Washington National Opera opened the new season with its first staging of Beethoven’s Fidelio in over twenty years. The company billed it as a new production by artistic director Francesca Zambello, not the dismal production she mounted for WNO in 2003, in the bad old days at DAR Constitution Hall. Yet, even with different sets and costumes, the political ideas behind this interpretation, seen Friday evening in the Kennedy Center Opera House, are largely the same.

The American debut of Sinéad Campbell Wallace in the title role stood out among the evening’s strongest assets. The Irish dramatic soprano, who has garnered acclaim in Europe in recent years, wielded all the necessary vocal attributes. Her high B in the character’s Act I aria, “Komm, Hoffnung,” gleamed with power, matched by confident horn accompaniment. The chest voice resonated as well, lending a further aura of masculine credibility to Leonore’s disguise as Fidelio. Her acting in general ran the full gamut of emotional expressivity.

As Florestan, the political activist husband Leonore manages to rescue from a cruel death in prison, New Orleans-born tenor Jamez McCorkle brought a strong dramatic sensitivity. The high G the character is required to sing at his entrance in the bleak aria opening Act II grew from a plaintive head voice to full-throated wail and back again. The top end sometimes wore out from strain, though, leaving him without the heroic tone needed in his solo turns in the rousing finale.

Bass-baritone Derek Welton brought menacing stage presence to the role of Pizarro, the slimy governor of the prison. The voice paled at some significant moments, leading to an unfortunately tentative characterization. (Perhaps he was guarding vocal resources: Welton is the only singer in the cast who will sing in the concert of Wagner scenes Saturday night and then again in the matinee performance of Fidelio Sunday afternoon.)

Rounding out the lead quartet of singers, all making company debuts, was the Rocco of bass David Leigh. While his vocal quality and comic timing suited the heart-of-gold jailer ideally, his chaotic sense of rhythm undermined the performance with disappointing regularity. (Leigh is the son of Mitch Leigh, who wrote the score for Man of La Mancha.)

Among the Cafritz Young Artists tapped for the cast, soprano Tiffany Choe distinguished herself for comic energy and a resilient top range as the jailor’s daughter, Marzelline. Tenor Sahel Salam made a dopey Jaquino, put hilariously in the friend zone by Choe.

The other big reason to attend this Fidelio is for the conducting of Robert Spano, his first appearance at the podium since being appointed WNO music director-designate, for a three-year term beginning next fall. With a calm and utterly clear gestural style, he led the orchestra in a confident rendering of the score, luxuriating in the opera’s most lush moments, like the Act I quartet. The WNO Chorus, especially its male half in the first act, rushed nervously in spite of patient leadership from Spano.

Fidelio was a breakthrough opera for Zambello, when she staged it for Houston Grand Opera in 1984. She revived that production for WNO in 2003, and this new production has much in common with it, down to the German Shepherds paraded around the stage amid jack-booted police squadrons. (The canine supernumeraries did not rove through the aisles this time, a move that caused considerable audience consternation twenty years ago.)

Zambello confuses the story by centering the villainy not on Pizarro, but on an unseen “Commander” who, once elected to lead this unnamed country, clamps down on press freedom and arrests his political enemies. Like Zambello’s 2003 production, a pantomime during the overture depicts the crackdowns of this new regime, in violation of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, some of whose articles are projected on the scrim.

Erhard Rom’s dingy sets and Anita Yavich’s drab military costumes evoke the World War II era, but Zambello has spoken clearly about this staging, which was scheduled for 2020 and delayed by the pandemic. “I thought we should do it in the fall of an election year,” she said in an Opera interview this month. “Who knew that our country was going to be in such upheaval? We’re in a revolution, and this piece speaks of political upheaval and questions of morality.”

Zambello’s most overt alteration was the cross-casting of mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, a longtime Washington favorite, as Don Fernando. The Commander has been overthrown, she announces, and she is the prime minister of a new, more just regime. Graves, who turned 60 this year, has the vocal gravitas and stage presence to pull off the role, including some sterling low notes, and her white pantsuit invited comparison to one of this year’s American presidential candidates.

The heavy-handed political commentary, as usual, only weighed down the opera, a frequent mistake with Fidelio, which opens after all with considerable comic lightness. Although the singers brought off the family drama misunderstandings stemming from Marzelline falling in love with Leonore in disguise, the contentiousness of the staging worked against the libretto’s moments of joy and humor.

Fidelio runs through November 4. kennedy-center.org

Leave a Comment

Name (required):

Email (will not be published) (required):

Website:

Message:

Δ