By 2001 Covent Garden plans to have staged all Verdi's operas. In 1854-the year after Traviata-he said that, while he was prepared to abandon, as mistakes, some of the early operas that hadn't made the rounds, there were two that he would not like to see forgotten: La Battaglia di Legnano and Stiffelio. He planned to save them by providing them with more effective librettos. Work on a revamped Battaglia (with Leon Bardare the poet who completed Trovatore after Cammarano's death) petered out but with the pliant Piave (the original librettist) Stiffelio was refashioned as Aroldo. Stiffelio in 1854 had been heard in only four cities. Aroldo which appeared in Rimini in 1857 ( post-Boccanegra). soon went round the world-from Naples and Novara to New York, from Bologna and Sari to Buenos Aires, from Seville and Sinigaglia to Santiago, from Vienna and Valencia to Valparaiso.

Aroldo, Julian Budden writes in Covent Garden's Stiffelio programme, has 'craftsmanship and incidental beauties'; Stiffelio is 'the masterpiece Seville mounted both operas in 1859: Venice did both in 1985: Londoners can make the comparison when the Chelsea Opera Group does Aroldo on March 6. Stiffelio has the more striking plot-the plight of a Protestant pastor who preaches the forgiveness of sins but finds it hard to forgive his own wife's adultery-and is the more ambitious opera. The protagonist of Aroldo is a medieval Kentish crusader and its finale is not a church service at which the Bible falls open at the story of the woman taken in adultery. John 89 ('He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone'), moving the stem priest to forgive the repentant wife kneeling at his feet, but a coincidence-encounter on the bonny banks of Loch Lomond- destroying the unities-where Harold and his crusader-chum Brian have become hermits, and his wife and her father (what brought them there?) are tossed ashore by a storm.

Verdi dismembered Stiffelio when he composed Aroldo: from the autograph he tore the pages that he chose to retain, changed the characters' names, and buried the rest in his private archive. But the vocal score had been published, and copy full-scores survived (there were a few revivals after 1854, in Italy, Portugal, and Spain). From them Stiffelio has, since 1968, been revived a few times. But for the Royal Opera production (strictly speaking for the forthcoming Chicago-Ricordi Verdi Edition). Gabriella Carrura-Verdi opened at last the Sant'Agata music archive, divulged the original pages, and enabled the opera to be performed at Covent Garden on January 25 for the first time-ever--as Verdi originally wrote it. One mustn't make too much of that, however: the audible changes were mainly verbal, noticeable only to someone who had read the variously censored previous librettos.

The title role was composed far Gaetano Fraschini-also Verdi's first Zamoro in Alzira, Corrado in Il Corsaro, Arrigo in La Battaglia, and Riccardo in Ballo, arid a protagonist of many other important Verdi performances. The composer wanted him for Radames. The sound of his voice was likened to 'a great silver plate struck with a silver hammer'. He was evidently both forceful and graceful, perhaps a kind of Martinelli or Vickers (Covent Garden's great Riccardo,Radames, and Otello). Domingo sings the role at the Met in October. At CoventGarden, José Carreras (who recorded the opera 12 years ago) had power and earnestness. But once again he was a lyric tenor-intended by nature, surely, for Nemorino, at most Edgardo. Rodolfo-throwing his voice into a heavily dramatic role. He weighted the phrases and sounded them. He was impressive. But, intent on full vocalism, he didn't bring the troubled pastor to life: acting was limited to a tasteful stance and a graceful waving of hands and arms: his features remained immobile, uncommunicative.

Catherine Malfitano as the peccant wife was admirable. She is a soprano at the height of her powers-an American counterpart, perhaps, to Josephine Barstow. Violetta, Bergs Lulu, Barbers Cleopatra, Strauss's Salome, now Verdis Lina engage all her being. She commands the stage: each movement of voice and of body is expressive. One wants more, of course: more colours in the well-controlled and cleanly-emitted sound: a fuller swell: better, more telling words: inventive, exciting decorations in cabaletta reprises. But in a world where one can't (except on old records) get everything, one welcomes and warms to Malfitano.

