Page 178 - FINAL_Theatre of Sound Coverage Book

Though the Royal Opera’s first main season gambit, artistic director Oliver Mears’ new
production of Verdi’s Rigoletto, felt too routine too often, the long-
delated Janáček Jenůfa scoured the soul as it must, with supremely vivid performances from the
astonishing Asmik Grigorian and Karital Mattila. Some faults in the sound balance due to a sound
stage that went up and just a few questionable production gambits left it short of perfection.

Which I couldn't say about an earlier, May flourish of unpredictable brilliance from the dream
team of director Richard Jones and Mark Wigglesworth in a Mozart La clemenza di Tito highly
charged from start to finish. Jones's latest Wagner Ring launch with The Valkyrie at English
National Opera had major casting problems; there was none here. What a revelation in a
uniformly fine ensemble to discover singing actors many of us didn’t know, above all Emily
D'Angelo (pictured above by Clive Barda), though Nicole Chevalier, Angela Brower, Edgaras
Monvidas and Christina Gansch also made huge impressions

Gansch’s hyper-expressivity was one aspect of an exceptionally fine line-up for the BBC Cardiff
Singer of the World 2021 finale. The winner could have been soprano Masabane Cecilia
Rangwanasha or mezzo Natalia Kutateladze as well as Korean baritone Jihoon Kim, who did
take the first prize. I can’t help feeling that the wonderful Roberta Alexander might have swayed
her fellow jurors too much in favour of Rangwanasha’s impassioned spiritual in the song finale,
which should have gone to Gansch or Madagascan baritone Michael Arivony, while the biggest
thrill of the overall finale, for me, was Rangwanasha’s dazzlingly authoritative performance of
Elisabetta’s big Act Five aria in Verdi’s Don Carlo. This young South African (pictured below by
Ellie Kurttz) has it all; we heard more of her Elisabetta in Act Two of the opera at a Royal
Opera Jette Parker Young Artists’ showcase which also revealed a dazzling group in this
toughest of years.