Andrea Chénier
La Scala, July 1985
By Carl Battaglia, Opera News, December 1985
Appearing in La Scala's Andrea Chénier, a production victimized by a strike threatening to cancel all performances, José Carreras and Eva Marton were two of the first-cast principals still available (July 12) for the closing week of the season.
Carreras has found a way to approximate the dramatic repertory and make it believable. He dominates the opera with formidable concentration and a cleverly refined vocal accent that imparts to this spinto role an overlay of intensity lacking in his essentially lyric tenor. Carreras' elegance and artistry are increasingly evident in his ability to manipulate theatrical space to point the stimulus of the action. By dramatizing an emotional build-up in advance of his first-act aria, he established its raison d' être. By fixing an unrelenting eye on Maddalena during "Al mio dire perdona, " to the obliteration of all other stage business, he sustained a visual tension that focused the remaining scene toward his "Un dì all'azzuro spazio."
Effulgent, sensual vocalism, dramatic intensity and a sense of throwing herself into a part are Marton hallmarks. In this role, however, the soprano proved more effective than affecting-fabulous turns of phrase, an insouciant inflection, an unexpected diminuendo, a gloriously rendered coda to "La mamma morta." But of Maddalena's "trionfo dell'amor" there was little. Antonio Salvadori, if not thrilling as Gerard, was conscientious and his ideas well thought out, but the heft of his baritone was lost in Giordano's thick scoring. Paolo Bregni's 1982 sets underscored the libretto with removable roofs and tractable walls utilized in a frantic scramble to rearrange volume and spatial relationships. Direction by Lamberto Puggelli and costumes by Luisa Spinatelli contributed to the rather nondescript excellence of the production. Riccardo Chailly conducted the La Scala orchestra with a vast overview of the score, driving his forces to a splendid symphonic recreation, while the chorus performed at a level second to none.
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