Opera
Tour de force
Rodney Mines
The opera touring season is .almost upon us. Between now and the end of the year six companies will take to the road — English National Opera, Scottish Opera, Welsh National Opera, English Music Theatre Company, Glyndebourne Touring Opera and Kent Opera. Although autumn plans are not yet finalised, it is safe to predict that: the ENO will tour thirteen towns with a repertory of ten works including two of their new productions (though not, strangely enough, Salome); the Scots will take eleven operas to twenty theatres; WNO twelve operas to sixteen regional centres; EMTC, the new boys, launching a repertory of six new productions for at least fifteen centres including, surprise, surprise, London; GTO three operas to five cities; and Kent Opera Tour works to eight theatres in the South-East.
There is surprisingly little duplication of repertory — just five works out of a total of forty-six — and rather more of cities to be visited. To summarise: six companies will take forty-one operas to fifty regional and Metropolitan theatres. The works range from Monteverdi's Orfeo (1607) to two brand new ones (Stephen Oliver's Torn Jones, and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, by Thomas Wilson, not Timothy Lea), from La Finta Giardiniera to Britten's hitherto suppressed Paul Bunyan, and HMS Pinafore to Gotterclammerung. Places to be visited stretch from Paighton to Inverness, from Mold to Canterbury. Citizens of Manchester will be able to see ENO, WNO, EMTC, GTO and, in nearby Liverpool, Scottish Opera; which is more than London has to offer.
With so much touring activity, it is perhaps ungrateful to summon up the Banquo's ghost of Phoenix Opera, which has again been in the news. Following last year's unpleasantness, when the abrupt removal of Phoenix's touring subsidy provoked a tidal wave of indignation that spread even across these pages, the Arts Council has moved with more stealth. A Working Group of seven was set up to consider the demand for opera in middle-scale regional theatres, with particular reference to Phoenix's application for a renewed grant. They decided that the demand was there, that it should be met from the capacity of existing companies, and that they could not recommend a grant for Phoenix.
These conclusions were announced during the week before Christmas, when measly, nit-picking journalists had other things on their minds, and the portion referring to Phoenix was slyly upstaged by the somewhat premature flier that the Council was pondering support for an ENO regional base in Leeds — a far more newsworthy item. The initiative for this came from the Leeds Corporation and ENO, which has caused some mystification, though the domicile of ENO's Managing Director may not be entirely irrelevant. The idea is that a Leeds branch of .ENO would play at the Grand Theatre for six weeks and then take on responsibility for the `small' ENO tour — an eminently sensible idea and far preferable to the current system whereby the London company tries to cram severely reduced versions of Coliseum productions into small theatres. It would also answer a specific demand for opera in the North-East, one of the factors that came into the Phoenix controversy last year. All the Arts Council has to do is find the money.
And what of Phoenix? Had the Arts Council changed its mind and offered subsidy, it would probably have drawn even more fire for pusillanimity and tergiversation. It was emphasised that the Working Group's decision was unanimous, and suggested that this time the Phoenix management felt it had been fairly treated. Maybe, but Phoenix point out that to their knowledge only one member of the Group had actually seen their work, and there seems to be some disagreement as to whether their proposed budget was properly understood. I fear these are details: this embattled company, for whom there are great reserves of good will in the operatic world, will need all its mythological resilience to rise from the flames yet again.
For one thing, some of the ground has been cut from beneath their feet by the new EMTC.
Whereas Phoenix made much of their good relations with regional theatres and made a point of asking the regions what they wanted to
see, EMTC are touring a repertoire that is hardly the one a box-office-conscious theatre manager would request: Paul Bunyah, Tom Jones, Finta Giardiniera, Cenerentola, Threepenny Opera, and The Turn of the Screw. The problem of whether you give people what they think they want or what you think they ought to have is a knotty one. While wishing the new company every good fortune, we must watch the results like hawks.
The touring stakes were opened last week by the Welsh National's new production of Albert Herring, first seen in the 450-seat Sherman Theatre at University College, Cardiff. It will now tour to Bangor, Aberystwyth and the new Theatre Clwyd at Mold. Previously, suet' small theatres have asked for, and been given, cut-down stagings of popular classics of the Rigoletto/Butterfly variety, and this 20th century chamber opera is something of a risk. To judge from the joyful reception from an appreciative and involved audience last week, the risk should pay off handsomely.
As a work, Herring is more susceptible to the sort of 'progressive' production that failed so disastrously when applied to Salome at the Coliseum: here we have upper bourgeoissie plotting to stem the tide of working class emancipation and sent packing with their running-dog-tails between their legs. Ian Watt . Smith's production, thank heavens, thrust no such message down our throats, but his straight and thoughtful staging did aim rather higher than at an audience who will roll in the aisles at hearing the word 'bloody' sung in opera.
While Lady Billows (Rae Woodland, excellent) and her fascist hyenas were lightly caricatured, the denizens of bakery, butcher, and grocery were played absolutely straight, and the better for it. This was especially true of Henry Newman's quiet Sid— his planting of the rum seemed less of a practical joke than a purposeful unleashing of the forces of anarchy — and Margaret Morgan's earthy and kind Nancy. Menai Davies's Mum was studiously underplayed, save for her 'bloody' line (too great a temptation), and the irreplaceable Johanna Peter's Florence was a marvellous study in acid repression. Arthur Davies, WNO's Ferrando, Nemorino and Nadir, was a gentle and sympathetic Albert, fully aware of the darker implications of the piece. I may have heard this opera both better played and sung, but I cannot remember ever having enjoyed it so much.
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