All's well that ends well
OPERA EDWARD BOYLE
The new production of Die Meistersinger at Covent Garden is thoroughly workmanlike and well prepared, though not quite of a quality which leaves one feeling that one has fallen in love with the work all over again.
It is, perhaps, a little unfair, for two reasons, to judge too much by one's impressions of the opening night. First, the appalling mishap of Hubert Hoffman's bad throat, and his emer- gency replacement as Hans Sachs by Sadler's Wells' Norman Bailey at less than twenty-four hours' notice, must inevitably have affected everyone's confidence, especially in the first act. In the event, Mr Bailey's performance seemed almost a miracle, and an outsider can only wonder at the reserves of professional skill and experience which enable a singer, in such an incredibly short time, to switch his mind from English to German and, without apparent effort, transfer to a production which he can have had only the briefest opportunity to rehearse.
One has heard richer voices, yit few more moving or intelligent performances of this great role. Mr Bailey lays the main emphasis, surely rightly, on Sachs's sensitivity and independence of mind, ranging far deeper than mere 'bene- volence.' Nothing in the whole evening pleased me more than his handling of the scene in which he makes the suggestion that `the folk should sit in judgment' on the singing contest, and his relaxed, unabashed reaction to the out- burst from his fellow-members of the guild. More than ever, one regretted that the Sachs who begins by suggesting that 'we the rules themselves should probe' should have to end the whole work with those intolerable lines about German art ('blieb ale doch deutsch und wahr').
The second reason for caution in one's ver- dict is that I had the feeling that Solti was, all through the evening, increasingly warming to his task_ I confess that the opening prelude (as Wagner called it) disappointed me a little. One missed a certain spaciousness and glory, and the second half of the prelude set off an energetic spin that seemed more appropriate to the Journey to the Rhine. The lovely end of the first act misfired, and though the second act had its fine moments, it did not quite sufficiently take its mood from the key line in the Flieder monologue: 'So mild, so stark und von.'
But the prelude to the third act was memor- ably beautiful and gloriously played by all the departments of the orchestra. In these days when Mr Cohn Davis suggests to us that the Wagnerian emphasis on harmony, at the ex- pense of melody and rhythm, was a wrong turning in the history of music, one is parti- cularly glad to hear so restrained, unvulgarised, yet utterly committed a performance of what I have always felt to be one of the most moving interludes in late nineteenth century music. Solti observed Wagner's dynamics in this pre- lude most scrupulously, never rising above forte until the final appearance of the G Minor theme that symbolises Sachs's heartache.
I much admired, also, Solti's handling of the key moment in the Wahn monologue: 'Nun aber kam Iohannistag'; the sudden crescendo at this point, as the music changes key from E to C, is by no means easy to bring off, as one remembers from Kempe's failure in his timv recording. Another great success was the burst of sound from the chorus at 'Wach auf in the final scene. In fact my only disappointment in Act 3 was Solti's treatment of the short A Flat motif which depicts Eva's anxiety. It was not sufficiently tender. So that the quarter of an hour of heavenly music leading up to the quintet did not quite make the effect it should. Of the other singers, Jess Thomas looked fine as Walther, and on the whole sang credit- ably, especially in the ensembles. But there were times when his voice, to borrow the language of hi-fl, did not seem to track the music securely—for instance, there were some inaudible notes in the 'rehearsal' of the Prize Song, especially in the line 'you aller Wormer, nie ersonner.' Bozena Ruk-Focic looked charm- ing as Eva, and began promisingly, but she was disappointing in the quintet; 'Selig wie die Sonne' sounded sadly tentative and matter-of- fact, and she attacked her final note uncomfort- ably from below. One noticed also her inability to trill at the moment when she wreathes Walther's brow.
George Shirley was a very winning David, not, perhaps, quite so agile of voice as some of his predecessors, but always sweet-toned and accurate. I was particularly glad, by the way, that no cuts were made in David's recital of the works, which always seems to me one of the most inventive passages in the first act. About Geraint Evans's Beckmesser I am not so sure. Of course, his performance is a riot, and superbly sung. But he misses something of Beckmesser's malice, while his rapport with the audience is so good that—especially in the first scene of Act 3—we rather lose sight of his obsessive and complicated relationship with Sachs; he is at the same time both intensely jealous of the cobbler-poet, yet also fascinated by him. 'Imtner bei Sachs'—Beckmesser's re- sponse to the roll-call in Act 1—is surely a key line for the interpreter of his role. Josephine Veasey and David Ward were thoroughly sound as Magdalene and Pogner and I made a special
note of the beauty of the former's interjection "Evechen 's is: Zeit,' just before the Night- watchman enters for the first time.
Barry Kay's sets were unexciting but suitable, though I was surprised that he disregarded Wagner's explicit stage direction for Act 1, that only the last few rows of seats should be visible; and I hope it isn't niggling to point out that Walther, according to Wagner, 'exchanges glances' with Eva during the chorale—he shouldn't scamper from side to side. One other detail in Rudolf Hartmann's production bothered me: when Walther opens his Spring Song with its shockingly unconventional repeti- tion of Beckmesser's words 'Fanget an,' surely it would be more natural that the mastersingers should immediately turn their faces towards him rather than towards one another. Oq the other hand, the meadow scene in Act 3, before the arrival of the principals, is very well handled; the production gains new impetus just when one's attention can easily, in a routine performance, begin to flag.
Inevitably comparisons will be made between this new Covent Garden production and the highly praised production under Reginald Goodall at Sadler's Wells; but I do not think such comparisons are really likely to prove very helpful. One may not feel that Solti has quite the same grasp of the opera considered as a whole; I doubt whether he is so ideally suited to Meistersinger as, say, to Giitterdiimmerung. But the best moments last Friday revealed his finest qualities, and those of the orchestra; and I feel pretty confident that later performances will prove still more rewarding to those who Jove and admire this great opera as I do.
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