Spectacles
Rodney Milnes
Aida (Coliseum) Orontes (Riverside Studios) The last new production of Aida in London was 11 years ago at the Royal Opera. It cost around £80,000, which was thought scandalously extravagant in those days, but it has run and run, still looks good, and' has proved a sound investment. So maybe it was time for another production, and the question about the English National Opera's last week is not so much whether it was the greatest performance any of us have ever heard or seen (it wasn't). as whether it will serve the company and its audience as well as Covent Garden's, and I believe it will.
It looks stunning, and must have cost more than the Garden's (sponsors acknowledged in the programme). Stefanos Lazaridis's massive sets move easily and fairly noiselessly; there are only two intervals and the scene changes are done in full view. The designs are traditional — stone gateways, statues, huge metal masks, hieroglyphics as if on parchment that take John B. Reid's lighting beautifully — yet never dwarf the singers. The central raised acting area can be isolated by light, and the angle at which it is set thrusts the intimate action at the audi ence. For the public scenes the whole stage is used and the spectacle — a riot of gold and colour — spills outside the proscenium, for once convincingly.
The few miscalculations in John Copley's soundly organized production can soon be sorted out: the disgusting and wholly unmusical sado-masochistic ballet, and the trial of Radames on stage in full view, which pulls the rug from under Amneris in her big scene (Verdi, as always, knew best). The presence of an army of real black extras makes those with boot polish on their faces look pretty silly, and while I am sure Aida's charcoal skin colour is deeply authentic (the programme is choc-a-bloc with historical apparatus and thoughtfully supplies a translation of the hieroglyphics for those whose ancient Eyyptian is a little rusty) it does flatten out the expressiveness of Josephine Barstow's features, and her luxuriant fuzzy-wuzzy wig, undeniably dashing in its way, noticeably got up Radames's nose as they lay in their dying embrace.
But Copley does have an eye for context. The curtain rises on a bevy of captains: for once Radames's appointment as C-in-C does not seem a foregone conclusion. Aida is not the only Ethiopian slave amongst Amneris's retainers, who do indeed retain. While slap outside the temple of Isis has always seemed a damned stupid place for an illicit lovers' meeting, it was here faute de mieux: Aida was on duty and could only slip out for a minute. The domestic dimension 'was not lost amidst the spectacle and the 'forcefully stated church-versus-state conflict.
Musically this was a gentle evening. I liked the smooth, homogeneously blended orchestra under Sir Charles Groves, but missed the Verdian snap. The under-rated Tom Swift was an unusually musical Radames; the infamous B-flat of 'Celeste Aida' was hardly morendo, but at least he had a go, and didn't just belt it out. I imagine his sudden over-singing in the finale had something to do with having to sing through Miss Barstow's wig. Following her radiant Sieglinde, Elizabeth Connell seemed to be having a little trouble doubledeclutching back into Amneris gear: the top was almost too free, the middle lacking colour and penetration. It seemed ungrateful / when hearing the notes sung so easily to be longing for a good old Italian bawler jacking herself to those Gs and As, but I was.
Josephine Barstow made up for her obscured face with a lot of mettlesome dashing about and produced some exquis ite but, alas, abstract phrasing: for minutes on end not a word was heard, which •was particularly frustrating when she was in duet with Neil Howlett's forthright and clear Amonasro. Not, then, an earth-shaking performance, but certainly a production to be seen and, after all, there are at least 11 years and heaven knows how many casts to go.
Orontea (1649) is a comic opera by Pietro Antonio Cesti, apparently the Puccini of his day. Musica nel Chiostro's production was very properly a romp, its robust humour as right as Ponnelle's precious twittering in Monteverdi was wrong — belly laughs, not giggles. The biggest laugh came when the comic old lady (Nuala Willis, got up as Carmen Miranda and with an amazing baritone register) made a hefty pass at the inevitable boydressecl-as-girl (Susan Moore, very fetching in battle-dress and beret): the talk in Anne Ridier's hugely stylish translation of rudders, steering, and who has what to offer whom introduced a whole new concept: the double-double-entendre. The main plot concerns a frigid queen (Della Jones in severe spectacles and a bun) who boasts of her freedom from the toils of love. In no time at all she falls for a most unsatisfactory court painter: off come the specs and down goes the bun. Graham Vick I hereby dub the Billy Wilder of opera production, and Adam Pollock's witty costumes were, as indicated, timeless, with the queen's page dressed as Ronald Searle's Molesworth. Jane Glover kept the piece zipping along and, with Miss Jones, gave the few serious moments' their due. A rude Botticelli joke nearly stopped the show. I can't remember when I last laughed so much.
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