23 DECEMBER 1960, Page 13

Op e ra

Original Spirit

By DAVID CAIRNS

The rest was all very gay and jolly. but it was not Mozart. This Barber, on the other hand, like last season's Cinderella, is recognisably by Rossini. For one thing Dent, whose translations of Figaro and Don Giovanni do not come within two centuries of the aristocratic panache of the originals, created a version of the Barber which, like Arthur Jacob's Cinderella, is funny and intel- ligible without debasing the Italian. For another, though still not easy, it is easier to get an adequate realisation of a Rossini score than of a Mozart, and James Robertson, in this revival, does that, and sometimes more. Carl Toms has designed agreeable sets. But the key to achievement has again been the production by Douglas Craig.

I hope I will not be accused of genuflecting before that institution if I point out that it was • at Glyndcbourne that Mr. Craig learnt his art. This is no fashionable talisman to success: but the advantages of having worked systemati- cally at Italian operas with Italians, and of know- ing what they sound like in their own tongue, are manifest in every scene. It helps to explain how Mr. Craig has again succeeded, not in a crude way by reducing Italian comic opera to the level of English vaudeville, but by finding a stylish English equivalent, a direct 'translation' which preserves a remarkable amount of the spirit of the original (in sonic ways more than the Covent Garden production) and is at the same time a convincing entertainment in its own right. There arc still a' few pockets of incorrigible Old Vickery holding out—we even have to endure the sight of Dr. Bartolo writhing from a blow on the foot by Don Basilio's umbrella during 'La Calumnia'; but the power of such ex- crescences to irritate is a measure of the general success of this production in avoiding them. For all the bustle and animation of a densely crowded stage, Mr. Craig's touch rarely deserts him.

This atmosphere of 'style' is strong enough to survive the rather languid Figaro of John Heddle Nash. His performance is all adroit, professional veneer of vitality and little real guts. The grotesques, on the other hand, are well done: Eric Shilling's somewhat nasally sung but cleverly acted, wheezing, bumbling, fussy, in the end almost pathetically lost and wandering old Bartolo, and Stanley Clarkson, a great, gawky, sniggering scarecrow of a Basilic., midnight-black and tattered as the umbrella he brandishes, a secretary bird with the gallstones, putting that confidential bass to magnificent mortuary effect.

Kevin Miller sings the Count pleasantly enough, and plays him with a nice touch of pomposity and a sense of timing which ensures that he never overplays the comic disguises. But the glory of the evening is Patricia Kern's Rosina. It is not yet ideal; although she gets round the quick notes, her mastery of coloratura is not yet so thorough that it seems a natural activity of her deep, rich voice. The runs are there, but not composed of equal notes that sound individually "—they are still a feat, not an artistic pleasure. Otherwise I found her performance irresistible in passion, charm and intelligence. With her solemn, childlike eye, gleaming at moments with malice and determination, her round cheek and wide mouth, and her air of devilishly innocent sensuality, this is a Rosina good enough to cat. It is also a perfect reinterpretation into English of the Italian original.

Despite Wozzeck and Peter Grimes (each cautiously allotted three performances, all of them packed) I hardly imagine Sir David Webster would wish the glories of his regime to be judged on the melancholy repertoire of the last few months. It is time that somebody drew attention to the plight of subscribers during this dark period. Compelled, under the dispensation which is in force until the middle of January, to expend their book of vouchers on ten separate perfor- mances in the space of twelve weeks, they have found themselves exposed to a raging epidemic of Ludas, Calls. and Pags., Carmens and what not, most of which the regulars among them (certainly the great majority) will have already seen there, performed by superior casts.

Having said this, I must confess to having enjoyed Tosca the other day at Covent Garden. Though unremarkably sung, the revival half per- suaded me that, for all its emotional crudity and the impossibility of taking its extravagant heroics seriously, this is the most successful of all Puc- cini's operas. Dispassionately considered, the whole thing is a resounding fake; if you sit back for an instant, you realise that the big Marengo tune in the second act is rank Edward German, you see through the quite indecent apparatus of false pathos which grinds into action at the sug- gestion, in the first act, that Tosca might have been deceived; while the pathetic-ironic duct in Act 3, in which the lovers plan their future in Puccini's best soaring manner, withers into dust at the first comparison with the similar scene in Aida. But, in a performance bold and uninhibited enough to ride the crest of the wave, there is little leisure to notice these inadequacies. Conducted with splendid sweep and vehemence by Mr. Downes, and played with opulent grandeur by the orchestra, it went like a bomb.

On the production side, one or two of the grossest outrages have been remedied—it is now, for example, possible that Cavaradossi could have overheard the announcement of Napoleon's victory; and though Mr. David Kelly has appar- ently persuaded himself that the right way to play Angelotti is to give the impression of a man wading through water, no one can seriously pretend that this kind of thing matters as it would (and does) in Verdi or The Ring. The new Tosca, Gabriella Tucci, had a slightly piano first act, handicapped by a bonnet that made her look like Margaret Lockwood in The Man in Grey and a voice not quite heavy enough for the part; but it was a performance which grew in conviction as the evening progressed. Luigi Ottolini, a tenor who looks more like Caruso than he sounds, was Cavaradossi. His temper was clearly not improved by a protracted struggle with one of the sleel of his artist's smock, which was inside out-8/ episode as irritating to Signor Ottolini as it diverting to the audience. Throughout he ti competent rather than glamorous; I tolerat' his performance, but did not warm to it. That fine artist Otakar Kraus, on the athef hand, has never been on better form. He has P, the open Italian quality of vocal production Ids: for the opera, and on some of Scarpia's notes his voice flapped uncontrollably. But 09; what relish he plays Italian roles! His Searpia h grown into a study complete and coherent AY every cruel gesture, every movement and Oil; bility of the head. He projects the clearly foal image of a monster who dominates not by 14 manding but by hypnotising his creatures 34 victims: the stiff gait, the stillness, the dreadi4 ri gaping grave of the mouth, the huge, htlei eyes and grinning eyeballs, the curious dead j of the small insect head—an insect trans on the pin of its own lust.