French poet André Chénier allowed himself to be carried away by the ideals of the French Revolution. When, in the turbulent year of 1794, he denounced the excesses of Robespierre and the Jacobean Reign of Terror, he ended up before the revolutionary court and with his poetic head under the knife of the guillotine. Robespierre himself signed the death warrant with a single sentence: "Même Platon a banni les poètes de sa République." Two days later, Robespierre would suffer the same fate. It is typical of the post-revolutionary arbitrariness that prevailed during the Terror. While awaiting his execution, Chénier wrote a poem that remains one of the most haunting ever written by a condemned man from death row.
Umberto Giordano and his librettist Luigi Illica turned this historical event mostly into a love story (with a classic love triangle) with the French Revolution very visible and tangible in the background. Giordano, at his death a wealthy citizen, lived the life of a pauper during the 2 years of his life he devoted to writing this opera. The window of his composing room provided him with a view of the inspiring surroundings of corpses, coffins and the garlands of flowers of a funeral home.
Giordano not only looks very much like Giacomo Puccini, his music also exudes the same atmosphere and sense of drama although we cannot attribute to him the same talent as a dramatist as his more famous colleague. Giordano was certainly inspired by Manon Lescaut but echoes of Tosca also haunt the entire piece. This is partly due to Luigi Illica who also wrote the libretto for Tosca. Interesting detail: Andrea Chénier's score is 4 years older than Tosca's! Only, it does not contain earworms or themes that haunt your mind for days. But the music is potent and sparklingly orchestrated, and it serves the dramatic situation with verve. There is not a single page in this score that feels trite or uninspired, and the nice thing is that the level of musical ideas presents itself throughout the evening as one big crescendo.
After all, Luigi Illica delivered nothing less than a stellar libretto. About how the revolution degenerates into Terror. About how the revolution devours its sons. About how the people readily swallow the propaganda of the Jacobins and turn against the real sons of the revolution. About the frivolousness with which the aristocracy dances the gavotte and does not realize that its time is up. These are timeless reflections with which, as a spectator, you can effortlessly identify.
A facsimile of Robespierre's death sentence can be read on the front cloth. It is emblematic of the entire production. After all, David McVicar (direction), Robert Jones (sets) and Jenny Tiramani (costumes) have reconstructed the 1794 period with great attention to detail. In this they can hardly be surpassed. The moldy social ritual of the nobility in the Countess de Coigny's salon is well characterized. There are occasional flirtations with conventional operatic gestures but that fits perfectly into this artificial, death-defying world of the ancien régime. In Café Hottot, you can see Parisian street life passing by in the background, the world of the sansculots and of those condemned to death being carried by carts toward the guillotine. The short duet between Chénier and Maddalena is intense and already a foreshadowing of the heroic-tragic finale. Also striking is the revolutionary court ("Citoyens la patrie est en danger" a banner reads) with its frivolous judges and the divided reactions of the people on the benches. The endearing scene of the mother coming to sacrifice her grandchild to the revolution is also successful. McVicar makes everything seem natural as if delivering a costume drama is cut and dry. You don't have to be bored for a second.
The fact that Maddalena voluntarily chooses for a Wagnerian love death on the scaffold at the side of her lover is quite unbelievable. But this is precisely a manifestation of the utopian ideals on which 19th-century opera was built. In this sense, Andrea Chénier does not really belong to verismo.
The most fascinating character of the opera is Carlo Gérard. He too is more than fed up with the ancien régime. As a servant of the Countess, he throws his livery to the floor and steps into the adventure of revolution. In love, he rivals Chénier and manages to get Chénier to court and sign his death warrant. Like Scarpia, he broods on the moment when Maddalena will come to offer her body in exchange for Chénier's life. Impressed by her sacrifice and the bankruptcy of his own chances, he makes a turn and will try to reunite the couple. How, as if struck by a lightning bolt, he releases his prey at the height of his power and switches from toxic masculinity to empathetic feeling for the other couple is perhaps a tad implausible, but it makes the character more complex, less one-dimensional.
Amartuvshin Enkbat is unable to bring much nuance to his playing nor his vocal performance. In this, he is the inferior of Zeljko Lucic who sang the premiere in 2015. His is an overwhelming voice that expresses the violent side of the character with ease. The timbre lacks a certain clarity and the delivery is rather monochromatic.
Sondra Radvanovsky can make you forget Maria Callas in her big aria "La mamma morta," a version perhaps best known for Jonathan Demme's film Philadelphia in which AIDS patient Tom Hanks analyzes his favorite aria to a bewildered Denzel Washington. With Kaufmann, she makes a believable couple. Andrea Chénier has always been one of Jonas Kaufmann's best roles. As a performer, he animates his characters with a very modern intensity. The romantic verismo hero ultimately suits him better than the exploits of a Tristan that are just beyond his reach. The delivery of the high notes is a little strained but the role is meant for a baritonal tenor, the tessitura is rather low and requires great declamatory forcefulness below the middle C. Before the tribunal he stands his ground very well with "Si, fui soldato."
The chorus acts very differentiated and the shoes of all the smaller roles such as Incredibile (Alexander Kravets), Bersi (Katia Ledoux), Countess de Coigny (Rosalind Plowright) and Madelon (a still well in voice Elena Zilio) are excellently filled.
Antonio Pappano made the orchestra sound magnificently in this whirlpool of passion and revolutionary sentiment. It was an unleashed orchestra that fueled the turbulent third act and yet the balance with the soloists was never in jeopardy. Again, cinema Sphinx offered an excellent spatial sound with plenty of detail. In the finale, the tinkling harps thundered from the ceiling.