Our critics assess some of the latest performances around town.

Attila by Verdi
Joan Sutherland Theatre, Opera House
October 29
Until November 5
★★★★

When Verdi’s Attila was first performed in Venice in 1846, the audience had little trouble seeing the story of Attila the Hun’s invasion of Italy as a parable of their struggles for Italian identity. When Davide Livermore’s co-production for Opera Australia and Venice’s Teatro Alla Scala was seen for just one performance in Sydney in 2020 before the first pandemic lockdown, his translation of the setting to 1930s fascist Italy seemed an apt re-interpretation to more recent tyranny.

Now, after the confronting opening depiction of a civilian massacre, and with a far-right government resurgent in Italy, few in the audience failed to see the all-too-real parallels with today’s events. When Ukrainian-born singer Taras Berezhansky (who ironically had sung the tyrant’s role as Attila with ferocious power and textured strength) appeared at the curtain call with the Ukrainian flag, the audience cheers only confirmed the connection already made. Opera, so often accused of contemporary irrelevance, had become disconcertingly prescient.

Most opera goers get to know Verdi’s early masterworks Nabucco and Macbeth but will be unfamiliar with this piece even though it has the same instincts for dramatic narrative and highly original orchestration that had propelled his path to success during his early 30s. Livermore’s production updates the narrative tone with digital cinematic images from D-Wok that form and dissolve with musical logic and historical resonance.

Raphael’s 16th-century fresco in the Vatican, of the meeting in 452 of Pope Leo I and Attila the Hun, is brought to life in the climactic scene, although the magnificent white horse on which Richard Anderson, as Leo, was perched seemed impatient with the pomp on this occasion. The set design by Gio Forma is scarred and brutalist, and Gianluca Falaschi’s costumes hint at militaristic frisson and decadence.

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Against Berezhansky’s implacably focused firmness, Natalie Aroyan sang the demanding role of his nemesis Odabella with a passionate sound of high drama. She spanned an impressively wide range in pitch, in colour and in dramatic expression, giving sharp-elbowed edge to fierce lower notes, soaring over the quintet and chorus in Act II, navigating the vocal span with flexible agility yet still finding new sounds for moments of quietness and tenderness.

Diego Torre, as her lover, Foresto, matched this with focused strength, polished texture and thrilling intensity, shaping solo arias with fine-brushed shades and pairing with Aroyan in duets with a rewardingly shared sense of musico-dramatic engagement. Although the heroically projected style of the part of the Roman general Ezio is not quite his natural terrain, Michael Honeyman, stepping into the part at short notice, carried the vocal and dramatic weight with high professionalism.