Elijah Moshinsky's production of Simon Boccanegra has been seen regularly at Covent Garden over the past 20 years, but is hardly showing its age even now. That is partly because there is very little to age - the staging strips the drama down to the essentials, provides some elegantly evocative sets (from Michael Yeargan), lights them with a telling interplay of sunlight and water, and concentrates on teasing out the web of public and private relationships that supports this most intense and highly wrought of Verdi's operas. Moshinsky has returned to the Royal Opera to supervise this latest revival, and it shows; there is a truthfulness in the characterisations and a tautness to the interactions that is constantly compelling.
It helps to have a cast of outstanding quality and a conductor with such impeccable credentials. Mark Elder sets the course for the whole opera in his hushed unfolding of the prelude, and maintains that precision through everything that follows. The great moments - the father-daughter recognition of the first act, the curse on Paolo for abducting Amelia, and the creeping effects of Boccanegra's poisoning in the third act - acquire even more impact because nothing about them is contrived: everything seems inevitable.
The result gives each singer increasing authority as the performance went on. Not that Angela Gheorghiu's Amelia needs any more authority. This is one of the best things she has done in London, a real company performance rather than a star vehicle, with every phrase exquisitely shaped and shaded. Vulnerability does not come naturally to Gheorghiu but she suggests it here, within a perfectly believable dramatic context.
There are cogent reasons too, for conceiving Boccanegra himself as a rather brusque individual, and if Franz Grundheber rather overdoes the rough edges in the first act, the sheer authority of his performance brings conviction and grandeur to the final scene. There is superb support to these central performances from Neil Shicoff's clean-cut singing as Adorno (a disturbing stage likeness to Gene Wilder notwithstanding) and from Robert Lloyd's sturdy Fiesco. It's hard to believe that Lloyd has announced his retirement; like this production, he has surely some mileage left in him yet.
· In rep until March 11. Box office: 020-7304 4000.
