seno agli angeli” shone with elegance.
Mongolian baritone Ariunbaatar Ganbaatar sang Leonora’s brother Don Carlos di Vargas who, consumed by vengeance, pursues Don Alvaro, the presumed seducer of his sister Leonora and the presumed murderer of their father. Mr. Ganbaatar exhibits enormous presence and possesses a voice of size and importance if not of usual baritone warmth. His innate bluster was well used to embody the opera’s instrument of destruction. His Act III aria “Morir! Tremenda cosa! … Urna fatale del mio destino” wherein he debates honor versus vengeance was superfluous to the Mondtag staging.
Of note were the Acts III and IV duets wherein the suavity of Mr. Massi’s Don Alvaro was extravagantly pitted against the brutality of Mr. Ganbaatar’s Don Carlo. The massive male sound was a crude preview of the Otello/Iago vow that crowns Boito’s much more refined Otello libretto.
The Padre Guardiano was richly and grandly intoned by Italian bass Michele Pertusi, the Act II closing chorus with the The Padre Guardiano, Leonora, and Fra Melitone was laden with exquisite pianos. Both Mr. Pertusi and baritone Paolo Bordogna as Fra Melitone are veteran buffos at the Pesaro Rossini Festival. Though often rendered as a buffo role, Fra Melitone in the Ersan Mondtag production was a subordinate to be abused by the Padre Guardiano.
Preziosilla was sung by Russian mezzo soprano Maria Barakova. Mme. Barakova is of rather important voice and presence, rendering Preziosilla as a strong personality who motivates wars and warriors, hardly a seductive ingenue who might offer some tongue-in-cheek relief to the bleakness of Verdi’s contested destiny.
Mention must be made of the huge contribution of the chorus to Verdi’s sprawling epic. The Opéra de Lyon’s chorus was indefatigable, never losing its fine tone amidst Mr. Mondtag’s complex staging. The smaller roles as well reflected the production’s high level casting.
Michael Milenski
Opéra Nouvel, Lyon, France. March 17, 2025. All photos courtesy of the Opéra national de Lyon.