Giordano Andrea Chernier

Kaufmann is performing the title role for the first time and its hard to imagine him bettered His striking looks make him very much the Romantic and romanticised outsider of Giordanos vision His voice with its dark liquid tone soars through the music with refined ease and intensity all those grand declarations of passion whether political or erotic hit home with terrific immediacy The Guardian Presented in its Covent Garden premiere in January 2015 this staging directed by David McVicar and conducted by the Royal Operas Music Director Sir Antonio Pappano shows a bloody tricolour daubed with the words Even Plato banned poets from his Republic written by Robespierre on the death warrant of the historical Chénier a poet and journalist sent to the guillotine in 1794 for criticising Frances postrevolutionary government