18 NOVEMBER 1995, Page 63

Opera

Wexford Festival

Disarming charm

Rupert Christiansen

Ihad never been to the Wexford Festival before, and even the travellers' tales hadn't quite prepared me for its charm. The whole affair is so jolly — there is no other word for it, though in Eirse I think they'd call it a craic — that even stand-offish people like me find themselves disarmed. Stern resolu- tions of the eat-and-drink-less variety went by the board and on the last night I even managed to link arms for a verse of 'Auld Lang Syne' without cringing. In fact, I am already a registered Wexford convert and shall doubtless be making the annual pil- grimage till I drop. It certainly beats pompous old Salzburg hands down.

The opera is focused on a mean-faced terraced back street. Half way down its undistinguished course, an unlikely hole in the wall — you might think it a garage turns out to be the Theatre Royal, a magi- cal little shoe-box dating from 1830, super- ficially plain but deeply adorable, with a strong acoustic and about 500 seats. Along- side the usual international opera mob, the audience consists of the fascinating social spectacle of la toute Mande dolled up to the nines in its emerald green ball-gowns and out to enjoy itself royally. Its applause is furious and partisan, its attention rapt and the general level of connoisseurship high. Refreshingly, given all the priggish- ness in which the performing arts are cur- rently swaddled, this is opera served up as a big special treat, art unapologetically in bed with the hedonism of the rich and priv- ileged, the elitist and inaccessible. I find I can raise at least two cheers for it.

Now to the product. Wexford deals only in recherché repertory, and traditionally one of its three annual exhumations turns out to be a dud (often accompanied by some good old-fashioned operatic disaster in which something or somebody spectacu- larly falls over, to universal uncontained mirth). This year was exceptional in boast- ing three successes, boding well for the new artistic directorship of Luigi Ferrara, who usefully doubles the job with a similar posi- tion at the Rossini Festival in Pesaro.

Of this year's trio of corpses, the Lazarus Prize must go to Mascagni's Iris. In the cold light of morning, it really is the most awful tosh — a piece of japonaiserie, drip- ping with Symbolist pretensions, by the composer of Cavalleria Rusticana, in which some poor girl makes a dreadful fuss about being carted off to a brothel. It predates Madama Butterfly by five years, and its clumsy, over-excited, badly paced and drea- rily orchestrated score renews one's admi- ration for Puccini's melodic genius and sense of dramatic economy. Yet its pitch of persistent emotional frenzy does grab you by the throat in the theatre, and Mascagni is a cunning fox of a composer who keeps your attention by making you think that some wonderful tune lurks just round the corner, in the next bar: but of course it never quite appears. All that emerges is another gust and squall, more agonised shrieks and crashing chords: a bit like Strauss's Elektra, a cynic might say.

Saffo next. This is the 'masterpiece', er- hem, of Giovanni Pacini (1796-1867). It takes a classical theme (please don't ask for details, as I found the plot totally impene- trable) and is clearly indebted to Norma for its noble priestess heroine with a rival in love, as well as its duet in thirds for the ladies and some sublimely banal arpeggiat- ed accompaniments — who was it who accused Italian ottocento opera composers of using the orchestra like a guitar? In his better moments, such as the big concertato ensemble which ends Act Two, Pacini is at one with the young Verdi, boasting some- thing of the same forthright virile energy. But most of the time he just thumps along dunder-headed. Any let-up finds him almost embarrassed; once he's caught his breath, it's back to the oom-pah stuff.

Finally to an early opera of Rimsky-Kor- sakov, Mayskaya noch' (May Night). It adapts of apiece of Gogolian whimsy, mix- ing a young love scenario with lashings of peasant merry-making, but the saccharine content in Rimsky's music is too high for my taste, and I confess I quickly tire of the Slavic equivalent of ole.

The above may sound rather negative, but all three operas were well worth hear- ing once, and Wexford did them full justice in all departments. The chorus and orches- tra were absolutely fine. The productions were elegant, straightforward and eminent- ly sensible — I use that latter term without the intention of sarcasm — and I was par- ticularly impressed by Saffo's conductor, Maurizio Benini, who kept a Muti-like grip on Pacini's vacuous inspiration.

Among the performers, you would have to single out the callow Russian tenor Vsevolod Grivnov who made a sensation as the hero in Mayskaya noch'. He sang much too loud and showed off dreadfully, but his youthful enthusiasm was as captivating as his warm, steady and evenly projected tone, reminiscent of the young Pavarotti. As Saffo, Francesca Pedaci sang with some elegance, complementing the fruitier quali- ty of the very Bulgarian mezzo Mariana Pentcheva as her rival. A Japanese girl, Michie Nakamaru, went gung-ho for Iris and nearly bust a gut: in such music it is impossible to hold back convincingly, but, impressive as Nakamaru was, there were moments when her vocal cords were audi- bly rebelling against the strain. I hope this talented creature is now back in Kyoto, deep in Zen meditation, sipping green tea and calming down after her ordeal — Iris kills herself by leaping into a sewer.

°Say, mister, do you have a metal plate in your head?'