France Bellini, Beatrice di Tenda: Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of Opéra national de Paris / Mark Wigglesworth (conductor). Opéra Bastille, Paris, 28.2.2024. (KS)
Production:
Director – Peter Sellars
Set design – George Tsypin
Costumes – Camille Assaf
Lighting design – James F. Ingalls
Dramaturgy – Antonio Cuenca Ruiz
Chorus master – Ching-Lien Wu
Cast:
Beatrice de Tenda – Tamara Wilson
Filippo Visconti – Quinn Kelsey
Angese del Maino – Theresa Kronthaler
Orombello – Pene Pati
Anichino – Amitai Pati
Rizzardo del Maino – Taesung Lee
In 1833, Vincenzo Bellini, at the height of his fame for composing gorgeous bel canto operas, made an unusual decision: he wrote one about torture. Beatrice di Tenda confronted the struggle for liberation at a time when military oppression surged across Europe. Shocked and appalled by the content, operagoers disdained the work, and it has sat largely on the shelf ever since.
American director Peter Sellars saw that Beatrice’s time was now. ‘This is a completely new era in human history,’ he says. In a post-pandemic moment with wars and authoritarianism surging in Gaza, Ukraine, Africa, and across the world, ‘Beatrice speaks to the thirst of humanity for the next step in our evolution.’
This season, Sellars staged a new production of Beatrice di Tenda at the Opéra Bastille in Paris – his first Italian opera. Far from your grandmother’s bel canto, the production draws its poignancy from its unflinching look at cruelty and the tragic ambivalence that often precludes compassion. At this performance the cast delivered lavish performances of Bellini’s expansive melodies and showed courageous emotional commitment to exploring these human dimensions.
The story follows the life of Beatrice di Tenda, a benevolent fifteenth-century Italian duchess whose philandering second husband, Filippo Maria Visconti resents her wealth and political power and desires the Countess Agnese (Theresa Kronthaler). The tyrannical autocrat accuses Beatrice of adultery with the young reformist and musician Orombello (Pene Pati) and has them both tortured and sent to the firing squad.
As Beatrice, American soprano Tamara Wilson anchored the opera’s musical and moral universe. She radiated compassion in every scene with her magnetic presence and lustrous coloratura. When Filippo (Quinn Kelsey) unleashed his torrent of accusations, her voice suddenly softened but retained all its potency as she pleaded for reason in deftly controlled high registers. Her pull was palpable as she mourned her marriage’s damaging effect on her people, drawing closer her ladies in waiting as well as the audience.
With set designer and longtime collaborator George Typsin, Sellars staged the opera in a manicured, and militarized, palatial garden. Wrought from metal, the intricate, spiky foliage glowed bright green with more malice than verdancy. Was the ivy across the back wall creeping? Or cancerous? The effect was cold, with a Queen of Hearts frivolity. Surveillance cameras dotted the scene, and a background screen lit up to reveal a wall of hidden choristers, reinforcing the idea of constant observation.
Costuming amplified this hardness as well, with choristers uniformed in black leather pants and skirt suits – something between an NGO and a mob regime. Meanwhile, Beatrice alone evoked democratic ideals and feminine strength in a golden Greco gown.
American baritone Quinn Kelsey made a bitter, petulant Filippo, while his warm, majestic voice revealed hope for a better nature. In one of the most stunning scenes, Beatrice and tenor Pene Pati’s already-tortured Orombello traded exquisite phrases encouraging each other to prevail before the court. In an unusual moment for bel canto, Bellini shows a villain grappling with his conscience; confounded by their nobility, Filippo turned away and sang to himself of a power beyond his understanding and considered clemency. Here the orchestra leaned hard into one of the many double fermatas peppering the score, creating a riveting moment of silent reflection that Filippo smashed with a demand for prosecution.
Also unique for bel canto, the chorus of Beatrice surprised with their own moral ambiguity. The men’s chorus – Filippo’s entourage – at various times amplified the dictator’s toxicity and spurred violence towards the innocent Beatrice, and at other times lamented his cruelty and whispered of opposition. Moments of rich, purring harmonies made the ferocity of their final calls for execution all the more chilling.
‘I find the opera devastating in its accuracy,’ Sellars said on a Zoom call. ‘Bellini puts all this music of compassion and mercy inside these contexts where there’s no compassion and no mercy. What the whole world is striving for right now is the flowering of the imagination of something else. We’re surrounded by the total lack of imagination.’
Bellini showed us his in the score. At the opera’s close, the martyred Beatrice faces the firing squad with an ecstatic aria, a declaration of triumph. In an essay featured in this production’s comprehensive program book, American musicologist Susan McClary observed that the opera’s bright overture underscores not cruelty or murder, but Beatrice and her ultimate heroism. We now see all sides of our potential – which choice will we make?
Katelyn Simone