Andrea Chénier

by Umberto Giordano

seen 26 January 2015

Covent Garden's first production of this opera in about 30 years stars Jonas Kaufmann in the title role, with Eva-Maria Westbroek as Maddalena de Coigny and Željko Lučić as Carlo Gérard. It is directed by David McVicar and conducted by Antonio Pappano.

The opera concerns the poet Andrea Chénier who, though supportive of the French Revolution, was critical of the Jacobin Terror, and who was eventually executed just days before the fall of Robespierre in 1794. Robespierre famously wrote on the execution order 'Même Platon a banni les poètes de sa République', a statement scrawled across the bloodstained tricoleur used as a curtain drop between scene changes. A romantic interest, in which Maddalena de Coigny is loved by both Chénier and Gérard, is an invention of the opera.  Gérard was once a servant on the Coigny estate, but he rises to political importance as a Jacobin; Maddalena, however, only has eyes for Chénier and goes with him to his death; Gérard is powerless to save them.

The production is set firmly in its historical time, opening in the opulent salon of the Coigny estate with liveried servants preparing for an evening party under the direction of  Gérard. Later acts take place in a Parisian tavern, in the court of the Committee of Public Safety, and in the St Lazare prison. There is no attempt - and no need - to generalise from these specific locations; the corruption of idealism, the compromises of power, and the dangers of mob rule are all eloquent enough. There are in any case so many references to historical figures and to events related to the Revolution, that the opera must be anchored in the period if it is to remain coherent. The romantic effusions of the doomed couple can perhaps only be taken seriously in their historical setting as they would seem peculiarly dated in any other context. Here, the power of the music and the extraordinary conviction of the singers sweeps us into the moment where they can view death together as the ultimate triumph of love.

Jonas Kaufmann is.ideally suited to the role of Andrea Chénier - he has a superbly warm and versatile tenor voice and is a magnetic presence on the stage. His passionate arias swelled effortlessly from his predicament and were sung with great beauty. He was matched by Eva-Maria Westbroek, who gained greater stature in the later acts once rid of her aristocratic shallowness. But Željko Lučić's powerful and anguished baritone as Gérard provided a marvellous foil to the leads; his great aria of despair as he realises that his old servitude has been replaced by a new slavery to politics was a real high point of the third act. But it is the rapturous determination of the lovers to face their fate as dawn breaks and the tumbrel awaits them that provides the final climax of Girodano's emotive score. Here Kaufmann and Westbroek deliver right to the end.