Don Carlos in the Alexander Theatre, the 14th of October, 2018

I think nobody can deny that Giuseppe Verdi was an excellent composer. One proof of it is his opera Don Carlos, whose divinely beautiful music can now be heard in the Alexander Theatre in Helsinki.

The story of the opera tells about the 16th century Spanish king Philip II, his third wife Elisabeth of Valois and his son from the first marriage Don Carlos. Elisabeth was originally engaged with Don Carlos – even in reality - and in the opera they are in love with each other and this unhappy love story and Philip’s jealousy is the first theme of the opera. The second theme is the Flemish fight for freedom and the role of inquisition both in Flanders and in Spain. The main characters in the opera are actual historical people, but the love story of Elisabeth and Don Carlos is pure fairy tale.

Don Carlos (actually since this is the Italian version of the opera, it should be Don Carlo) is a grand opera and I was a bit concerned in the beginning, how they would manage to make it work in the Alexander Theatre’s small venue. But they had managed surprisingly well. Sure, the orchestra was rather small (Helsinki Sinfonietta), but they used some nice tricks to compensate that (e.g. the trumpets were at one point situated in a loge next to the stage. The choir was not that big either (Helsinki Philharmonic Choir), but it also did well. Of course some of the choir sections would have been even grander with a massive operatic choir, but even now they were good. Verdi is, after all, known for his ability to compose great scenes also for choirs.

The opera was directed by Ville Saukkonen and with good results. Aili Ojalo’s set design was guaranteed Saukkonen, which means boxes. But she had built the set beautifully with the boxes. Joona Huotari’s costume design was also excellent: a blend of epoch and modern days. So visually the opera was a success, even though the task must have been challenging in the Alexander Theatre due to the limited space.   

The quality of the soloists varied a lot. Jaakko Ryhänen had been persuaded to sing the role of the Grand Inquisitor once more and one can only admire, how great his vocal abilities still are. And, of course, nobody beats him in stage charisma. You really got goose bumps in the audience, when Ryhänen let his voice thunder the judgement of God. Unfortunately Timo Riihonen (Philip II) had caught a flu and the role was sung from the side by Rolf Broman. It is great that the organizers were able to find someone to sign the role, but Broman’s performance was somewhat lacking; I am not even sure if the back rows were able to hear him properly. Riihonen’s illness was annoying also because his acting was impressive, even though it was voiceless. It would have been interesting to see, what kind of package acting would have made with full vocal abilities. I also liked a lot Niklas Spånberg in the small role of the monk. Marjukka Tepponen was an excellent Elisabeth – great acting  – and Jeni Packalén was a lovely Princess Eboli. Heikki Halonen, who sang the role of Don Carlos was the weakest link of the performance. In theory it should have been easy to believe that Elisabeth falls in love with the young, handsome Don Carlos, but the credibility suffered, when Riihonen’s charisma as Philip II was of totally different class compared to Halinen’s. Halinen’s voice rang quite nicely occasionally, even in the difficult high notes, but mostly you just wanted to deeply sigh when listening to him. Undoubtedly the glorious duets and ensembles created by Verdi would have sounded better, if all the singers had been up to the task

However, Verdi’s music is always worth listening to and this Don Carlos definitely deserves a visit to the theatre. There are still three performances left: on Wednesday the 17^th, Friday the 19^th and Sunday the 21^st of October. Let’s hope that Riihonen will also recover enough to sign in the later performances, but even if he does not there will be a possibility to hear him together with Jaakko Ryhänen on the same stage in January the 27^th in Tapiola Hall. Tickets are on sale in https://www.lippu.fi/.