La Rondine, Covent Garden - opera review

Three glorious sets of another kind stunned the Royal Opera House on Friday. But the action in this revival of La Rondine, with superstar Angela Gheorghiu, rarely lived up to the background art.

Neither tragic nor properly comic, La Rondine is a late and lesser work of Puccini, set here in the 1920s. The heroine is Magda, a courtesan who runs away to live and love simply with a country boy.

We spend ages getting to know Magda — who spends an act slinking around a party, keeping our attention with loud paeans to youthful innocence, while flirting wickedly.

Gheorghiu is great at all this: she is a good actress and this is one of her main roles. But her voice for two acts seems stuck in one gear — a sweet, quiet one. At times it gels beautifully with Puccini’s gossamer-ish strings: the very sound of nostalgia for the past. Mostly, it sucks life out of proceedings.

Also, things seem a little clumsy. Conductor Marco Amiliato and the singers get out of sync a couple of times. The bit players visiting Magda’s seem lost front of stage: bad blocking. The only undoubted winner of the night is Sabina Puertolas — a little bundle of comedy who sings delightfully as Magda’s maid Lisette.

Her, and the sets — ah, the sets! Here is an Egyptian revival Paris that is ornate and decadent and gorgeous. People gasp with each curtain-rise. The designs are by Ezio Frigeiro — and more than a decade old — but it’s hard not to feel lucky in their presence.

Until July 21, roh.org.uk