25 JUNE 1977, Page 28

Opera

PR

Rodney Miines

Preconceived misgivings are among those things critics are not supposed to have, like a capacity to enjoy themselves. Renato Capecchi made his stage debut nearly thirty years ago and is a Very Great Italian Buffo Indeed. His performances as Fra Melitone have been about the only thing worth watching at more than one Forza del Destin° at Covent Garden. And not just a buffo: there are many straight roles amongst the 300 or so in his repertory and he is about the best Mozart Figaro on record. Recently he has taken to production. Travellers' tales have suggested that his voice is not what it was and that he has been compensating for this histrionically. All this led me to fear that his taking over the title-role in the Glyndebourne Falstaff, about which I waxed uncharacteristically gooey last year, might upset the delicate balances of Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's production. Wrong on every count.

Capecchi turns out to be younger than Sesto Bruscantini or Sir Geraint Evans, the ranking UK Falstaffs, and in Glyndebourne terms his wonderfully expressive and colourful voice is in superb shape. He knows precisely what it can do, which is more or less everything. Most important, he fitted into the production with the self-effacement that is the mark of all great artists, gauged the house, played it like a salmon, and gave an interpretation of quite extraordinary authority.

'Not more, different,' as Alan Bennett put it in another context. The Falstaffs of Capecchi and Donald Gramm, creator of the role in this production, are complementary. Gramm's was contained, underplayed almost to a fault. Although Capecchi plays him a little stouter, a little older, and a little less steady on pins that both sadly and hilariously will not always do quite what is required of them, the greater measure or exuberance comes not from comic flamboyance — quite the contrary — but from the relish with which he delivers the text. Perhaps you have to be Italian to get everything there is from the great monologues of the first and third acts, and you have to be a very daring artist indeed virtually to throw away the arietta 'Quand'ero paggio del Duca di Norfolk' and yet make its few seconds speak for as many hours on the-regrets of lost youth. Not a dry eye in the house, or at least not in row P where we are sensitive about these things. The only wonder is that it has taken so long for Capecchi to make his first appearance in Sussex — may it be the first of many.

There is a new Ford in Brent Ellis, a young voice, well focused, firm of line, bags of stamina but like so many US baritones, strangely monochromatic of tone, especially when heard next to this particular Falstaff. Teresa Cahill sang Alice on tour last year and took over the role at the Festival — a right and proper bit of two-way traffic. She lacks the vocal weight maybe —so does practically everyone in this oddly written role — but has a lively, sunny personality. Other: wise the cast was as last year, with Nucel Condo's classic Quickly and Elizabeth Gale the perfect Nannetta in all but mellifluousness of tone (I'll settle for the rest). Max-Rene Cosotti (Fenton) is the nearest we have to a young Bergonzi in the sensuousness of his tone, the full-throated freedom of his phrasing and the abandon 01 his enunciation. He is also an inventive actor; a little tidier of appearance this year beard less scrubbily adolescent, hair toc neatly combed — but still as un-tenorial 01 demeanour as you could wish.

The production remains busy, but none of the business seems to me unmusical. Some dangers: overplaying amongst the supernumeraries — the Innkeeper is on the edge of making a five-act Trauerspiel out of his brief appearances, and the dear little page's antics had me thinking longingly of dear, good, practical King Herod. The only thing wrong with the sets is that they take too long to change. There is nothing wrong at all with John Pritchard. How GlYndebourne — and we — are going to miss him. A second visit to the double-bill revealed a new Vixen in Eilene Hannan, a most personable Australian soprano with a marginally tougher middle range but less clear diction than her predecessor, and also less brazenness in 'showing'. Talking of which, she is to sing Salome (Massenet's) at Wexford later this year. The production seemed less irritating. I was in a better mood. The Poulenc is still enigmatic. The fact that / kept on thinking about what could be happening on stage as opposed to what was may reveal either the strength of the piece or it weakness. How far is 'Elle' telling the truth? Instead of flagellating herself, is she, m a nicely calculating French way, putting on a huge act to ensure that her ex-lover has a perfectly miserable wedding day? (Yes, she has been out to dinner with Marthe, no she hasn't taken an overdose.) That is a plausible reading of the Cocteau, less so of the Poulenc, since the line about her knowing tomorrow is the day is changed. SimplY as an act of concentration, Graziella Swint s performance is a tour de force. Would that it were matched by the audience's (shuffle' shuffle, cough, cough). Perhaps it will nn .tour when, please God, it will be sung lo English.