Interestingly, Opera Australia has chosen to revive Moshinsky’s production, which goes back to 1991 – not Rodger Hodgman’s more traditional production, which opened the Melbourne season in 2014, with Warwick Fyfe in the title-role. (ABR understands the Hodgman has now been formally retired.)

Most of us know Moshinsky’s suave, La Dolce Vita-inspired production well. It’s been filling houses since 1991, one of those bankable productions any company needs, like Moffatt Oxenbould’s Madama Butterfly (due to be superseded next month in Sydney).

As with the opera that followed, this was an impressively young cast – good signs for the company. Mongolian baritone Amartuvshin Enkhbat – still in his early thirties – took the title role, which Michael Lewis virtually owned in the early years of this production. Enkhbat was a confident court buffoon, and the role’s vocal demands didn’t trouble him. Like many a baritone, he held the high notes as long as humanly possible, and he wasn’t the only principal to do so (things became quite competitive at times). Enkhbat is not a natural actor yet, despite an abundance of stickery, and he seemed oddly adrift in Act III, generally mooching about with a certain lack of murderous purpose.

Amartuvshin Enkhbat as Rigoletto and Liparit Avetisyan as Duke of Mantua in Opera Australia's 2019 production of Rigoletto at Arts Centre Melbourne (photograph by Jeff Busby)

Liparit Avetisyan was exceptional as the Duke of Mantua, that honey-voiced and contradictory brute. The young Armenian (just twenty-eight) is in much demand around the world. He has already sung Alfredo at Covent Garden, as he did in Sydney in 2017. His several arias were highlights of the evening, especially Parmi veder le lagrime and La donna è mobile. His diction is superb and he has the sweetest timbre.

Stacey Alleaume, in one of her biggest roles for the company, was an impressive Gilda – such a difficult role, especially in Act I, with the fiendishly high and exposed Caro nome. Alleaume handled it well, helped by sweet work from the strings. Her coloratura is fine, and she has a good trill. She sang superbly before expiring. Histrionically, this was a rather Californian and petulant Gilda. There was much twirling and pouting and general impatience with her ever-harassed father. Indeed, I’ve rarely seen so little affection between Rigoletto and his daughter. This robbed the great Act II duet of much of its soulful languor. 

Liparit Avetisyan as Duke of Mantua and Stacey Alleaume as Gilda in Opera Australia's 2019 production of Rigoletto at Arts Centre Melbourne (photograph by Jeff Busby)

Act III is one of Verdi’s finest. Charles Osborne summed it up as ‘an arioso of genius, simmering at climactic moments into various melodic units, aria, duet, quartet, but never losing its essential unity, its sense of forward movement, or the sheer perfection of its musical structure’. Roberto Scandiuzzi, who has a major international career, was a resonant and compelling Sparafucile; and Sian Pendry, experienced in this role (Maddalena), acted superbly and contributed strongly to Bella figlia dell’ amore. This was resolved very harmoniously, without the forced high note from the soprano that can disfigure this miraculous quartet.

Andrea Licata is a seasoned conductor, and clearly a singer’s conductor – too much so on this occasion. His tempi seemed cautious, his approach strangely feathery, from the outset. When I heard this opera at the Semperoper in Dresden last year, the short Prelude, led by trumpets and trombones and based on Monterone’s curse, was as shattering as that of Otello; here it was oddly muted. (Admittedly, a decent German acoustic helps.) Two other examples: the Act II post-rape duet between Rigoletto and Gilda – one of the glories of this score – seemed ponderous; and Rigoletto’s outburst ‘Cortigiani, vil razza dannata’ lacked orchestral drive and outrage. At times Licata and his singers had different views, as during the sparkling tenor aria ‘Questa o quella’ in Act I.

Three days later came Così fan tutte (★★★★½) – without incident, it must be said. This is Melbourne’s first opportunity to see David McVicar’s production, which premièred in Sydney in 2016 – the last of his stagings of the three Da Ponte operas for Opera Australia. Michael Halliwell, reviewing the first Sydney performance for ABR in 2016, wrote about the opera’s ‘chequered history’ since its première in the Burgtheater in Vienna in 1790, and I covered some of this territory when I reviewed the Metropolitan Opera’s new 1950s Coney Island production in April 2018 (directed by Phelim McDermott), so my comments here will be briefer.

