Opera
Collaborators
Rodney Milnes
Katya Kabanova (Scottish Opera) Don Carlos (Covent Garden) Katya, the third instalment of the joint Scottish Opera-Welsh National Janacek cycle and like its predecessors conducted by Richard Armstrong, produced by David Pountney and designed by Maria Bjornson, maintains, if not surpasses, the high standards already set in each department. It is a staging rich in powerfully suggestive metaphor, to which decor, lighting (Victor Lockwood) and movement contribute as if from one mind —or rather towards one mind — Janacek's. This collaboration is as close and intellectually disciplined as it is loyal to the composer's vision.
The sense of the Kabanov household as a prison is there, with the wooden wall that surrounds it and the light that streams in and out of its doors and windows; the sense of impending change suggested by the gaping holes that scar the wooden floor in the final scene, by the dismantling of the ruin as Katya prepares to confess, and by the attitude of the townsfolk to the personal tragedy unfolding in their midst. There is also a sense of the epic in Mr Lockwood's bold effects, with the lighting equipment visible (some complaints from bedazzled eyes in the stalls) and the sudden bursts of hectic movement that punctuate Mr Pountney's production.
The wholly constructive way in which Mr Pountney collaborates with his singers is just one of the satisfying elements in this Katya. Josephine Barstow's impressive and familiar line in mettlesome, thoroughbred nervousness can sometimes seem too generalized — her Ellen Orford in Cardiff, for instance — but here it was harnessed into a consistently thought-through, logical and intensely moving portrait of Katya. the twitchiness, studded with moments of stillness from the very beginning, gradually giving way in the last act to peaceful calm. The suicide is very definitely a lieto fine: the sense of release is overwhelming. Kersnn Meyer's Kabanicha, relishing her wicked ness with many a satisfied smile and using every known trick to keep her son and destroy the interloper, is another riveting portrayal, the sado-masochistic scene with Dikoj perfectly judged. No less brilliant Is the way Cynthia Buchan suggests the iron will as well as the charm of Varvara. .
Perhaps the violence of John Robertson's Tichon is overstated; the text seems to suggest a pathetic rather than a vengeful creature, and I doubt if he would dare to drink quite so openly. Allen Cathcart's feckless Boris, William McCue's brutish Dikoj (a little wayward as to notes), Peter Jeffes's entirely natural Kudryas, Donald Maxwell making much out of his few lines as Kuligin — all are first-rate. But those strong visual images linger in the mind: Boris's first-act narration with him and Kudryas leaning casually against the wall, hands In pockets; Katya's first smile CI will see him'); the rapturous embrace before she walks slowly down the path of light back into prison; and the way Boris's entrance in the finale is made a coup de theatre (Victor Lockwood again) rather than, as so often, an apology.
It took a little time to get used to the Theatre Royal acoustic. The orchestral sound lacks the edge we have become used to in Janacek in Cardiff, and indeed the expansiveness of the Coliseum. but the advantage is that one hears far more of the words than in those theatres. After, in hypercritical terms only, a slightly untidy start, Mr Armstrong and the Scottish Philharmonia played most expressively.
Don Carlos seems rapidly to be turning into the Macbeth of opera. Once more 'industrial action' jinxed a revival, and it is no use pretending that the absence of backcloths made no difference: it did. Furthermore, the sudden indisposition of Sylvia Sass meant a hectic private-jetand-helicopter dash for Gwyneth Jones to save the performance, an hour's delay in the start of the evening and the cutting of the Fontainebleau act (some protests from the public, but not from me). Not, then, an occasion for measured judgements. But there were excitements nevertheless: Boris Christoff in amazing voice and as full of his monstrously sacred tricks as ever; that uniquely musical Italian baritone Renato Bruson, whose vibrato is contained within the note instead of oscillating round it; and Elizabeth Connell wholly in command as Eboli. Vasile Moldoveanu (Carlos) has the voice, the range and abundant promise; a year with a great conductor like Serafin or Giulini could turn him into a great singer, but those days, alas, are past and I note with alarm that he is down to sing more or less everything twice nightly at the Met next season. The circumstances hardly encouraged an easy musical performance, but by the last act the young American conductor James Conlon was moulding the music with much sensitivity.
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