Opera
Come again
Rodney Milnes
The thing about Sir William Walton's Troilus and Cressida, revived (and not before time) at Covent Garden, is that it contains the most erotic love music ever written by a British composer—unless you count Delius, which 1 don't, operatically at least. Any two bars of the love duet are more arousing than twenty-four hours of 'erotic' ballet from Bomarzo. It is not just the central duet and the interlude that follows, which outdoes even those masters of the musical orgasm Strauss and Tchaikovsky; the solo numbers also have a yearning, a passion, an almost physical warmth that are sadly unique in the Anglo-Saxon operatic canon.
So far so good, and it is very good indeed, and almost enough. But I am not altogether convinced by Walton's revisions. Even so potent a love story as this has to be seen in a setting. The virtual obliteration of the character of Calchas seems a pity, as operatic fathers have been rather interesting ever since Handel. Diomede, who presents a different, more calculating brand of sexuality, has also been emasculated. There are cuts in the first scene of Act Two, which weaken the sense of pre-coital foreplay, almost suggest premature ejaculation. In a way, the opera has become an extended love-duet with intrusive bits of plot, whereas before public and private event were more evenly balanced. I suppose 1 just can't have enough ii Troilus, and resent Sir William taking some of it away from me.
Then there are the transpositions. For a start, 1 hope one day we shall learn from the various conflicting reports (most of them emanating from naughty Sir William himself) whether or not Cressida was actually written for Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (1 would guess not). It has been felt that there was no soprano who could sing the role today (wrong) and that Janet Baker was the answer we had all been waiting for. Well, yes and no. Of course she sings it beautifully, but the downward transpositions do take a little zing out of the solo numbers and some of them become uncomfortably low even for a mezzo, while the cut at the climax of the love duet is taking self-criticism altogether too far. And Dame Janet is somehow not the most obvious purveyor of erotic abandon— Dames just don't do that sort of thing— nicely though she suggests the withdrawn widow of the first act and harrowingly the disintegrating mind of the third. On the whole, and with the greatest good will and admiration, 1 would urge Sir William and his publishers not to regard these revisions as final. Certainly not those to Hassall's text ; whether the composer likes it or not, a line like 'Have pity and grant what I crave: break open the grave, give me my Cressida is now part of operatic lore, and the linIP substitute is horribly bathetic. That uniquely intelligent He/denteaor Richard Cassilly was well cast as Troilus.' imagine he has kept his magnificent voice hY avoiding such roles as Siegfried and Walther. but as his steely, warm, tireless voice rang round Covent Garden I longed for him 10 at least record them and spare us those Milk: toned substitutes we have had to make ac) with. There lay just a little rub; the demand' ing heroic passages were delivered to stuPelli dous and always musical effect, but much c). his music is marked piano and not all of it was on the first night. But it is churlish Od complain in the face of so intellectual arld dramatically telling an interpretation—an one that supplied the erotic voltage lacking elsewhere. There is, I fear, no substitute for Pete,r Pears, for whom the role of Panda; actually was written, It is not just that II I 1 copious Jalsetti were missing—they rInSe depend on the individual artist, though son' of Gerald English's reedy squawks vve,re hardly the ideal replacement—but was the'''. I no one who could show the singer how; good old-fashioned queen behaves? Tiled limp-wristed would-be epicene had stray
in from the wrong camp. in
The new production (by Colin Graharn decor by Christopher Morley and Arlo Curtis) seemed to me little more thane disgrace. I have no doubt that the bad!rt was around fourpence ha'penny, as a s'„t of managerial penance for having oversPeo"f so widly on Svoboda's Ring (a case wrong priorities, surely, and hardlYno compliment to Sir William). But that is..4 excuse; a plain platform and cyclorab'en worked wonders for Peter Grimes, but,t45 they were plain. Here we had a hiaeu001 floor-cloth and fiddly, first-year art-sch, projections—what they did (and faillie do) in the interlude surpassed be Swathing most of the cast and choraso yards of black-out material and even Maktiel. the Greek and Trojan warriors share tile mets may have been a defiant gesture 41,45 face of a mean budget, but the costi;ge helped neither characterisation nor 5 5if pictures. This shouldn't happen tc),,geti William, neither should a lamely blek"cots production that had only fleeting Will
of excitement in the third act. ha"
More cheerfully, the piece can never ,.ar been played better in the opera house te'rice it was on this occasion under Lav41.60( Foster, though I do have warm men01.00 a single chaotic performance under Regi Goodall that did nevertheless coax mar 50. ally more seminal fluid from the score.to along with fawning gratitude at hearingin. I gloriously rampant opera on stage agaantl pray for the return of the serviceable the atmospheric Casson settings and. Pie°. rest of the score.
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