Simon Boccanegra (Opera North). Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham, 29 April 2025, 5☆☆☆☆☆. Review: William Ruff.
Photo Credit: James Glossop.
Simon Boccanegra (Opera North). Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham, 29 April 2025,
5☆☆☆☆☆. Review: William Ruff.
“An opera production where less turns out to be much more.”
Simon Boccanegra is never going to be one of Verdi’s most popular operas. Its plot is notoriously complicated – and even when you think you’ve just about grasped what’s going on, questions arise which can never be answered. It’s one of those dramas in which a deeply personal story unfolds against a political background, both of which take time to understand.
The opera is set in 14th century Genoa and Simon (a pirate) is elected Doge (head of state). One storyline is about how he deals with various threats to his power and eventually dies poisoned by Paolo, a former ally. The personal story involves Maria, Simon’s long-lost daughter whose mother was the daughter of Simon’s sworn political enemy, Jacopo Fiesco. Maria is in love with Gabriele Adorno, another of Simon’s adversaries. Just to make things even more complicated, there’s a vast wrench of 25 years between the opera’s Prologue and Act 1…and just when we are beginning to get our heads round who all the characters are, two of the main ones undergo name changes for reasons you won’t want me to explain here.
But the music is often magnificent. The vocal texture makes it stand out from Verdi’s other operas: there is a preponderance of lower male voices and just one solo soprano role. Roland Wood is outstanding as Simon, especially in the scene in which Doge Simon pleads with Genoa’s Senate for peace with Venice, arguing that both cities are part of one and the same country. Wood’s charisma and vocal authority are magnificent and make you wonder if Verdi ever wrote anything more eloquent for the baritone voice.
He is differently impressive in the intensely moving duet in which he rediscovers his daughter after a quarter of a century. Sara Cortolezzis matches him in intensity and vocal power, not only in this key scene but throughout an opera in which she has to bring a wide range of emotional and vocal resources to bear on rapidly changing situations, constantly having to interpose between those who wish to do each other harm.
And the final glory of this production is the concluding quartet in which Simon, Gabriele, Fiesco and Maria (plus chorus) take Simon with poignant dignity to his death. Andrés Presno is splendidly heroic as Gabriele both as political rebel and full-throated lover of Maria and Vazgen Gazaryan sings the role of Jacopo Fiesco with dignity and authority. Mandla Mndebele and Richard Mosley-Evans play the two political schemers and plotters Paolo and Pietro, plumbing vocal depths to splendid effect.
Opera North offers a semi-staged, concert version of Simon Boccanegra. If this sounds like a cost-cutting compromise, it’s anything but. Less is definitely more in this case. The orchestra (conducted with energy and insight by Antony Hermus) is on-stage, not only fully visible throughout but sounding magnificent in every subtle detail. In fact, the orchestra becomes a central character in the drama, whether evoking the calm sea at the beginning of Act 1 or accompanying fierce political rebellion.
And the staging is really effective. Not only is the main stage cleverly divided by arches into three flexible spaces but, in this Nottingham performance at least, the whole auditorium is used to provide maximum dramatic immediacy: senators appear in the hall’s boxes, political getherings happen in the choir stalls and the rebellious crowd erupt into the stalls, singing antiphonally from left to right. In short, it is all rather thrilling.
OPERA NORTH
Roland Wood (Simon Boccanegra), Vazgen Gazaryan (Jacopo Fiesco), Sara Cortolezzis (Amelia), Andrés Presno (Gabriele Adorno), Mandla Mndebele (Paolo Albiani), Richard Mosley-Evans (Pietro), Ivan Sharpe (A Captain), Katie Sharpe (Amelia’s Maid)
Chorus of Opera North
Orchestra of Opera North
Antony Hermus (Conductor), PJ Harris (Director), Anna Reid (Designer), Richard Moore (Lighting Designer)
Touring to Gateshead (2 May), Liverpool (11 May), Hull (17 May) and Southbank Centre, London (24 May).