ARTS
Genius and dottiness
Rodney Mines
I Puritani (WNO, Dominion Theatre) The Welsh National Opera's new pro- duction of Puritani is absolutely in- furiating. It is quite plainly a major achieve- ment, a landmark in the history of both the company itself and of post-war perfor- mance of ottocento opera, yet Andrei Ser- ban's staging, while touched with genius like his Eugene Onegin for WNO, is also full of wilful dottiness. In the end the piece, and the touch of genius, win hands down. The evening weaves a potent spell, at once gripping the audience throughout three and a half hours that (for once) feel half that length, and in its very power of involvement provoking on-the-spot reactions; it is a long time since I have behaved so badly for the very best of reasons.
The piece itself, Bellini's last opera (1835), is similarly a mixture of genius and dottiness. Received opinion tells us that Pepoli's libretto is rubbish, and for once received opinion may well be right. Motiva- tion is inconsistent, and dramatic develop- ment virtually non-existent, Deserted at the altar in the first act, Elvira loses her marbles and has a Mad scene. The second act con- sists almost entirely of another Mad scene. In the third act she is still mad, then shock- ed into sanity, re-shocked into insanity, and — oh, I lost track. Yet Pepoli's verse per se isn't bad, and it inspired Bellini to write, moment for moment, music of blazing dramatic truth. All those damned Mad scenes and the oddities between them are quite brilliantly set.
There is one point unexplored in the pro- gramme book which, like all those from WNO, is also a mixture of informative good sense and sheer silliness (a glimpse of photographs showing the RUC in action in Belfast nearly ruined my evening): the in- fluence of Weber. Freischatz was still the rage in Paris during 1834, or so a very distinguished musicologist assured me in one of many sotto-voce exchanges, and Bellini must have heard it. This is suggested not only by the recurrent horn quartet and polacca rhythms, but by some passages of ' free arioso of distinctly Weberian cut. Startling modulations, and the frequent turning of corners at the end of numbers to avoid applause (and the resulting impres- sion of through-composition) may have been garnered from other works then in the repertory — Meyerbeer was already in ac- tion. But Fellini, while certainly open to in- fluence, was no mere magpie: his characteristic endless melodies and hyper- tense ostinato accompaniments are at their most effective in Puritani, and there are also some harmonic progressions of bewildering originality (' That 's where Wagner got it from,' hissed my learned col- league from the Sunday Telegraph during the postlude to the first-act prayer, and he was, as always, right). Bellini's early death at the age of only 33 was as wasteful as that of Weber or Mozart: what on earth would he have written next?
That these thoughts should be prompted not by Callas/Serafin or Caballe/Muti on record, but by — if I may for once use old- fashioned and pejorative terminology in order to flatter — a provincial British opera company, says a lot about the quality of the performance, and indeed about opera in the provinces. Julian Smith conducted his own edition, carefully collated from manuscript sources and necessarily (I suppose) but tact- fully cut. It was his outstandingmusician- ship, investigative as well as appreciative, that made one sit up and take note of what was going on in the score, musicianship that shaped, coaxed and illumined even those passages that might at first seem routine.
Just as impressive was the work of the music staff: in advance the house cast might have seemed, again, provincial, but they all surpassed anything they have achieved before. This was the result, surely, of Glyndebourne-standard preparation. As the defaulting bridegroom Arturo, Dennis O'Neill retained his authentically Italianate `ping' while phrasing with beguiling sen- sitivity, frequently singing in a melting mezza-voce, and coping fearlessly with the Himalayan tessitura — Cs and Ds two a penny. This performance put him straight into the Alfredo Kraus league, and now is the time for one of those mysterious com- mittees of civil servants who seem to control our musical lives to confiscate his passport.
Although there were moments of doubt- ful intonation from Suzanne Murphy (Elvira) in the first act, they passed; her scales, arpeggios and gruppetti were faultlessly, breathtakingly executed, and
'I like this time between my winter cold and the onset of hay fever.'
Spectator 17 April 1982 she invested every one of them With dramatic meaning. Henry Newman (Riccar- do) has in the past been notable mostly for his forthright stage presence and his acting ability, but here they were allied to singing rounder in tone and warmer in musical shape than that of many a famous Italian baritone I could mention. Geoffrey Moses (Giorgio), Catherine Savory (Enrichetta), John Harris (Sir Bruno) and David GGwynn(Walton) were solidly satisfying. MusicallY this Puritani is in every way a triumph. And so, nervously, to the production. It looks smashing. As lit by Robert Bryan, Michael Yeargan's sets and costumes coalesce into stage pictures of Pre- Raphaelite luminosity which is not inap- propriate. Elvira discovered crouched far up-stage gazing out to sea, or Arturo blind- fold before the firing squad, both were Millais come to life. Serban's direction of the third act, apart from a kitschy entrance for Elvira, carried total conviction as she moved in and out of the shadows of madness, and the tension built up to the ex- ecution interrupted by off-stage horns yes, Puritani is also a French-style 'escaPe opera — heralded the happy end. Serban paid the piece the compliment of taking it absolutely seriously, more seriously perhaPs than Pepoli deserves.
So why was Serban's belief not passed on to the audience? Because, I think, of a Pen- chant for overstatement that was altogether less perilous in Onegin. In the first two acts Elvira's madness — prematurely signalled from curtain-rise, when she was all of a twitch long before she should have entered — took some uncomfortably 20th-century turns that might have surprised Fellini: 3 striptease mercifully interrupted by the first-act curtain, and in the passage where „ she mistakes various people for her defaulting bridegroom some actions that somewhat anticipated the marriage service' Indeed, having practically been raped by her, Sir Bruno prudently left the stage before her cabaletta. Why, in that act, since she has been pottering amongst them i3 white linen, does the chorus ask Giorgio 'Qual novella?', and why after he has, obliged with the news that she is 'cinta a' fiori' does she re-enter without so much as a daisy behind her ear? An arguable reading of one line of Pepoli leads Serban to show us the aftermath of a battle in the same scene, and audiences might be forgiven for assuming that the choral cries of 'terror', 'dolor' and `PicT refer to their plight, whereas they plainly refer to Elvira's. That is surely a wilful misrepresentation of the text. I was in- terested to see that the Sealed Knot SocietY had advised on musketry, and while I al;11 sure that every hand on hip was deePlY authentic, when executed to a merry polac- ca the poor chorus was made to look like some nightmare team of gay formation dancers. Details or no, and the battle no- tion is more than that, it was the conviction that Serban brought to the work that won, that invited — and very nearly got — conditional surrender.
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