Chelsea Opera Group: ‘Oberto’
Cadogan Hall - 03/04/22
Early Verdi beats Royal Opera ‘Traviata’.
Today I’m on my way back to Edinburgh to resume editing the Edinburgh Music Review. Normally we cover classical music and opera in Scotland, and we have a team of talented writers covering the Scottish musical scene. Occasionally we venture abroad for important musical events, such as Jonas Kaufmann and Lise Davidsen’s performance in ‘Peter Grimes’ at the Vienna Staatstoper, reporting favourably on the last night of that production in Slipped Disc. This weekend we decided it was time to return to London for an operatic visit, after a Covid-necessitated gap of two years. Indeed our last visit was in March 2020 for the last night of ‘Fidelio’ at Covent Garden, with again Jonas Kaufmann and Lise Davidsen in the main roles. The opera house closed straight afterwards.
This weekend, the prospect of the last night of a new production of ‘Peter Grimes’ at Covent Garden was the main attraction, and we reported in Slipped Disc and the EMR that it was indeed very good, and in fact better than the Vienna star studded production.
A second attraction was the first performance of a new cast for ‘La Traviata’, also at Covent Garden, including the debut for South African star Pretty Yende in the role of Violetta. We reported in Slipped Disc and the EMR that it was underwhelming. The final part of our operatic weekend was the concert performance of Verdi’s first opera, ‘Oberto’, by the Chelsea Opera Group at the Cadogan Hall on Sunday evening and today we bring the first review of that performance. I’m glad to say it was excellent; indeed I would go so far to say it was superior to Covent Garden’s ‘Traviata’!
‘Oberto’ is very rarely performed, not least because being early Verdi it isn’t very good, a little crude in its plot and musical execution! Covent Garden have only performed it once in concert form in 1997 which I missed, as I was a little busy at the time as an MEP. Opera North did produce it in the 1994/5 season under the direction of the great English singer John Tomlinson who also sang Ricardo. By all accounts it was an underwhelming experience (though I’m glad to say John Tomlinson was still in good form aged 75 as Swallow in the last night of Grimes on Thursday!) So it was with some trepidation that I approached the performance of ‘Oberto’ on Sunday evening in the splendid settings of Cadogan Hall, one of my favourite concert venues in London. I was wrong, it was a great musical evening. Chelsea Opera Group produced a concert performance which was of a very high quality with some exceptional singing backed by an excellent semi-professional orchestra under the very good ex-Covent Garden conductor, Mathew Scott Rogers, with a very spirited chorus of some forty women and men. However the stars of the evening were the cast of singers who compared very favourably to the recorded version I’m listening to whilst writing this report, courtesy of Apple Music from 1997, and when I tell you this cast includes Samuel Ramey, Maria Guleghina, Stuart Neill and Violeta Urmana you should be impressed!
‘Oberto’ was first produced by La Scala in 1839 and although favourably received at the time was quickly surpassed by Verdi’s later and much better work and is now very rarely performed. The plot is very crude and the music often rather simplistic, what one critic called ‘rumpty-tumpty’ Verdi. Yet it has some good music, some excellent choruses and several very good arias which might even justify an occasional production at Covent Garden, rather than interminable revivals of ‘Traviata’ - 27 this season with 6 different casts!!
The cast on Sunday night included Peter Auty as Riccardo, an excellent tenor we know in Scotland from his performances with Scottish Opera; he was very good tonight, surefooted and with a lovely, sweet tone. Singing Leonora, Oberto’s daughter, was young Armenian soprano Anush Hovhannisyan (one of Covent Garden’s 6 Violettas this year) who we also know well in Scotland as she is a graduate of the Conservatoire in Glasgow, and sang a very good Violetta for Scottish Opera’s ‘Traviata’, indeed she compared very favourably with Pretty Yende’ s debut as Violetta on Saturday. Anush was superb tonight, totally secure and with a very big voice when required; she for me was the star of the evening and I predict will be a big star of opera in the near future. Stephan Loges was an excellent bass for the role of Oberto and his duets with Peter Auty as his adversary Riccardo were one of the highlights of the evening. The smaller parts of Cuniza and Imelda were well sung by Carolyn Dobbin and Eirlys Myfanwy Davies. The orchestra and the chorus were very tightly led by energetic conducting from Mathew Scott Rogers. The performance was very well received by a big Cadogan Hall audience, many of whom struggled with age and disability to attend.
Chelsea Opera Group are to be congratulated in reviving this early Verdi and doing it with such quality; with much smaller resources they compare very favourably with their neighbours at Covent Garden. For me it was a great operatic weekend in London, not least because of the relative lack of opera in Scotland compared with the riches of opera in London. I bumped into a very good Scottish soprano Cheryl Forbes at Covent Garden who was singing with Scottish Opera in ‘The Gondoliers’ at Hackney Empire. In the gents at Covent Garden I compared notes with a very fine young singer Benson Wilson who had just finished singing in ‘Cosi’ at the ENO. To paraphrase Dr Johnson, the opera lover who is deprived of opera should come to London. “I’ll be back”!
