Verdi's Don Carlo is the "Hamlet" of Italian opera. Every production of thisDon Carlo is based on a dramatic poem by Frederich Schiller and which is based very loosely on the history of King Philip II of Spain. Don Carlo, the young and impetuous son of Phillip, visits France and meets his betrothed, Elisabeth, the daughter of Henry II of France, in a forest near her castle. They swear eternal love, but are almost immediately informed that as part of the peace treaty between Spain and France, Phillip will wed Elisabeth instead. Elisabeth reluctantly agrees to the marriage for the good of her people.
profound and challenging work is a major venture for an opera company. The
Metropolitan Opera has to be pleased, over all, with its new
staging...which...earned an enthusiastic ovation.
The cast is mostly
excellent...Yannick Nezet-Seguin, the 35-year-old Canadian conductor, designated
to become the music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra...drew a richly
textured, inexorably paced and vividly characterized account of Verdi's epic
score from the great Met orchestra...he is a born communicator who brought
youthful passion and precocious insight to his work.
If there is nothing
very daring about the production, it is alive with striking images. The ominous
monastery of San Yuste in Spain is framed by looming black walls with rows of
square windows through which crisscrossing shafts of sunlight shine. The scene
in the public square…is played before an ornate gold church and culminates with
the glimpse of bodies on a flaming pyre in the background.
Anthony Tommasini:
…the bass Ferruccio Furlanetto, as Philip…brought aching expressivity andMy favorite character in the recording we have listened to many times, is the mezzo-soprano, Eboli, the beautiful and vain princess who is in love with Don Carlo and believes he is in love with her. She has a wonderful aria lamenting her fatal gift of beauty, which has brought her to ruin. Again, Tommasini:
stentorian sound to the scene in his lonely study at night,…overcome with
anguish as he confronts the reality of his life: a young wife who never loved
him; a rebellious, contemptuous son; subjects who fear him.
The lovely
Russian soprano Marina Poplavskaya, as Elisabeth…with her luminous singing,
beautiful pianissimo high notes and unforced power, was a noble, elegant
Elisabeth. Somehow the cool Russian colorings of her voice brought out the
apartness of the character, a young woman in a loveless marriage in a foreign
land.
The weak link was the Russian mezzo-soprano Anna Smirnova, in her Met debut, as
Princess Eboli, though weak is hardly the word to describe her go-for-broke
singing. Her sound was enormous, but there was too much raw bellowing. Eboli, a
dark beauty who has been the king’s mistress, is a seductress but also a victim.
She should be sultry, not blowsy.
While Verdi worked on this opera, he wrote to his publisher, “There is nothing historical in this drama.”
The historical Don Carlos, Prince of Asturias (1545-1568), was the eldest son of Philip II. He had only 6 great-grandparents, out of a possible 16, which may have contributed to his delicate constitution and mental instability. At age 17 he fell down a flight of stairs and suffered severe head injuries. Afterwards his behavior became progressively more bizarre and unpredictable.
He was betrothed to Elisabeth of Valois, daughter of Henry II of France, when they were both 14. I doubt they ever met during this time, as she lived in France (sharing a bedroom with young Mary, Queen of Scots) and he in Spain. The following year, as part of a peace treaty, his father, Philip, age 32, married Elisabeth. Philip was so enchanted with her that he soon gave up his mistress. Elisabeth wrote to her mother, Catherine de Medici, that she was fortunate to have married so charming a prince. Philip stayed near Elisabeth’s side when she suffered from smallpox. Clearly this was not “a young woman in a loveless marriage in a foreign land.”
When Don Carlos did not receive the expected command of Philip’s forces in the Netherlands at age 22, he may have contacted rebels in the area, and planned to leave Spain. When King Philip learned of these plans, he had Don Carlos imprisoned in solitary confinement. Elisabeth was always fond of Don Carlos and cried for days after hearing this. When Don Carlos died six months later, it was rumored that Philip had him poisoned, but modern historians believe he died of natural causes, perhaps of eating disorders. Coincidentally, Elisabeth died that same year, from complications after the miscarriage of her fifth daughter. They were both 23.
Philip II of Spain (1527-1598) ruled over Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily, and the seventeen provinces that made up the Low Countries (modern-day Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg). During 1554 to 1558, while married to Queen Mary I, Henry VIII’s first daughter (“Bloody Mary”), he was also King of England and Ireland. During his reign Spain explored and colonized territories on all the continents known to Europeans at the time. Spain was a major player in the geopolitics of the day and the Philippines were named after him.
In 1563 he was described by a Venetian ambassador Paolo Fagolo: “his overall appearance is very attractive. He dresses very tastefully, and everything that he does is courteous and gracious.”
As head of a strong Catholic empire, Philip saw himself as a primary defender of the Catholic faith and supported the Spanish Inquisition, which was established by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, originally targeted at probing into whether or not the conversions to Christianity of Jews and Muslims were complete.
Rodrigo, Marquis of Posa, is completely fictional, a creation of Frederich Schiller. In Schiller’s drama, the Marquis Posa voices Schiller’s belief in personal freedom and democracy. Of Verdi’s Posa, Thomas Hampson (www.hampsong.com) comments:
The challenge artistically, then, to a role like Posa is, in fact, to avoid theThe characters and events in the opera Don Carlos are only loosely related to the historical Don Carlos, Elisabeth, and Philip. Verdi uses these characters to explore themes of idealism and deception, loyalty and betrayal, love and jealousy, and family and faith.
heroic. If one sings exactly as the master wrote, constant in his use of
pianissimi, trills, phrase markings, rests, there emerges a character who is
more intent on finding his way in each new circumstance rather than an operatic
figure bent on delivering his message. Posa is very intentionally given a
separate musical tone to each for his “partners ” – Elisabeth, Carlos, and most
importantly Philip – regardless of what it is he has to say. His lyricism is not
impotence, but a rather pliant, even manipulating dialogue. His outbursts are
always born of passion that surprises even himself and thus requires immediate
further dialogue. It is curious that the role of Posa is the only character not
to be altered in form, tessitura, presence, and, therefore, intent. Throughout
all of Verdi’s various revisions and approved translations from the original
French libretto, Posa remains intact.
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