ARTS
Dame Janet's final diadem
Rodney Milnes
Orfeo ed Eurydice (Glyndebourne)
How embarrassing if this new pro- duction, mounted as the third and final panel of Dame Janet Baker's triple farewell, had been awful. Not that there was much chance, since Sir Peter Hall and John Bury have between them been respon- sible for enough memorable productions at Glyndebourne — two of them with Dame Janet — to satisfy the most demanding art- istic insurance broker. A great success, then, with one reservation of which more, doubtless, below.
Chance, Berlioz, Viardot and Ferrier have combined to make Orfeo the most familiar of Gluck's operas, though it is not an untroubled masterpiece on the level of Alceste, Armide or 1phigenie en Tauride. As Raymond Leppard remarked in The Times last week, 'there is no "correct" edi- tion', which must be his playful way of say- ing that there are at least two plus about three others of varying degrees of correct- ness, but that all that is not going to stop him making his own. The original (Vienna 1762) is the most satisfying operatically, and Leppard properly makes it the basis of his. But once you start mixing in admittedly great music from Gluck's Paris version (1774) you run the danger of upsetting the Perfect classical balance of the original.
Some items included here could with ad- vantage be dropped, such as the bravura aria that ends the first act and sticks out stylistically like a sore thumb (bewitchingly though Dame Janet sings it), and the extra dance for the Furies which, after Orpheus's exit, is meaningless. But what on earth do You do about the Paris middle section of the Dance of the blessed Spirits? It is music of piercing beauty, but it does rather pull the rug from under `Che puro ciel' when Orpheus eventually arrives in the Elysian Fields, in that the audience has been revel- ling in puro del for ten minutes. I know this is scraping the surface of the problem, just as I know that the best Orfeos I have seen have been Vienna tout court — and court it is — and not all Leppard's decisions con- vince me.
Bury's set, based on square false pro- scenia (Ulisse) and a central walk-way (Calisto) may bring few surprises but it is beautiful, apt and highly practical. His costumes, Sir Peter's direction and Stuart Hopps's movement find the right reference Points for heaven, hell and earth. The Furies, who in the old days used to be women, are here played as ape-like creatures of indeterminate and hirsutely unattractive gender: marvellous, but I ex- pect some Simian Liberation Front will soon put a stop to this sort of thing. The Champs Elysees are all Poussin, slow motion and attractive people wearing few clothes, much nearer my idea of heaven than the orchestrally accompanied eating of foie gras. Seriously though, Eurydice is seen meeting people she has perhaps been miss- ing: is Orpheus right to take her away from this extremely pleasant place and back to a hazardous world? Is this not an act of ex- traordinary selfishness? Anyway, what was so special about their relationship? One of the fascinating points about Calzabigi's libretto is that we are shown after we have built up our own image of Eurydice through Orpheus, and in the third act she is seen as a mistrustful scold with a nasty line in emotional blackmail. Well, as Intermez- zo shows, some people like that sort of mar- riage.
While Sir Peter's production, and in par- ticular his direction of Elisabeth Speiser's thin-voiced though full-bodied Eurydice, provoked such thoughts, his collaboration with Dame Janet has given birth to an im- personation that is truly the final diadem atop a career crowned with successes. Of that dramatic reserve sometimes noted in
the past there was no trace; here was selfless commitment to the matter in hand. Sir Peter devised a most striking opening image for her, sitting cross-legged, knotted up with grief, the head twitching with incom- prehension, truculence almost, hand push- ed through hair with ,bewilderment — an overwhelming picture of someone unable to come to terms with bereavement seen through 20th-century eyes yet perfectly apt to 18th-century music.
Throughout, Dame Janet's natural dig- nity — always her strongest asset — was overlaid with changes of mood: justified anger at Eurydice in the third act, and indeed with Elizabeth Gale's delightfully chirpy Amor, who nearly got knocked off her perch; a rare moment of humour in Act One when she reached out to touch Amor to see if he was real. And in `Che faro' actually the one serious flaw in Orfeo since musically it does not fit the situation despite Leppard's fast tempo and fierce accentua- tion — shaking Eurydice's corpse in sheer frustration. The aria was of course magnificently sung, as was the whole role. Certain phrases will never sound the same again — the poignantly coloured `ombra cara' in the first-act aria was just one. I'm sure she knows best, but it is still bewilder- ing that she should retire while plainly at the height of her operatic powers.
The London Philharmonic, enjoying a vintage year, played beautifully. The chorus was excellent. My reservation concerns the interminable final ballet, and not only ballet: the auditorium was invaded by the chorus waving long lengths of what looked like lavatory paper; confetti showered down on us; an Olympic pediment flew in bearing carelessly draped goddesses; at the end Orpheus and Eurydice walked hand in hand into Bury's sunset. All this was wildly out of key with the spare simplicity of everything that had gone before. I do wish it could be cut.