Arts
'A pleasant evening'
Rodney Milnes
Die Zauberflote (Covent Garden) Dido and Aeneas, Les MameIles de Tiresias (Coliseum)
The provenance of the Royal Opera's new Flute is of much interest to conspiracy theorists. It was originally to have been by the house's Principal Producer, Gotz Friedrich, but suddenly the money ran out and it was cancelled. No sooner had Professor Friedrich been released than suddenly some money became available, but unfortunately too late for him to be re-engaged. The money came from a Viennese band (a sudden but doubtless passing excess of affection for the Arts Council prevents me from revealing which) and the Royal Opera House Trust. Could it be that the Professor's severely leftish and not unauthoritarian Weltanschauung has become more than these varous worthies, not to mention the Royal Opera's Patron and chief fund-raiser. HRN The Prince of Wales, KG, can take? The nearest thing to a socialist I can find ploughing through all the pages in the programme devoted to private sponsors is the Rt. Hon. Harold Lever. Can the counter-revolution be underweigh at last?
It would be idle to speculate as to what Professor Friedrich's Flute might have been like, but one may he certain it would have been a) desperately improving and b) not a million laughs. On the programme page devoted to the sponsoring bank, its Chairman wishes the audience 'a pleasant evening' (the strange noise you hear is the shade of Mozart rattling its chains) and that, in August Everding's production, is what we have. It was fascinating to see this version by the Intendant of the Bavarian State Opera, and thus representative of establishment opera in Germany, so soon after that for the Welsh National Opera by GOran Jarvefelt, the Young Turk (or rather Swede) from Gelsenkirchen, roughly representative of Germany's new wave. The latter was serious but thought-provoking, the former is—well, pleasant. All's well with this world: the rustic (white) community bobbing up and down with almost LeniRiefenstahl-like enthusiasm for its blackcoated rulers, here an 18th-century oligarchy one could describe as Wesleyan if they did not keep freezing into groups reminiscent of Leonardo's 'Last Supper'. How odd that they should be cared for by a contingent of brown slaves, odder still when you consider that there is no indication in the libretto that the slaves should be any other colour than the rest of the cast (Monostatos, as his name suggests, is on his own). Brown or black slaves seem to be a 20th-century accretion. Make of that what you will.
But the Everding Flute is very pleasant indeed. All that boring old dialogue is pruned down to an absolute minimum, probably a good thing since there are no Germans in the cast; what is left is clearly delivered if gracelessly edited, perhaps to conform to phrase-book usage ('lch bin ohmachtig" is a less funny line than Schikaneder's 'Ich lieg in einer Ohnmacht'). Jurgen Rose's pleasantly chocolate-boxy decor makes for a series of happy stage pictures. I assume it was in the interest of the smooth succession of these picutres that the B-flat trio of Act Two was brought forward to the opening, just before '0 Isis and Osiris' — I can think of no other reason for tampering with Mozart's running order.
For all Everding's obvious theatrical know-how — the mechanics of his production are most skilfully organised, with moving panoramas, sliding rocks, stage-lifts and all — I found the evening a little too bland. Maybe we have all been overemphasizing the solemnity of the Flute at the expense of its joyfulness; if so this was agreeable enough antidote.
But musically it was much more than just pleasant. The clean-textured, muscular, almost astringent Mozart sound that Colin Davis favours, based on springy string tone ideally balanced with wind and with all the inner parts audible, brought consistent pleasure. He communicates his love for the .music in every bar. And the work was very strongly cast. There is a tradition for Butterflys, Sieglindes even, as First Lady (Lorna Haywood, excellent), for Wotans as the Speaker (Donald McIntyre, though as with his Wotan perhaps a little too chummy and lacking in gravitas), but not for Siegfrieds as First Armed Man (Alberto Remedios making little sense of the words — a cause of overkill, I think). Robert Lloyd (Sarastro) made up with intelligence what he may lack in vocal opulence. Zdzislawa Donat sang the Queen's music with astonishing accuracy (save for some staccato quavers in place of minims) but was a disappointingly mild villainess. The Three Boys were superb.
Ileana Cotrubas, a lovely stage artist, was an unbeatable Pamina. As Papageno, Thomas Allen mixed saucer-eyed innocence with a certain hand-in pocket truculence and maintained good audience contact. He was extremely funny, sang beautifully and coped manfully with a horde of instant Papageni (coos or teeth-grinding from the audience, depending). His German seemed to me the best of all. The one big surprise was Robin Leggate's Tamino. This young tenor has shown great promise for some seasons, and here fulfilled it with a loud bang: strong, unaffected, heroic singing free of all Mozart-tenor simpering and always dead in the centre of the notes (not as easy or as common as it sounds). There is room for more light and shade, but this will come. And he is a good actor. All we need now is for someone to confiscate his passport before Karajan gets to hear of him.
The Purcell-Poulenc double bill is imported from Leeds, where I enjoyed it immoderately. Predictably enough, stagings that worked well in a small theatre are less effective at the Coliseum. With the chorus double in size, Ian Watt-Smith's Dido looks untidy, and it is not too well sung. To be fair, I'm not sure how you do sing Purcell in the Coliseum. Simply for the notes to tell, the Poulenc has to be taken steadily: here it limped rather than fizzed. It is depressing that so many have assumed that the lack of sparkle was the work's fault, not the house's. But Norma Burrowes's neddle-sharp Tiresias is worth going miles to see.
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