The Stage

Lucrezia Borgia

Published Tuesday 1 February 2011 at 10:03 by George Hall

Film director Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas, Internal Affairs) is the latest candidate to step up to the mark in English National Opera’s extremely public intern programme, directing his first opera in the full glare of an international company and London’s largest theatre.

Michael Fabiano (Gennaro) and Claire Rutter (Lucrezia Borgia) in Lucrezia Borgia at the London Coliseum. Englis Photo: Tristram Kenton

The piece selected - Donizetti’s semi-sympathetic look at the notorious Italian Renaissance poisoner, and her tragic relationship with her unacknowledged son, Gennaro - might have worked well. The material, based on a play by Victor Hugo set in Donizetti’s characteristically flamboyant and vocally iron-pumping style, is strong. But Figgis shows little ability to enliven it with interaction or even action. It’s a long time since such a static, inert and at times inept realisation of a classic work took to the Coliseum stage.

Figgis supplies some additions to the score in the shape of short films that precede, rather than specifically introducing, each scene. These represent his most assured contribution to the evening, though they inevitably hinder the piece’s musical momentum and at times seem seriously tangential. Their big-budget glamour also upstages Es Devlin’s meagre sets.

Not all is lost, however. The cast is never less than solid and at best impressive. Claire Rutter coasts her way through the title role unscathed, though makes little of the character. Michael Fabiano sings Gennaro with lyric warmth. As Lucrezia’s repulsive husband, Alastair Miles is an appreciable asset. Why Elizabeth DeShong plays the trouser-role of Gennaro’s buddy Maffio Orsini as a girl remains mysterious. All of them, as well as the chorus, would have benefited from direction by a skilled operatic hand, and from more energised conducting than Paul Daniel supplies.