At begininng of 2025 season, San Carlo Theater proposes again the very successful inauguration show of the 2022-23 season, which featured a cast of great value, in which ElÄ«na GaranÄŤa’s Eboli and Ludovic TĂ©zier’s Marchese di Posa triumphed. The current revival had as its strong point the presence as Filippo II of the Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakov who had been missing from Naples since February 2023, when he played a grandiose MĂ©phistophĂ©lès, in Berlioz’s opera “La damnation de Faust”.
However, his contract was canceled due to his pro-Putin positions, after the protest of some local politicians and of the Ukrainian bass Alexander Tsymbalyuk, hired as the “Grande Inquisitore”. Abdrazakov, regarding its cancellation, wrote on Instagram “new times have come. It’s the time when politicians enter the temple of art and music and set the best cast”.
Don Carlo is one of Verdi’s most difficult operas to stage and even more praiseworthy is the Teatro San Carlo’s proposal to perform the version in 5 acts (the so-called Modena version) with the complete restoration of the Fontainebleau act, in which Don Carlo and Elizabeth of Valois meet and fall in love. Of great interest was the direction proposed at the time by the German regisseur Claus Guth, even more so in relation to the subsequent inauguration of the Teatro alla Scala which proposed the same title, in the 4-act version, and an embarrassing “non-direction” by LluĂs Pasqual. Of note also the beautiful sets by Etienne Pluss and the costumes by Petra Reinhardt.

Two years later, the direction, taken up by Marcelo Persch-Buscaino, remains of great value and perhaps still more relevant: the dark suit clothes of the Grande Inquisitore and his bagmen lead us to think that today the power who undermines the kings of the moment is more technocratic than religious. The show is beautiful despite some banalities and clichĂ©s of “Regietheater”, the omnipresent mime, the videos showing the young protagonists, Eboli half naked in Philip II’s bed. The scene is claustrophobic, almost entirely in black and white, like the chessboard on the floor that becomes from time to time the Forest of Fontainebleau, the cloister of San Giusto, the palace of Vallodolid; the drama of the characters, in particular of Don Carlo, is amplified by the enormous shadows that are projected onto the scene and join the beautiful films shown. The opera is a political drama, but it is also the drama of loneliness, in particular of Don Carlo and his childhood traumas, and Elisabetta, alone in a foreign land.
The cast deployed is excellent although not so outstanding as the two years ago performance.
Pietro Pretti outlines an excellent protagonist, with amazing phrasing and an important vocality
both in the lyrical and more dramatic passages. His strong point is his acute register which allows him to confidently resolve easily those difficult passages which have put even tenors of the caliber of Luciano Pavarotti into difficulty.
John Relyea, who took over from Abdrazakov, draws a Filippo II with a beautiful dark timbre and
solid low register, even if he demonstrates a certain extraneousness to true Verdi singing; the
famous aria of Act IV “ella giammai m’amò” is sung with great participation and emotional
yearning, and the rallentandi allow him to show off his beautiful vocal material.
Also very good was Marchese di Posa by Gabriele Viviani, with a beautiful baritone voice; in the
initial duet the strong high notes are not always in focus, but the death scene is sung with great
participation and vocal confidence.
Alexander Tsymbalyuk’s Grand Inquisitor has a big voice, perhaps a little too youthful, but
adequate for the great duet with the King Filippo II.
The presence of the Georgian bass Giorgi Manoshvili as a friar is a real luxury; the singer will
soon be Attila in the same theater.

Coming to the female side, the beautiful Elizabeth of the American soprano Rachel Willis-
Sørensen stands out: the singer has a scenic figure and a vocal timbre ideal for the role of the
unhappy queen of Spain. The character is well rendered in all her painful royalty, with the voice
that bends in the aria “non pianger mia compagna” at beautiful pianissimi, with an imperceptible
“colpo di glottide” and faces the great finale aria “tu che le vanità ” with great scenic and vocal
charisma.” In the duet that closes the opera “ma lussĂą ci vedremo in un mondo migliore”, the soprano and the tenor give life to an evocative mixture of timbres and a play of colors that perfectly suit to Verdi’s emotional writing.
Princess Eboli by the Armenian mezzo-soprano Varduhi Abrahamyan does not have the stature
desirable for large mezzo-soprano Verdi roles , due to a lack of volume, accent and scenic
charisma. The bel canto extraction allows her to resolve the agility of the “canzone del velo” well, and even the great aria of the fourth act “O don fatale” does not lack suggestion especially for
some particularly successful high notes.
Henrik Nánási’s conducting is characterized by tight tempos, aimed not so much at seeking the
beauty of the sound but at underlining the dramatic flow of the work. The sounds are sometimes
excessive, even if the individual sections are well enhanced; the accompaniments of the arias do
not always fully enhance the vocal skills of the singers, but overall the musical quality of the almost five-hour show is good and in line with what is seen on the stage.
The evening was crowned with applause and great success from the public.