Verdi – Un ballo in maschera
ONP Bastille, Tuesday July 10 2007 Conductor: Paul Weigold. Production: Gilbert Deflo. Riccardo: Marcelo Alvarez. Renato: Ludovic Tézier. Amelia: Angela Brown. Ulrica: Elena Manisitina. Oscar: Camilla Tilling. Silvano: Jean-Luc Ballestra. Sam: Michail Schelomianski. Tom: Scott Wilde. Giudice: Pascal Meslé. Servo d’Amelia: Nicolas Marie. “C’était pas mauvais, mais c’était ennuyeux”. “On reste sur sa faim”. Those two comments, heard after the show, just about sum up this disappointing end to our season. It was one of those evenings when a decent cast could have done a better job with a different conductor and director. I like my Verdi brisk, bouncy and with a certain bite to it – rawness, even. Paul Weigold played it like a late romantic chamber work: rounded sounds, languorous tempi , legato , rubato , all in all a sort of expansive soupiness (beautifully executed, notwithstanding) that at best brought to mind Mendelssohn, at worst Rachmaninov. There was no dramatic tension, no forward ...