Finding a Moor
• end of its run of Otello for this season. This is not out of deference to the critical proposition put for- ward some while ago by The Times that certain very great works (the Ninth Sym- phony was the one in question then) ought not to be played more than once a year. That proposi- tion will not hold water. Otello'is a work in. this special category, which probably many listeners might agree is not to be treated with the same familiarity as, say, Aida. The most that could be argued, though, is that individually we should not for our own sake go to hear it too often. Covent Garden need not be, and is not, concerned with our keeping the fine edge to our sensibility. The problem for them is that of casting the Otello. In the last three performances the part of Desde- mona has been taken over from Gre Brouwenstijn by Joan Sutherland, who sings it almost as well, and will do better still.
The resident company also provides a fine Tap in Otakar Kraus, who stepped into the part 'in unfavourable circumstances on the first night of the production and has filled it with increasing authority ever since. The man the production can- not find a- replacement for, and who can only be got for short periods, is Ramon Vinay. This is a problem that will have to be solved sooner or later, and a hint as to how might be taken from Vinay's own performances lately. It is a heroic- tenor part, and Vinay had a well-earned reputa- tion as the only remaining singer capable of it. But he has recently been singing it with a great deal more of art than of voice, and no longer on any- thing like a true heroic-tenor scale. Obviously no singer who has not once been able, as Vinay has, to sing the part full out, is going to be able by art -alone to make it so effective as he still does, but there ought to be one or two among our strongest tenors (Charles Craig or Jon Vickers perhaps) who, by learning from Vinay's present
interpretations, could make at least a reasonable shbt at it. They would certainly find his vocal technique easier to learn than that masterly and frightening 'fall, flal on his back, that he makes at the. end of Act 3. The allowances that would have m to be made would be worth it if they meant Otello could go from the special into the general reper- tory. It is also lime that it went into the translated instead of the original-language repertory. Joan Sutherland would undoubtedly sing it better if she could do so in English.
, COLIN MASON
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