Above : Natalie Aroyan in the role of Rachel. Featured image: members of the Opera Australia Chorus. Photo credit: Prudence Upton.
Opera Australia is currenty doing a veritably formidable job in bringing the confronting, sprawling nineteenth century opera La Juive by French composer Fromental Halévy to life.
The Dame Joan Sutherland Theatre, even post renovation, has only a fraction of the scope and space for chorus that the Paris Opera had at this work’s 1835 premiere. However, successful blocking and use of the stage and even theatre boxes by revival director Costantine Costi gives the requisite immense impact a very decent go here.
The content will shock our modern minds. This is not a night out for the feint-hearted. The setting is Constance in 1414, complete with the cruelties of the Catholic Church zealots on show. Here is religious discrimination in its most extreme form, hunting down difference, keen to kill. The Catholics offer conversion or death for the Israelites and Hussites who dare to worship differently or fall in love with children of another God.
Above : Francisco Brito and Esther Song. Photo credit: Prudence Upton.
Olivier Py’s original production here catapults the savagery into pre-WW2 1930s. It has conference Catholics in bland trench-coated tones, Jews from the jewellery workshop in black formal dress and Pierre-André-Weitz’s dark, mostly monochrome set highlighted with vivid colours.
There is a revolving stage and shifting set behind much of the action. This mobile backdrop is often a challenging one for our focus. It does however add to the restless mood. It is also effective in revealing or adding fresh colour and texture to the set. This is an ominous moving window onto the exterior landscape where offending non-Catholics are burnt alive.
This month if audiences can steel themselves up against the themes of hatred and killing amongst European cultural or religious groups, then the rewards in the staging and singing will be as immense as Halévy’s theatrical vision statement. Sets with brilliantly incorporated iconography from the older, foreign religion and radical newer one will stun you.
The quartet of principals here is a fit one, and they need to be for the marathon event. Bristling ensemble singing with characters spaced well across the stage front steps, whether flanked by chorus or not makes for meaty storytelling.
Above: Opera Australia Chorus. Photo credit : Prudence Upton.
The penetrating voice and stage presence of Natalie Aroyan makes for a wonderful characterisation as Rachel. She gives firm leading in small ensemble moments with the other well-matched voices of principals. Solo moments such as ‘Il va venir’, as she waits in her fortress for her deceiving boyfriend are imbued with believable anticipation, sung with seamless organic growth and presented with deft movement always ensuring poignancy.
To match Aroyan’s adroitness of characterisation is the work of Diego Torre in the role of Eléazar. The famous aria ‘Rachel, quand du Signeur…’ prior to his sentencing to death is an amazing operatic moment with him alone on the stage. As always throughout, the lush score is brilliantly unravelled by the Opera Australia Orchestra and conductor Carlo Montanaro.
Torré’s reading of the bullied and persecuted Jew is fierce, fight-back bravery on a stick, especially in this production’s pre-Third Reich period formal dress. His moments with Aroyan and David Parkin as the Cardinal-with-a-past Brogni are quite electrifying in terms of vocal battles and use of the stage.
Above: Diego Torre, Natalie Aroyan and Francisco Brito. Photo credit: Prudence Upton.
As a rich, wronged femme fatale fresh from confession, Esther Song excels as Princess Eudoxie. Her coloratura cries in the dark are as technically slick as they are dramatically exciting and heart-wrenching.
Francisco Brito as the dashing, daring, double-timing Prince Leopold worked well in any vocal combination with other antagonists and his physicality was dynamic on the stage.
This local operatic event well and truly answered Halévy’s challenge with regards to chorus commentary and heckling. The rich tones in the Opera Australia chorus in response to this clever theatre composer’s grand ideas of structure are a highlight of the night.
Do yourself a favour and endure the conflict in this plot as well as discovering the musical and visual treats to be had in this savage exposé of past cruelties. Opera can move us so well in so many ways. The commitment required to follow the crucifix-wielding horrors here will be rewarded.