Richard Anderson as Don Alfonso, Samuel Dundas Guglielmo and Pavel Petrov as Ferrando in Opera Australia's 2019 production of Così fan tutte at Arts Centre Melbourne (photograph by Jeff Busby)

Happily, the burlesque that dominated the Met production is kept in check. To quote Michael Halliwell: ‘McVicar has made manifest the subtext that lurks within Così but which is often glossed over in productions that emphasise the farce-like elements. He moves the opera out of its late-eighteenth-century setting, placing it in the period immediately prior to World War I. Thus the opening scene when the wager is entered into is not in a coffee shop, but in an Italian officers’ mess. The action is coloured by a strong sense of imminent upheaval and change. This element of volatility, often barely contained, obtains throughout the opera, mirroring the emotional journey that they four lovers endure.’

Moritz Junge’s elegant sets look superb on the broad Melbourne stage, especially the forward-placed officer’s mess – a vivid impression for this lyrical and portentous first scene.

As in his OA productions of Don Giovanni and Le nozze di Figaro, the British director demonstrates his ‘consummate grasp of the changing character dynamics’ (Halliwell). Everyone – from supernumeraries to principals – is knowable, individualised, explicable, within a few minutes. The directorial touches are precise, deft, and always human – there is not one hackneyed gesture, remarkable in such a busy and emotive work. This long opera – which can, let’s be honest, seem interminable in artless hands – flew by like a delectable whimsy.

Not everyone will like the unconventional ending where the contrite sisters are positively dragged apart by their restored but no longer sympathetic or recognisable spouses. For this reviewer, it seemed intelligent and apposite, the obvious conclusion to an ironic and misogynistic dare that exposes all four lovers to the limits of attachment and the power of hypocrisy.

Jane Ede as Fiordiligi, Taryn Fiebig as Despina and Anna Dowsley as Dorabella in Opera Australia's 2019 production of Così fan tutte at Arts Centre Melbourne (photograph by Jeff Busby)

The cast was uniformly strong. Jane Ede (Fiordiligi) has impressed in many roles with the company (I thought her ‘revelatory’ in the Melbourne Figaro, where, as here, she replaced the original soprano in Sydney, Nicole Car), but this felt like a turning point, vocally and interpretatively. According to legend, Mozart did not like his original Fiordiligi, Adriana Ferrarese de Bene, who happened to be Lorenzo da Ponte’s mistress. Mozart certainly did her no favours by writing ‘a vocal part that has some gravity-defying vocal leaps – the bane of many a soprano’s life’ (Halliwell). Ede handled both taxing arias, Come scoglio and Per pietà, with aplomb.

Anna Dowsley – youthful, impassioned, a true actor singer and comedienne – reprised her 2016 performance as Dorabella. Her duets with Ede – and her contributions to the many incomparable ensembles that distinguish this opera – were highlights of the evening.

Both men were fine: Samuel Dundas as Guglielmo (especially good in Non siate retrisi, and fiery when Guglielmo realises that Ferrando has seduced Fiordiligi); and Pavel Petrov as Ferrando – a high, sure tenor voice that negotiated Un’aura amorosa with control and delicacy. Richard Anderson was a generally steady Don Alfonso, especially in the great Act I trio with the stricken sisters (Soave sia il vento), which was beautifully done.

Samuel Dundas as Guglielmo, Richard Anderson as Don Alfonso, Anna Dowsley as Dorabella, Jane Ede as Fiordiligi and Pavel Petrov as Ferrando in Opera Australia's 2019 production of Così fan tutte at Arts Centre Melbourne (photograph by Jeff Busby)

Taryn Fiebig (an outstanding Susanna in the Melbourne Figaro in 2015) reprised the role of Despina (Sydney, 2016) with her customary wit, poise, and stagecraft. Welcome too were the vocal thrust and markedly different colourings Fiebig brought to this pivotal role. She was a funny Mesmerist and notary, but never sicklily so.

This was Canadian conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson’s company début. Let us hope she comes back. Her tempi, her control, her rhythmic rapport with the singers were exemplary. Orchestra Victoria was in excellent form.

David Cairns has remarked: ‘No great Mozart opera is quickly mastered, however dazzling the first moment of discovery; but none takes so much knowing as Così.’ Not perhaps since 1990 – when the company presented Swedish director Göran Jäarvefelt and German designer Carl Friedrich Oberle’s production, with Yvonne Kenny, Fiona James, David Hobson, Jeffrey Black, and Rosamund Illing at their best – has Melbourne seen a handsomer or more pleasing production of Mozart’s masterpiece. There are four more performances in this short season, and it’s not to be missed.

Rigoletto continues at the State Theatre, Arts Centre Melbourne until May 29. Performance attended: May 11. Così fan tutte continues there until May 25. Performance attended: May 14.