Opera
Still beautiful
Rodney Mimes
The Two Widows, Tiefland, II mondo della luna (Wexford Festival) Sets for the three operas mounted at Wexford this year were built for around £6,500 (which is I suppose roughly what Montserrat Caballe gets for clearing her throat in the wings at Covent Garden) and only one of them looked like it. This remarkable figure is slightly misleading in that the cost of The Two Widows is shared by Scottish Opera; however beautiful small remains — and it does — operatic inflation has also hit Wexford in every department and the idea of sharing productions to save money is one that will doubtless concern the artistic director elect, Adrian Slack. Regular visitors will hope that this does not affect the choice of repertory. After all, not every ideal Wexford opera is one that UK managements are thirsting to mount. Of this year's choices, Smetana's Two Widows is of course a repertory opera in Czechoslovakia, so is Tiefland in Germany, and Ugo Benelli has already sung in two productions of the Haydn/Goldoni comedy in Italy. Which suggests that costs could profitably be shared with smaller continental houses rather than British ones, thus preserving the festival's admir ably adventurous policy. Mr Benelli was apparently appearing in Mondo simply because he loves Goldoni and Haydn, and probably for a fraction of his usual fee. That is one way that the retiring director, Thomson Smillie, has kept pace with international money-bags casting, one that has already given us the Bruscantini triple bill and Michael Langdon's Falstaff — the artists wanted to do those particular pieces. The other way he can dispose of his meagre £23,000 budget for singers is to find artists on the threshold of careers, and old Wexford hands lounge late into the night over their large Paddys (a sort of drink, I should perhaps add) trying to remember exactly when Janet Baker appeared in Gazza ladra, Matti Salminen in Ivan Susanin, and what a pitY they can't afford Christiane Eda Pierre anY more. money for this year's name of-Slithy-future is on the Israeli soprano Mini Mekler, who sang the heroine ill D'Albert's Tiefland. Her appearances in ZauberflOte (Glyndebourne) and Tro' vatore (WNO) have not been particular/Y. successful, but here her evenly placed. full-tones, perfectly controlled soprall° rang out to rousing effect and suggested aj starry near-future in the Strauss anu Wagner repertory. She is also strikinglY good looking and an intense, econoinic actress. The work itself, widly popular ni Germany in the inter-war years, is a Piece: of Teutonic verismo full of Len' Riefenstahl-type mountain symbolisnl. Innocent shepherd from Pyrenees is con' veniently married off to besmirched lowland Mialerin, they fall in love, he kills her seducer, and off they walk into the sunrise. No one calls the police. Musically it is efficient but thin — onlY one really good tune. While one may admire a passage well constructed ill a Puccinian sort of way, one also keePs remembering that Tiefland was first Per; formed within a couple of years 01 jfa. Wexford did the piece proud in a fullbelnouoded, unapologetic production bYci Julian Hope. It really needs singing, nri apart from Miss Me kler we had ft° Andrew, a capable last-minute substitute as the hero, the always excellent Malcoltn Donnelly as the heavy, plus the fine Por; tuguese bass Alvaro Malta and a goo." young Irish baritone, Pat Sheridan, smaller Smetana and Haydn go their ow°, operatic ways. By most accepted critical criteria the plot of The Two Widows IS too slight for a full-length opera, and the donouement takes forever, but who could cavil in the face of lyrical inspiration as fertile as Smetana's? Gorgeous tune after gorgeous tune, spikily harmonized, rhY: thrnically buoyant, keep on rolling c'ti` one after the other. To hell with criteria. David Pountney's production was P0ss. ibly over-sophisticated for this rustle' romantic comedy, with too many of the cast coming on like something out of The Importance of Being Ernest — it was all a bit flouncy. Maybe Elizabeth Gale was compensating for being in less than her most mellifluous voice by being fairlY relentlessly merry as widow number one, (though she looked positively edible) a°, the pleasant-voiced Robert White seetneu more epicene than Smetana can have intended as the suitor of widow numbecir two. The latter was strongly sung all_ acted with welcome restraint by FelicirY Palmer: her melting from black lace int° a new life of libidinous red silk was disi tinctly touching. Sue Blane's pretty se,,, (grass and lattice blinds) and Marl' BOrnsen's chorus costumes on loan fro° The Haydn, too, is a one-joke opera lasting three-and-a-half hours (in this commendably full version). But with a text as as civilised and literate as Goldoni, s, music (the warm and witty as Haydn's final duet is scrumptious), a conductor as Plainly in love with the score as James Judd, and the RTE Orchestra's woodwind in such excellent form, the time went very quickly. Mr Slack was lucky to have a cast that responded to his amiably quirky brand of humour. Mr Benelli is a tenor Bruscantini, in that words and notes are utterly inseparable. His treasurable performance as the mock astronomer was matched by that of Gianni Socci as his dupe Buonafede, a wonderfully idiomatic and never overstated interpretation in the classic Italian buffo tradition. Denis O'Neill (Cecco), in ringing voice, sounded as Italian as they: this valuable tenor is plainly being under or wrongly used. Alan Watt, another fine comedian, sang with much warmth as Ernesto. The ladies have less to do, other than a pair of stinking Fiordiligi-type arias apiece. Elaine Linstedt and Helen Dixon coped as well as could be exPected, and Emily Hastings, a creamy toned American mezzo, was their lively maid. The only let down was the decor, .and here lack of money showed: the lunar landscape was exactly the same as that on earth and not even Buonafede would have fallen for that.
Previous page
