Operatic Revivals
The revival of La Traviata at Sadler's Wells is as thoroughly satisfying a 'presentation of this opera as any London has seen lately. It holds a nice balance between the 'teamwork' that this company often achieves only at the sacrifice of individual vocal excellence, and the superior vocal quality to which its rival com- pany is apt to sacrifice consistency, coherence and dramatic conviction. The many difficult scenes that can so easily, through inadequate singing,' or feeble acting (or both), seem ridiculous, are here sentimentally moving as they should be. The new Violetta, Elizabeth Fretwell, is slightly too heavy in voice to be quite right for the part, lacking the high E flat, the controlling high pianissimo, and the delicacy of tone and phrasing in fioriture that it ideally demands, but she is an accurate and musical singer, and she has a real voice, of great power and excellent control—though she would do well to restrain her use of vibrato, which she cultivates to the limits of safety, and her indulgence in the fashionable and ugly trick of sliding into the note from beneath, which passes for 'expressive phrasing' in English singing. William McAlpine as Armand, though surprisingly tight of voice, was generally pleasing, and Frederick Sharp almost made a sympathetic figure of Germont pere- a most difficult feat. One or two of. Leo Quayle's tempi were painfully slow, owing to a seeming misconception of the character of certain themes, and this dragged the life out of some of the love music, especially in the earlier part. In brisker sections he was excel- lent, and by the later acts the music's circula- tion was healthy all round.
For a more frivolous but equally agreeable evening's operatic entertainment, Covent Garden's revival of Rimsky-Korsakov's The Golden Cockerel can also be recommended. Robert Helpmann's inventive production of the amusing first and last acts is well carried off by all the singers. and the slightly tedious middle act is made Pleasurable by Mattiwilda Dobbs's virtuoso performance as the Queen. Nor is the composer's contribution to he despised. There are so,veral very striking pseudo-leitmotives and ingenious musical effects, among them the crowing of the cock, which recur again and again. andN give delight as often as they do. It is' not a dramatic experience like La Traviata, but a gay and pretty 'musical' for brows both high and low.
COLIN MASON
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