Cinecasts of opera performances are popular these days, but I’ve never been to one until last week, when we went to Andrea Chénier, beamed from the Royal Opera House to our local Odeon. I admit to having a soft spot for this particular opera, despite not being a verismo enthusiast. It may take a bit of time to get going, and there is a rather bewildering cast of characters who come and go (Bersi in particular could have been made more of – she disappears after Act II), but that ending! And you have to love an opera which contains the line (in the translation in our recording) ‘Your corset is truly extraordinary!’
Actually we heard about corsets in rather more detail in one of the interval features, where they interviewed members of the cast. I don’t really like this, as I’d rather still think of these people in character. However Antonio Pappano (speaking before the performance began) contributed some useful insights.
To really make this opera work, you have to have outstanding singers, and all the principals delivered the goods, especially Jonas Kaufmann in the title role. The production was a lavish one and very faithful to the period, except what was that green liquid in L’Incredibile’s glass in Act II meant to be? Surely not absinthe, which had only very recently been invented, or crème de menthe, whose heyday was the early 20th century; neither would have been the tipple of choice of a French Revolutionary spy.
Opera performances transfer quite well to cinema, once you get used to the close-ups of people singing at full blast (quite good for studying technique, though), and the necessary confines of the stage. The fashion for ‘filmed opera’, in real locations and with the singers miming to a soundtrack of their own performances, seems to have died out a while back. But cinecasts are cheaper to make and can therefore be rolled out in greater numbers.