UK Theatre Network

The latest work at Opera Holland Park  Francesca da Rimini,  is a challenging piece. Like Debussy’s  Pelleas and Melisande  it seems there are no real memorable duets that linger with Riccardo Zandonai’s work. Also like the aforementioned opera, they share a somewhat similar storyline where the heroine falls in love with the brother  of her husband and both come to tragic ends. It’s a familiar sense of déjà vu.

The opera is based on the life of the daughter of Guido da Polenta, lord of Ravenna who in appeasement of peace between the Malatesta family affirms the agreement by marrying his daughter Francesca (Cheryl Barker ) to the Malatestan heir,  Giovanni (Jeffrey Black) .

Giovanni being deformed has a proxy stand in his place -his handsome brother, Paolo(Julian Gavin ) . Naturally Paolo and Francesca fall in love but she realises the morning after the wedding day she has been duped. During the war with a neighbouring family,  Francesca and Paolo fall in love, helped along by a passion for reading the story of Lancelot and Guinevere.

It is only when the youngest brother Malaetestino(Jeffrey Lloyd Roberts)  tells Giovanni of their affair, that he finds them and kills them both.

 It’s difficult to see chemistry and contrast between the cast. While Barker’s voice quality is lovely, her  physicality does not suggest she is the  naïve pawn. Gavin’s Paolo is sung with a depth of feeling but again it’s an unlikely pair.  Lloyd Roberts as Malaetestino is in fine voice but as he is  the most strapping of the three brothers it’s hard to see him as the ‘small perverted child’ Francesca calls him when he makes his own advances to her.  

The staging never quite creates the sense of their world. Two battlements are constantly moving to show a fortress under attack and Francesca’s boudoir within. There are significant gaps of time between scene changes  that somehow seem just not right.
There are some great touches such as lighted torches held aloft moving back and forth to suggest a siege and a rain of flaming arrows. The depth of the female chorus singing was lovely, but this seems not enough. After all the effort to get to the tragic end,  Giovanni despatches  Paolo and Francesca so quickly that one feels somehow cheated.

Phillip Thomas leads the  City of London Sinfonia for Francesca da Rimini till August 13^th

July 30, August 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13