HISTORY has her burned at the stake, but Schiller had Joan of Arc mortally wounded on the battlefield. In Verdi's account, the maid of Orleans falls in love with Carlo, King of France, leads the French to victory, is betrayed to the English, later denounced as a witch by Giacomo, her father, and finally dies in a state of ecstasy.
In theatrical sensationalism, if not always in inspiration or style, Philip Prowse has gone along with the Italian drama that Verdi and his librettist created out of Schiller's play. In this Opera North production, a massive bronze horse surrounded by statues of soldiers on a great plinth forms the centrepiece of Prowse's set and, far from fifteenth-century Reims, the black-bereted soldiers and gold epaulettes suggest Mussolini's Italy, perhaps.
The action moves with confusing seamlessness from court to country, forest to garden, and piazza to fort. Devils in animal masks enacting the sins of the flesh, angels offering salvation, endless pennant-bearers, excitable nuns and bloodied warriors flash past us with breathtaking speed.
As director as well as designer, however, Prowse's attention is too often fixed on the visual side, leaving the principal singers floundering in a mass of embarrassing expressions and cliched reactions.
Susannah Glanville is a lyrically persuasive Giovanna, warming to her delicate ornamentation. If the characters of Carlo, fervently sung by Julian Gavin, and Giacomo, taken by Keith Latham, are less dramatically convincing, the fault probably lies as much with the libretto as with the director.
Richard Farnes conducts a production that, with its lyrical ensembles and vigorous choruses, is more satisfying musically than dramatically. A concert performance, such as the one Scottish Opera's orchestra and the Edinburgh Festival Chorus will be giving at the Edinburgh Festival, will surely bring out the best in this opera - a grand choral tableau with an ace leading soprano role.
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