Royal Opera House: Andrea Chernier
“Kaufmann is performing the title role for the first time, and it’s hard to imagine him bettered. His striking looks make him very much the Romantic and romanticised outsider of Giordano’s vision. His voice, with its dark, liquid tone, soars through the music with refined ease and intensity: all those grand declarations of passion, whether political or erotic, hit home with terrific immediacy.” – The Guardian Presented in its Covent Garden premiere in January 2015, this staging – directed by David McVicar and conducted by the Royal Opera’s Music Director, Sir Antonio Pappano – shows a bloody tricolour daubed with the words “Even Plato banned poets from his Republic” – written by Robespierre on the death warrant of the historical Chénier, a poet and journalist sent to the guillotine in 1794 for criticising France’s post-revolutionary government.
Cast
Jonas Kaufmann
as Andrea Chenier
Eva-Maria Westbroek
as Maddalena di Coigny
Željko Lučić
as Carlo Gerard
Denyce Graves
as Bersi
Rosalind Plowright
as Contessa di Coigny
Peter Coleman-Wright
as Pietro Fleville
Roland Wood
as Roucher
Elena Zilio
as Madelon
Carlo Bosi
as The Incredible
Adrian Clarke
as Mathieu
