THE FESTIVAL OF VERONA
THE Verona Festival deserves homage from the English, even if it is difficult for many to attend. For it is an offspring of Romeo and Juliet, that is to say of the strong feeling of the Veronese about Shakespeare, married to the Romans, that is to say to the great Roman arena, and the even more beautiful Roman theatre.
In recent years there have been performances of- Romeo and Juliet and of Julius Caesar. If these were anything like as good as this season's Henry IV, it is pity that every English producer of Shakespeare could not attend. Henry IV was played in a built-up theatre like the Globe Theatre, with a very large apron stage in front of the smaller, indoors set. The production was above all a royal renaissance one, which gave a tremendous dignity to the parts of the King and Prince ; the lords and knights were statues from Rome and northern Italy which had come fo" life. The historic spectacle, instead of being a background for " character," became --the stream of armour and battles and intrigues on which the characters floated. All this was, of course, immensely helped by the outdoors setting, with the river and the towers of Verona behind the battlemented stage-set, and the stars above.
Camillo Pilotto as Falstaff brought a Verdiesque lyricism into what was one of the best Falstaffs I have ever seen. Sandro Ruffini made one believe in the King's royalty, and Giorgio de Lullo as the Prince of Wales entered and yet stood outside the foolery of the inn like one figure belonging completely to a group, who yet seems delineated in light.
Murder in the Cathedral, performed in the beautiful Cloister of S. Bernardino, was lar beyond any other performance of this work I have seen. In the first place the chorus, consisting only of three women of Canterbury, placed in a box looking rather like & con- fessional at one side of the stage, was perfectly controlled, the three voices uniting in an interpretation which at times resembled pure music. Secondly, the performance by Gianni Santuccio was one of the best I have ever seen. Santuccio,who had also been a most striking Harry Hotspur in Henry IV, revealed in the Archbishop the qualities of great acting. The sermon was at once simple, convincing, deeply felt, and a most exquisitely conscious piece of artistry, in which every gesture of the hands and movement of the eyes held the audience like a great painting.
The few English scattered among the audience appreciated these translated works, more, I think, than did the Italians. Conversely, I think the Italians appreciated Aida and Manon done in the great arena, before between twenty and thirty thousand people, more than did the foreigners. What was most interesting here was really the vast Italian audience itself, which, coming to an opera, cannot have been so very different from the public which attended a Roman specticle. Before the prelude, there is a custom that each member of the audience lights a little candle which he holds, causing con- centric circles of light, tier on tier, to rise towards the sky, a black lid over the top of the arena. The scenery for Aida was, with its bulky columns and suggestions of still lumpier pyramids, needles, pillars and sphinxes, all too familiar. The first two acts were devoted almost entirely to a spectacle in which there can rarely have been fewer than 200 people on the stage, not to mention a great many animals, and a troop of Egyptian children. It was only in the duet of the Third Act that there seemed time to note that Aida—in some ways an insoluble problem for the producer—is also a work of great imaginative beauty. Manon, with settings by Alfredo Furiga, was a better production and performance in every way. Here the the audience was per- suaded to concentrate on the singing and not just on the spectacle, and an aria of the Chevalier de Grieux, sung beautifully by Guiseppe di Stefano (who achieved the miracle of singing softly in the arena) was applauded so wildly that the rest of the act was inaudible. Verona is a city which has arisen like a phoenix from the ashes of some of the worst destruction in Italy during the war, In a few years it has taken its place as one of the most exciting centres in Europe for the theatre ; and the opera here is a popular spectacle which shows how deeply the Italian art is rooted in the lives of the people. One night in late July 30,000 people attended Aida,' and
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