MUSIC
THE, return of Fritz Busch for the first time since the war has given the Glyndebourne Opera season an added lustre. The two Mozart operas which are being performed, Entf iihrung and Cost fan tutte, invite the detailed, stylised production in which Carl Ebert excels, and the first performances of both, on July 5th and 6th respectively, were of a high order of excellence.
Ent Wrung has the charm of comparative unfamiliarity, of being the only German opera comique or Singspiel to survive in the general repertory. Thus a broader, more farcical style of production is permissible, and only Constanze and the Pasha are raised wholly above the level of everyday life. Constanze is indeed the crucial character, only joined unequivocally in the last act by Belmonte, who until then preserves solid links with the world of Pedrillo, Blonde and Osmin. Ilse Hollweg showed herself possessed of range, agility and purity of tone in the .top register. Richard Holm made a brightt conventionally enterprising Belmonte, whose clear-ringing, even voice only lacked the fine shades of tenderness. Murray Dickie's Pedrillo was a triumph for this gifted singer, who has here found a role which suits his character and appearance as well as his voice. His spoken German was not so much fluent as torrential, and his acting a model for the earthy, cowardly, Sancho Panza type of servant who is a stock character of the old comic opera. His Blonde (Alda Noni) was a charming Italian study of an English girl, as English girls appear to foreigners rather than as seen through the eyes of their mothers or schoolmistress—bold and cool, fair-haired and rather shallow- hearted. Endre Koreh's Osmin was irresistibly comic, his drunkenness hilarious (how rare in any actor!) and his voice as round and ripe as his appearance. Only Anton Walbrook seriously underplayed his role, for the Pasha is not a mystical, ascetic sheik but a benevolent despot of the eighteenth century.
Only Alda Noni played in both operas. Her Despina was as near perfection as 1 hope to see, so discreetly insolent and so perfectly finished in gesture as well as in musical interpretation. Sena Jurinac, who sang Dorabella at Edinburgh last year, was a thought less happily cast as Fiordiligi, particularly as her Dorabella (Blanche Thebom) has a voice whose dark colour and dramatic fulness need an unusually bright and light contrast. But her actual singing and the passion of her interpretation swept aside such finicking criticism as the evening went on, and her final triumph was unquestionable. Erich Kunz (Guglielmo) is a natural come- dian as well as a very fine singer, and his drollery compensated for the slightly wooden acting of Richard Lewis, who, however, sang the part of Ferrando (including Un' aura amorosa, which defeats most) with a beautiful lyrical suavity and real musical distinction. Don Alfonso is probably Mariano Stabile to most people of the present day, and by that standard Mario Borriello lacked incisiveness and that infectious sensual vitality which is the pivot of the plot, though he is an efficient actor and singer.
The playing of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Fritz Busch was both delicate and vigorousa, the balance excellent and
Previous page
