A miserable time of year
Michael Tanner deplores the lack of opera and serious music during the holidays
What does an opera critic — or to be more accurate and modest, an opera reviewer — do when no operas are being performed? The sub-Amis school of jour- nalism CI woke up feeling as if a large number of small animals had crapped on my tongue. I rolled over to see whom I'd spent the night with' etc.), though widely used by writers allegedly concerned with a variety of topics, would only serve to show how deprived the lives of reviewers are when they aren't in the theatre — some- thing that readers may long have suspected.
The general piece about, say, the dar- lings of the opera-going public at the moment, Magna and Gheorghiu, often thought to be over-exposed and wilful (a claim substantiated in The Spectator by Rupert Christiansen, Arts, 6 December), but now the objects of a friendly visit from a critic who finds them to be warm, delight- ful, hardworking, conscientious, avid for self-improvement in the service of art, can seem a bit disingenuous. All critics at some time feel that they are in danger of being so predictable that people won't bother to read them any more, so resort occasionally to the ploy of coming up with an opinion which goes sharply against their 'image', to the extent that they have one. All that kind of thing merely adds to the misery of this time of year.
Something that adds more substantially to it is the sheer lack of opera to be found anywhere in the country, from a few days before Christmas to mid-January. The Royal Opera, admittedly, is continuing its run of the universally unacclaimed The Merry Widow, not venturing into any more serious repertoire until 19 January. ENO, which opened again last Tuesday, now merely alternates its panto-version of The Magic Flute with Eugene Onegin; Opera North is mounting a new production of Sweeney Todd with its own panto Flute. North of the border there are four perfor- mances of Tosca in Edinburgh during the whole of January, nothing more. Welsh National Opera doesn't get going at all until 14 February. And even the small tour- ing companies aren't seizing the opportuni- ty to cash in on the silence of the larger ones.
No doubt one reason, or set of reasons, for the lengthy abandonment of serious activity is financial. I have a slim grasp of these things, but am told that somehow it makes economic sense not to use the very substantial number of people whose job it is to participate in putting on opera. Grant- ed that they aren't doing anything else, it seems to me sheer waste. However much `downsizing' — I refuse to use that word out of inverted commas — has gone on in the various companies, they still have, to me, awe-inspiring lists of administrators, as well as, of course, the unnamed scene- changers and the artists themselves, and the orchestras and choruses. Surely it would be better for them to be doing some- thing with their time which relates to what they are paid for. Or is the idea that opera is something too serious, i.e., too unenjoy- able for the festive season and its seemingly everlasting aftermath? I suspect that that has a lot to do with it.
Christmas is the time for musicals, Messi- ahs, the perennially emetic King's Carol Service, in any case not a time for cultural duties. I noticed that the 'named presen- ters' on Radio Three went in for a great deal of explanation of how the disc they were about to put on related to Christmas, even if that wasn't obvious; and that they incessantly referred to things and people being 'light-hearted'. Though I don't admire a lot about Noel Coward, I have always thought that his remark that 'Work is much more fun than fun' is both admirable and true. And there does seem to lurk the suspicion that opera is not fun, at least unless it is camped up or hovering on operetta (performed in the vernacular).
If I am, depressingly, right about this then it does seem that though we may no longer be the land without music we are, in a certain way, the land without opera. One can go to the Vienna State Opera on Christmas afternoon, not necessarily to see the frothiest fare; and in New York on the first three days of the year one could go to Don Carlos impressively performed, to judge from the live relay; Peter Grimes, ditto; then on 3 January a matinee of Boris Gudunov with a staggering cast, superbly conducted by Gergiev; and in the evening Barbiere, also musically brilliant. Of course, that couldn't happen here, but surely some- thing could have been done with the human resources that are available and maybe very bored with having fun.
Television gave us a couple of operas: most inappropriately, I thought, Madama Butterfly on Christmas afternoon, presum- ably for those of us who were fighting light- heartedness at all costs. It wasn't a very good production, indulging in what I find the tastelessness of having a Far Eastern Butterfly, and altogether exaggerating the kitsch elements in what I am convinced is fundamentally a most unkitsch opera. My convictions are of the reverse kind in respect of Salome, the other offering, from the Royal Opera production with Cather- me Malfitano and a gloriously OTT Hero- dias from Anja Silja. The former Mr Silja, Christoph von Dohnanyi, is rather strait- laced for this piece of comedy, black hole rather than merely black, but it was still quite good fun.
I wish the same could be said for the educational bit that was delivered by BBC 2, whose strangely arbitrary choice of eight great composers had got to Wagner. So far the series has been of decreasing merit, perhaps because of the increased interest and mobility of the lives of the composers dealt with. Bach only moved around a bit in eastern Germany, so we concentrated on the music, even if in fashionably authentic form. Mozart and Beethoven encouraged the roving camera, and even some ham actors. But throughout these three pro- grammes there was Charles Rosen to lend dignity and insight.
Wagner, as always on television, led straight to disaster: surely the worst thing about him is that he brings out the worst in so many other people. Listeners' attention span throughout the series has been esti- mated as extremely short, and any musical excerpt has had to have a voice-over within ten seconds, as well as visual irrelevances. The Wagner establishment was out in force, determined to convince the innocent that the overriding preoccupation of the composer and therefore of his works was anti-Semitism. We unnecessarily went to present-day Leipzig train station, to the Baltic, many times to Venice, mainly, I take it, so that the expounders could have some enjoyable trips. John Deathridge was the compere, self-adoringly condescending to his audience; then along came Barry Millington, Stewart Spencer, Lawrence Paul Rose, Marc Weiner, to explain that a character as degenerate as Wagner's must have left its indelible stamp on his works. It was left to George Steiner, of all people, to talk some modest sense at the end, and to acknowledge that before Wagner's world- shaking genius he is uncomprehending. So all told, the dismal scene in the country at large was continued on the box.
Now that everyone is back at work, there is hope that they will be able to be serious m their spare time too.
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