MUSIC
MOZART'S Marriage of Figaro was given at Covent Garden on January 22nd, wholly in English. Figaro was sung by Geraint Evans, whose voice is well suited to the part, though it lacks the ringing, resonant quality necessary for real dramatic effectiveness. Elizabeth Schwarzkopf's Susanna was a charming, sophisticated person with considerably more distinction than her mistress. Her soubrette airs were a charming affectation rather than natural (in fact, she was not happily cast), but both her singing and her acting were always marked by intelligence and good stage sense. Eugenia Zareska was hopelessly miscast as Cherubino ; her voice is far too dark and her whole appearance and temperament unsuited to the part. Sylvia Fisher's Countess was a rather wooden figure who did not inspire sympathy. The part needs experience and great vocal finish, and the applause which greeted her Dove sono was a tribute to Mozart's music rather than to the perfection of the performance. Hans Braun as the Count seemed strangled by the unfamiliar arrangements of English consonants, so that his voice (which had sounded excellent the week before when he sang in German at the Albert Hall) never had a fair chance. The most wholly satisfactory figure of all—in appearance, voice and dramatic representation—was Howell Glynne's Doctor Bartolo, which could hardly have been bettered.
Peter Brook was'cletermined, as in all his productions, to do some- thing new and different. Some small points were inoffensive except as evidences of a fussy mentality—the riding-boot polished by Figaro during Se vuol ballare and the book flourished by Bartolo during his aria. Even the conversion of Don Basilio into a dandified French abbe de salon, perpetually using his quizzing-glass, might be regarded as a solution of the problem presented by Murray Dickie's lack of inches. But the irruption of the kitchen staff at the end of Non andrai Susanna's handbag containing all the apparatus for writing a letter and the misconception of the ballet in Act 3 seem to argue a determination to be novel at all coats, even that of good sense. Rolf Gerard's sets and clothes provided very pleasant colour schemes for Acts r and 3 (though Cherubino's arrival through the window in Act I made it difficult to understand why he did not escape the same way instead of hiding). Act 3 looked too much like a Christmas-card, while the absence of a writing-table and the complicated manoeuvres necessary to make the ballet even feasible disqualified it from a purely practical point of view.
A new cello sonata by Alan Rawsthorne was played by Anthony Pint at the Wigmore Hall on January 21st. Its single movement is divided into an introduction, which presents the chief material in a simple and impressive form, two fast sections, a singularly beautiful Adagio and a short last section in which the material of the intro- duction is presented in a new and extremely dramatic form. The motto theme of the sonata has an harmonic ambiguity typical of the composer, and the alternation of lyrical and dramatic moods is well managed, so that the whole work gives an impression of great natural- ness. It was this quality which was so conspicuously absent from the three sonatas for two pianos played at the Chelsea Town Hall on January 24th by Ilona Kabos and Noel Mewton-Wood. Natural expressiveness was at a discount when Hindemith, Stravinsky and Bartok formed their musical styles (if Stravinsky can be said to have formed a final style), and all three sonatas now give the impression of extreme artificiality, always clever but often wilful. Experimenting becomes a habit like anything else, and there are some combinations which are unusual for the excellent reason that they are unsuccessful. If Bartok had to write for two pianos and percussion, we can comfort ourselves with the thought that it has been done and will not tempt
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