Gregory Yurisich, who played Lina's father, has a baritone focussed to forte and at forte he was admirable. When the volume dropped-Verdi wrote a cabaletta marked pianissimo throughout until its last phrase-he tended to become fuzzy and unsure of pitch. The bit parts-Stiffelio is a three-singer opera-were decently taken by Gwynne Howell, Robin Leggate, Adele Paxton and Lynton Atkinson.

In the play from which StiffeIio was fashioned, Lina is a foresters daughter, like Agathe in Der Freischütz and so easier prey to a noble profligate. In the opera she's a countess and lives in a castle. Elijah Moshinsky (the producer), Michael Yeargan (the designer), and Peter J. Hall (costumes) moved the castle and the company to mid-America: a striking photograph of a Nebraska rural chapel- very well reproduced-and its adjacent graveyard provided the front-drop: a Montana glacier was the backdrop to the cemetery scene. A single box-set in forced perspective, with tall practicable doors, served (with modifications) for the four interiors. It was a pity to have no temple climax, merely (as in the original censored production) a family prayer meeting, but Covent Garden runs on a tight budget, and the show looked very handsome. It created an atmosphere in which one almost expected Lina to appear at the last wearing the Scarlet Letter.

But the set, built (like that for Alzira) on a raised platform placed well behind the proscenium arch, precluded any advancing to the footlights to engage the audience. Not for the first time, one watched and admired the intelligence, perceptiveness, and distinction of a Moshinsky production while missing something of the straightforward emotional appeal that performers in less polished but more direct (more Verdian?) presentations-among them. Stiffelios in Parma, Boston, Brooklyn-have stirred.

Edward Downes had edited the pristinated score, lie conducted it with care, with devotion, with reverent handling of even its tawdry episodes. Early Verdi perhaps needs to be taken riot so earnestly but with Schwung and a smile. Stiffelio is no Otello. The beery trumpet tune and the tripping oompah-accompanied ballet-class strains in the Overture can they be played in the late-20th century with a straight face? I don't know. On the one hand, if early Verdi is going to be revived it had better be taken seriously all the way through; on the other, some of the ridiculous early music sounds doubly so when it is played with punctiliousness, expressive pauses and emphases, for more than it's worth. as if it had great merit. And in the Covent Garden Stiffelio, even some of unquestionably powerful episodes, while exquisitely played, were held inexpressively to metronomic tempos. without singer-determined, verbally-inspired, sentiment-inspired flexibility. Things may have become freer after the first night.

Back home I listened to Callas's free-phrased, moving account of the preghiera. Ah, dagli scanni eterei-seeking (and finding) reassurance that Stiffelio/Aroldo is a more emotional opera than what I'd just heard. Moshinsky had rewritten Verdi's stirring close. Instead of forgiveness. C-major reconciliation, and happiness, we had a Stiffelio singing his last lines ("Perdonata') through gritted teeth, staring ahead, not looking with rekindled love at this wife, who tottered forward and apparently expired. While Verdi's music soared through a Happy Ending, the staging-without musical support-sought to suggest a tragedy.

STIFFELIO Opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi: libretto by Francesco Maria Piave after the play Le Pasteur ou L'evangile et le foyer by Emile Souvestre and Eugene Bourgeois. Producer Elijah Moshinsky, set designer Michael Yeargan, costume designer Peter J. Hall: lighting Paul Pyant First performance at the Royal Opera House. CoventGarden on 25 January 1993. Lina... Catherine Malfitano
Dorotea... Adele Paxton
Stiffelio... José Carreras
Raffaele di Leuthold... Robin Leggate
Federico di Frengel... Lynton Atkinson
Stankar... Gregory Yurisich
Jorg... Gwynne Howell
Conductor: Edward Downes

Copyright © 1993 OPERA Magazine