Opera
Concentration and intimacy
Rodney Mines
There were many surprises in Jonathan Miller's television production of Cosi fan tutte, nearly all of them nice ones. First, at a time when most television opera is taken live from opera houses, it was a surprise in itself to see a studio production made for the medium — and technically well made, with the singers singing, the orchestra (invisible) playing, and no one caught glancing at hidden monitors for the reas- surance of the conductor's beat. Given the comparative freedom of the studio, one expected not just a villa as the set, but a main road awash with coaches and fours, and a garden, probably with a goldfish pond, some garden swings, and possibly a roller-coaster and a miniature golf course. But no: almost perversely, but rightly, Dr Miller chose to concentrate the action in a single room and a terrace that would have looked quite small on, say, the Coliseum stage.
Even more surprising at a time when far too many producers in opera houses go to quite unreasonable lengths to distract attention from music which, they think, has to be boring, was a television director working for a wide public — some of whom might indeed find Mozart boring — instead paying them the compliment of assuming that they might actually respond to what he was saying. How surprising, and hearten- ing, not to be played down to. Again, given the freedom of the studio, one half ex- pected cameras to go whizzing around under tables, hanging from chandeliers, and peering up the girls' skirts. Quite the contrary: more often than not Dr Miller plonked the camera down in front of the singer or singers and let them sing, not moving it until they had finished. The result was a Cosi of quite extraordinary concentration and intimacy, and one that trusted both the text and the audience.
This is not to say that it was unnecessari- ly austere. David Myerscough-Jones's set was a pretty one, and his costumes almost too pretty. One of the visual references, though, Joseph Wright's Experiment with an Air Pump for the opening scene with the three men was spot on: what ensues is after all by way of being a scientific exercise. There were moments of both beauty and power — the girls at a window during 'Come scoglio' the men in (rare) long shot against another window at the end of lin aura amorosa', in both cases framed by light from outside, Fiordiligi agonising on the terrace at dusk in `Per pieta', or the memorable final shot of the original couples reunited but glancing back at their temporary partners. Best of all was `Un cor' — one shot, one position for the singers. Such closeness to a moment of distressing emotional ambiguity, amount- ing to voyeurism almost, made one hold one's breath.
Yet why — the biggest surprise of all was the performance as a whole not as disturbing as it should have been, as disturbing as Peter Conrad said Cosi must be in his illuminating interval talk? There were many small contributory factors. First, the bewhiskered American transla- tion: lines like 'Goodness gracious, how loquacious' simply won't do for a serious approach to this opera. Why didn't they use the superior Browne/Cox version or, even better, commission the new one that is desperately needed? Studio conditions, I presume, meant a comparatively cool read- ing from Peter Robinson and the London Sinfonietta, perfectly good, but lacking the light and shade that the same conductor has found at the Coliseum. The singing seemed good, no more; maybe proximity compromises intensity of response on both sides of the camera, though it must be said that the cast made the very act of singing seem perfectly natural. Too natural?
Then there were little oddities, like the dubious convention of mimed conversation while other people were singing; incon- sistency in addressing the camera; an ex- pendable extra for Alfonso to talk to during the `Addio' quintet, diluting (for once) the concentration. Was the villa too grand, making the lovers too remote from our experience? Did the girls change their frocks too often, even for a hot day in Naples? Were the unities observed? Did morning progress seamlessly to night? Not quite. Why was Despina's first disguise plausible and her second hideously far- cical?
These are details. The main problem seemed to me to be one of comic idiom. We have been reacting for ten years now to the bad old days of roller-coaster, minia- ture golf Cosis, and it is now time to react against the reaction. Any good director can stage the second act: the first is the problem. It actually has to be funny. The music tells us plainly that assertions of undying love and constancy are comically exaggerated: `Smanie implacabili' and, to a lesser extent, 'Come scoglio' are comedy numbers. The Albanians are funny — that is how they succeed, that and the 'foreign- ers don't count' syndrome. A director surely has to find a controlled comic style for a light-hearted game of love against which the turn of events in the second act can emerge in its full Stygian blackness. Here everything was played at the same level.
Nothing but praise, though, for the seriousness of the enterprise as a whole, not least to the BBC for putting it out in English, which must severely limit foreign sales. Thank you, and more please.
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