Under Gergiev, the male singers dominate in Verdi's challenging score.

Verdi: Don Carlo

Richard Margison (tenor) - Don Carlo
Dmitri Hvorostovsky (baritone) - Marquis of Posa
Samuel Ramey (bass) - King Philip II
Paata Burchuladze (bass) - The Grand Inquisitor
Galina Gorchakova / Veronica Villarroel (soprano) - Queen Elisabeth
Irina Mishura (contralto) - Princess Eboli
Theodora Hanslowe (contralto) - Tebaldo
Jennifer Check (soprano) - A Celestial Voice

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus
Valery Gergiev (conductor)
Paul Mills (director)

Thursday 3 January 2002
Metropolitan Opera House, New York City

Don Carlo, commissioned by the Paris Opéra in 1866 and unveiled at the 1867 Paris Exposition, was written by Verdi when he was 53 and at the height of his powers. It was his most ambitious project to date. For his subject, he chose the great play of the same name by Friedrich von Schiller; under Verdi's close supervision, a French libretto was prepared by Joseph Méry (who died before the premiere) and Camille Du Locle. Verdi had already based three earlier operas on dramas by Schiller, whose ardent libertarianism echoed the composer's own hatred of tyranny. In Don Carlo, the play and the opera, these ideals are expressed with great power and immediacy. Schiller, as was his wont, took historical personages and transformed them to suit his dramatic purposes. The grandly conceived play is set at the court of Philip II of Spain against the background of the Inquisition; it pits father against son, Church against State, and duty, virtue and love against intrigue and jealousy. It provided Verdi with the six strongly drawn characters whose interactions form the core of the opera: the fanatical, all-powerful Grand Inquisitor; the despotic King; the King's revolutionary son Carlo, whom he detests; Elisabeth, the Queen, once betrothed to Carlo but forced by politics into a loveless marriage with the King; the beautiful Princess Eboli, the King's mistress, who is in love with Carlo; and the Marquis of Posa, Carlo's devoted friend and fiery champion of liberty and suffering humanity, whose views closely mirror Schiller's own.

For Don Carlo, Verdi developed a new technique for handling dialogue, giving the melody to the orchestra while the singers converse in a dramatic, almost declamatory style (though all the characters except the Inquisitor also have great show-stopping arias). Verdi and his librettists added two scenes that are not in Schiller's play: an auto-da-fé to satisfy the Paris Opéra's love of spectacle and an introductory Act I to clarify the background of the triangular relationship between the King, the Queen and the Prince. In that introductory scene, set in the forest at Fontainebleu, Carlo and Elisabeth meet and fall in love, only to be shattered by the news that Philip has demanded her hand for himself as the price of peace. The opera begins with a true Verdian chorus of the oppressed, reminiscent of those in Nabucco and Macbeth, as a crowd of shivering, starving woodcutters laments the misery brought on them by the war with Spain.

The task of imposing shape and proportion on this wealth of material was daunting even for Verdi; he struggled with it for years, subjecting the work to several extensive revisions. As he had originally conceived it, the opera proved far too long, at least for the time constraints of the Paris Opéra, and he was compelled to make drastic cuts. For later productions, he recomposed, abridged and restored much of the music, which led to conflicting editions and performance traditions. Act I was cut and then reinstated, creating a four-act as well as a five-act version. Some of the excised material was lost for more than a century; two Verdi scholars, David Rosen and Andrew Porter, rediscovered it independently in 1969 in old orchestral scores and parts. These discoveries resulted in the publication of a new "critical revision" by Ursula Günther and Luciano Petazzoni, upon which the current Metropolitan Opera production is based. It includes the first act and all the other music Verdi retained, and lasts four and a half hours — not a minute too long. As at most opera houses today, it is sung in the Italian translation of 1884.

At the 3 January performance, the men were most impressive. Carlo makes his entrance with his only aria; it is cruelly difficult, but Richard Margison sang it perfectly and with fine romantic ardor. His basically lyrical voice took on a heroic ring in the duets with Posa, who tries to transform the Prince's preoccupation with affairs of the heart into renewed concern for the affairs of humanity.

Samuel Ramey abetted Verdi in humanizing the King, with majestic dignity in his bearing and a yearning for trust and friendship in his voice; his great monologue lamenting that the Queen has never loved him makes the listener wonder why she shouldn't. (In Schiller's play, he admits that he could never love her, which seems more plausible.) His confrontation with the Inquisitor was riveting: two monoliths on a collision course. The world's mightiest king was easily overpowered by Paate Burchuladze's towering bulk and booming, almost raw bass, making Philip's final crumbling submission totally believable — and pathetic.

But it was Dmitri Hvorostovsky who dominated the stage from the moment he appeared. There is something magically effortless about his singing; the beautiful, dark, sonorous voice flows out naturally, his breath is endless. He inhabits the part vocally, emotionally and physically: his Posa is noble, proud, undaunted, persuasive, his high-principled integrity beyond doubt, a man as worthy of Philip's trust as of Carlo's friendship. We mourn his death with both of them.

The hapless Queen had more than her usual share of troubles. Sounding wan and shaky in the first two acts, Galina Gorchakova withdrew due to illness and was replaced by Veronica Villaroel, who seemed unready to appear in the role. Villaroel is singing the part later in the season, so judgment should be deferred.

As Princess Eboli, Irina Mishura looked so lovely that her great aria cursing her beauty seemed thoroughly realistic. However, she lacked the fiery temperament and unbridled passion the role requires, and her intonation was a bit uncertain. Theodora Hanslowe stood out in the all-too-minor part of Elisabeth's page.

Gergiev again justified his high reputation as a Verdi conductor. His affinity and love for the music spoke through every note, but he seemed unconcerned with mundane details like ragged attacks and intonation problems. However, the orchestra played beautifully, as always, with deeply felt expressiveness and a ravishing sound; Jerry Grossman's cello solo in Act IV was particularly wonderful.