Opera
Illuminating
Rodney Milnes
Reactions to Cavalli, interesting in them- selves, pose certain problems of operatic aesthetics. As even good critics will remark, rightly I suppose, the music isn't awfully good, and some even trot out the old 'not as good as Monteverdi' chestnut, which makes about as much sense as main- taining that Maxwell Davies isn't as good as Britten (or vice versa). One might say that Cavalli is Donizetti to Verdi's Monteverdi, except that ever-increasing experience of 19th-century opera in the theatre suggests that for much of the time Verdi was Cavalli to Donizetti's Monteverdi. These, however, are pinkish herrings tossed in to tease: the words 'in the theatre' are the relevant ones.
Eritrea (1652) dates from a time when, as the conductor Jane Glover put it in her pro- gramme note, 'operas were written not to last but simply to fill the gap between the last one and the next'. Revivability, like goodness, had nothing to do with it. The fact that Eritrea was nevertheless frequently revived suggests that it must be remarkable, and so it proved. (In case constant readers are wondering why I didn't say all this when it was performed at Wexford seven years ago, the answer is that Phoenix Opera's staging last week was infinitely superior in every way.) Shakespeare has been cited twice this year in connection with Cavalli operas, with Scottish Opera's Egista, which stretched belief, and with Eritrea, which doesn't. The heroine has been disguised as her own late brother to preserve the Assyrian royal line; her faithful lover has been driven mad with grief at her supposed death, and his grip on sanity is further loosened by the constant reminder of his loss in the new `king'; the technically widowed Prince of Egypt whom Eritrea loved has sensibly gone off and taken up with a Phoenician queen (who wouldn't?); the new 'king' has taken revenge by marrying that queen her-/ himself; said queen is troublee by her 'hus- band's' disinclination to consummate the marriage; the Egyptian very properly in- vades Assyria. Eritrea, whose attitudes towards the invader are to say the least
equivocal, is in what Dr Glover rightly sug- gests is something approaching a Viola situation.
The uncertainty of gender is at once good for laughs and oddly touching in a
thoroughly Shakespearian manner. Shakespearian too are the episodes of earthy comedy. But for me the most Shakespearian thing about Eritrea is the way it is written. Faustini's libretto, elegant and succinct, and here rightly given in Anne Ridler's extremely literate, plainly poetic and un-operatic translation, is the backbone. Cavalli's music takes on, as it were, the function of verse in Shakespeare; in this play-with-music we know exactly when we should stop listening to the plot, or to jokes, and start listening to something else (like music); we know precisely to what extent and at what level our emotions are to be involved. In the seamless progression from recitative to arioso to aria, the exact relationship between words and vocal line, between continuo and string accompani- ment, is perfectly judged and clearly established.
All of which seems to me to settle the whole problem of 'realisation'. In her faithful edition of Eritrea Dr Glover trusts what Cavalli wrote; in less trusting ar- rangements the whole balance between ver- bal and musical content is upset, music is required to do more than Cavalli ever meant it to do, and we all start wondering if he was a good composer. The answer is that he was a good composer of good music when it was needed, and he was thus a superb composer for the theatre. To hell with the rest of it.
More perhaps than in any other sort of opera, the role of the conductor is crucial: not just the music (no metronome marks) but the whole shape of the work, the pacing of the dialogue is controlled from the pit the conductor as director. Dr Glover's pac- ing was neither fast nor slow: it varied wide- ly depending on the situation. Dramatic as well as purely musical values were faultless- ly controlled. The sureness of the perfor- mance suggested tireless preparation, as did the standard of the singing — and singing opera of this period demands very special qualities. Again, the proper balance bet- ween words and notes. As the crazed lover, James Bowman, in superb voice, tugged at
every heart-string: his Ophelia-like mad- scene (musically as fine as anything in Monteverdi) scattering flowers was a perfectly judged piece of production. Sally Burgess, very handsome in travesti, made Eritrea's predicament real and touching, and her air of vulnerability when finally forced to appear dressed as a girl was pure magic. Sandra Browne (the Phoenician queen), Adrian Thompson (the Egyptian invader), Johanna Peters (the scabrous nurse), all were first rate, and with singers of the calibre of Richard Jackson, Ann Mackay and Linda Ormiston in support' casting had not been skimped. Tom Haw kes's unobtrusive production was based squarely and sensitively on character — he too trusted the composer — and Ter- ence Emery's colourful decor was just the job. A memorable and highly illuminating evening. Every time I see Billy Budd, which seals more and more like Madame ButterflY for chaps, I grow increasingly uncomfortable about it. There is an almost Puccinian relish in the slow, deliberate destruction of a human being. Musically the latest Covet Garden revival was irreproachable with Richard Armstrong, who has conducted the work so often for the Welsh, bringing muscle and tension to a score that is, doubts aside, a miracle of lyrical organisation. As ever, Thomas Allen made Billy's simplicity and goodness anything but mawkish (and with precious little help from the libretto), and Forbes Robinson's Claggart, somewhat toned down, was all the better for it. Robert Tear was tackling Vere for the first time: he sang beautifully, and caught the reflective, intellectual side of the character strongly' But would this bookish man have been in charge of HMS Indomitable, and given that would he have behaved so badly? I wonder, or rather prefer not to.
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