The Lesson of the Master
By DAVID CAIRNS
IT is possible to regard Glyndebourne as an institution in gracious but inexorable decline, and this is how I have been in the habit of regarding it. According to this analysis Glyndebourne, while making itself socially indispensable and economically secure, has become too well satisfied with these achievements to notice a slight but fatal loss of artistic dynamic. The inherent contradiction of its position is begin- ning to be felt: it is going soft from long contact with an audience too many of whom neither know nor care. It is living on the interest of the great days of the Busch-Bing-Ebert triumvirate; the fresh talents added from time to time are not enough to prevent the slow drain of capital. Man for man the new generation is mostly a shadow of the old, and it no longer has the challenge of the incredible foundation years to stimulate it. The miracle has been mechanised, and though constantly renewed and perfected by the addition of a rehearsal stage or a new lighting sYstem, the machinery turns almost, by itself. An inevitable law of Toynbeean growth and decay is at work, seen most obviously in Glynde- bourne's most famous aspect, its Mozart operas: no Mozart performance heard there in the last ten years has equalled, in point of style (with or without appoggiaturas), power, richness of characterisation, vividness of detail and mastery of form, the Don Giovanni and Cosi fan tutte recorded by Busch before the war, and some have fallen ignobly below them. In general, however, like the subtle commercialisation of the novelist's genius in The Lesson of the Master, the falling off is imperceptible except to a hand- ful of people (one of them, of course, being Oneself); and, this being England, there is no reason why the process should not go on indefinitely.
But must this, after all, happen? The neatest determinist pattern can be upset by the accident of one or two personalities. If Glyndebourne could find a musical director of genius and re- solution, an influence as strong as Rennert is, Potentially at least, on the production side, and could bring itself to be ruled by him, it might recapture its pristine force. Even without such a Irian, the pattern can vary. This year looks like being a vintage summer at Glyndebourne. It is true that the Cosi fan tulle is a pretty dim affair : ,°111Y one of the cast, the Don Alfonso of Michel Roux, projects a clear and rounded character, 4114 it seems to me quite the wrong character, Vocally too throwaway, without authority, dramatically too detached, a gently cultured, tbtldly amused old man, with none of the force- fulness and savage glee of the destroyer of life- illusions, which the plot argues and the music ,confirms; Carl Ebert's production is very eighteenth-century,' all symmetry and twirls and flourishes and no real style; and John Prit- chard's conducting, though it is quite crisp and lively and includes one or two ideally realised numbers like the marvellous 'introduction' Quartet in Act 2, fails because it refuses to ex- pand physically, to linger over the divine sensuousness of the score and savour its delights (by which I do not mean romanticise them), and so misses that sharp awareness of the evanescence of all human beauty which, on any terms, is one of the deeper meanings of this great and inex- haustibly intriguing work.
But Cosi has long been a weak card in the Glyndebourne pack; it has not been the same since the days of Sena Jurinac's Fiordiligi and Stabile, most superb of Don Alfonsos. On the other hand there is this year's Figaro, conducted by a newcomer to Glyndebourne, Silvio Varviso. I did not manage to see it, but reliable reports speak glowingly of it. In its choice of repertoire Glyndebourne is showing a lively imagination and a healthy willingness to exploit its self- immolating (il faut soufirir pour etre cultive) captive audience. Pelleas et Melisande and L'Incoronazione di Poppea are great operas 'which for different reasons have not yet been accepted into the general repertoire. It is above all to give such noble works continued life that Glyndebourne exists. One can disagree with certain details of the Pelleas—Denise Duval's accomplished Melisande was too strongly etched and sophisticated to be right in the part, Henri Gui was a rather flavourless Pelleas, and pleas- ing though Beni Montresor's pre-Raphaelite settings were, with their soft reds and greens and golds, and aptly in period, I do not believe that the strange sub-marine darkness-engirdled world of Debussy's opera is inseparable from such a setting or even that it is best served by it (it would be fascinating to see Pelleas staged by Wieland Wagner)—but in general it showed Glyndebourne at its best. Produced with loving' care and almost perfect tact by Carl Ebert, ad- mirably conducted by Vittorio Gui, it ,was memorable less for its fine individual perform- ances, Roux's masterly Golaud, the tender and dignified Arkel of the young Dutch bass Guus Hoekman, than as a corporate achievement in the difficult art of opera.
Debussy's masterpiece is generally recognised, if rarely heard. But Poppea must have come to most people, as it has to me, with the force of a revelation. If Glyndebourne had never done any- thing else of note, it would have justified itself by this magnificent deed. Poppea, the work of Mon- teverdi's extreme old age, composed in 1642, is clearly one of the supreme operas of all time. It staggers one not only by its extraordinary beauty but by its mastery of music drama. Everything in it springs from a brilliant dramatic imagination using a strong and flexible form for expressive purposes. Nothing in it sets the mind wandering. No allowances are required. The carefully adjusted 'historical' frame of mind 'with which one approaches operas before Mozart (except Dido and Aeneas), even the finest works of Handel and Gluck, is completely unnecessary. The work—its emotional power, its formal com- pactness and intensity—strikes you directly, deeply, unequivocally.
It may be argued by scholars' that certain aspects of Rennert's splendid production and Raymond Leppard's richly coloured realisation of the continuo intrude alien elements on the work. Should the drunken duet between Nero and Lucan be so broadly played? Should the unholy joy of Poppea's old nurse Arnalta be externalised in quite such an extravagantly fantastic hat as Conwy Evans (whose costumes seem to me mostly apt and beautiful) has provided for her? Should Ottavia's austere and noble lament as she prepares for banishment be accompanied by swooping glissandos on harpsichord and harp? Perhaps not; yet the general achievement of re- storing to ardent life an unguessed-at master- piece is beyond criticism or praise. If only more music-lovers could see it! It is being broadcast this Sunday, but it should be experienced in the flesh.
The enormous service to art that is done by such a revival ought not to be allowed to remain incomplete. In this lies the unsatisfactory para- dox of Glyndebourne: the better it is, the more exclusive and artificial it becomes. In a saner musical society this production would be brought to Covent Garden. Is it absurd to hope that this may happen? Is there any reason, for that mat- ter, why Glyndebourne should not regularly play for a week at Sadler's Wells in the latter part of August? After all, it was surely not as an adjunct of the season, or even as a delicacy for the critics and a tiny elite of musical gourmets, that Mr. and Mrs. Christie willed this marvellous enter- prise into being, and loved and fought for it. It is enthusiasm and gratitude for Poppea that prompts these suggestions. Glyndebourne would stand only to gain in health and vigour from such a very limited diffusion of its energies, with- out losing its family character or its social desir- ability. The sizzling performance of Don Gio- vanni by the Glyndebourne cast at the Proms last year shows the tonic effect of performing to a live audience.
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