I Puritani Review – Oropesa dazzles in Jones’s seductive Bellini rendition | Opera

FOrgit Puccini and Nesson Dorma: The appropriate opera composer for the World Cup is Bellini. The extremely high notes, the agility, the endurance involved in singers singing endless arias before releasing vocal notes like a gymnast swinging around the bars – it’s the closest thing to opera as a sport. Getting the right players together at this level is no easy feat, which is certainly one reason why it has been almost 35 years since Bellini’s last opera, I Puritani, was last performed at Covent Garden.

There is enough great singing in the Royal Opera’s new production to satisfy anyone who views opera singers as elite athletes. But there’s more to it than that, thanks in part to conductor Riccardo Frezza, in his home debut. Bellini’s 1835 opera may be the singer’s masterpiece, but it’s the orchestral details that really make this piece shine, and Frizza puts it wonderfully, creating buoyancy without ever pushing the voices and a deep momentum from Bellini’s pulsating accompaniments.

Richard Jones’s production manages a style of immediacy that’s also engaging, even if it’s not entirely cohesive. The original story pits the Roundhead against the Cavalier in 17th-century Plymouth. In Jones’ interpretation, we are certainly in a civil war, but which one is uncertain thanks to the allusive nature of Hime Shin’s sets and Nicky Gillibrand’s costumes: English? American? The Cavaliers wear bandanas and look like messy-haired cowboys. The Roundheads are a raggedly dressed pack dressed in battle gear with iron helmets and what resemble modern flak jackets. Granite slabs with pointed arched windows cascade across the stage to form Elvira’s bedroom, or prison cell, almost indistinguishably, and a nice touch is the way all-important letter words emerge from the page in elegant and sometimes hilarious ribbons, thanks to Sasha Palmazzi-Owen’s video performances.

Not surprisingly, Jones does not give us the opera’s original happy ending—the idea that Elvira, who spends much of the opera in a state of psychosis induced by her fiancé, can be restored to perfect sanity by true love in time for the final chorus, is largely unworkable. But what is ultimately surprising is the extent to which her unwanted suitor Ricardo, the round-headed general, is described here as completely dishonest.

However, baritone Andrei Vilonchik does a good job in the role, enveloping the violent characterization with velvety sustained vocal lines. As our hero Arturo, Francesco Demuro delivers a less grandiose but laser-focused high note, even if his glory on the optional high note in the final scene doesn’t quite pay off. But the lady of the match is Lisette Oropesa. Elvira quickly became a signature role for her, and her performance, dazzlingly sung and consistently dramatic, is the best reason to revive this difficult and fascinating opera.