London.(International)(La Forza del Destino)(Opera Review)

Royal Opera's new production of La Forza del Destino (seen October 18) followed a spectacular falling-out between two major theaters. The staging, first seen at La Scala, was announced as a coup at last season's ROH press conference, with the return to Covent Garden after a twenty-year absence of Riccardo Muti touted as the occasion for "extreme excitement" on the part of Royal Opera's music director, Antonio Pappano. Muti was to bring a La Scala production of Verdi's opera by the Argentinian designer-director Hugo de Ana, plus a cast of La Scala regulars, with tenor Salvatore Licitra and baritones Ambrogio Maestri and Roberto de Candia all making their debuts at Covent Garden.

A few months back, rumors began to circulate about differences between de Aria and the ROH management over elements of the staging. Allegedly, for health and safety reasons, the ROH wanted to replace some large metal structures from La Scala with some cloth panels produced by their own ROH team of scene painters. De Ana supposedly rejected this--and all other alternative options proposed--and walked out. To everyone's surprise at Covent Garden, Muti walked with him, some three weeks before opening night.

Since Muti was effectively the raison d'etre of the show, this left a big hole at a late stage, and the Royal Opera's press release on the subject was unusually frank: "We are totally perplexed by Maestro Muti's last-minute decision given the level of cooperation, goodwill and trust shown by the Royal Opera House towards the Maestro and the Teatro alia Scala." In a joint statement from Pappano, Elaine Padmore (the company's director of opera) and Tony Hall (chief executive), "extreme excitement" had turned into "regret and extreme disappointment."

In the event, de Ana's name was expunged altogether from the program book, where the staging was credited thus: "direction and designs based on an original production from Teatro alia Scala, Milan (1999)." As intended, Patrizia Frini, one of La Scala's assistant directors, oversaw its revival. Presumably neither Muti nor de Ana will ever work at Covent Garden again, and collaboration with La Scala is out for the foreseeable future. The hero of the hour was Pappano, who canceled extensive commitments with the Chicago Symphony, as well as some recording dates, to learn a score he had never conducted, and to take over someone else's cast.