ARTS
Opera
How to make friends
Rodney Milnes
La Cenerentola (Covent Garden)
This is going to be a difficult one. As is now well known amongst the chattering classes, three weeks ago the General Director of the Royal Opera House, Jeremy Isaacs, suddenly withdrew the age- old courtesy of offering critics two seats for first nights at Covent Garden, instead offering them only one. Of course he is perfectly within his rights, though it was odd to see him receiving support from the Mandrake column in the Sunday Tele- graph, which noted that some critics were angry about it because they would not otherwise 'see much of their wives, hus- bands, boyfriends, concubines etc'. (The 'etc' boggles the mind: complaisant hedge- hogs? accommodating young goats?) 'I am not sure I am on their side,' continued Mandrake. 'After all, miners do not take their spouses or concubines down the pit.' Which raises two interesting points: do miners not have boyfriends, or even perhaps etceteras? And it would of course be indiscreet to mention that at least two members of the Mandrake family have in their time gone regularly to Covent Gar- den on second tickets, and even more indiscreet to categorise them.
The motivation and timing of Mr Isaacs's move are interesting. Since first nights at Covent Garden are by no means invariably sold out — there was an embarrassing number of empty seats for this Cenerento- la, some of them inevitably next to critics, and for the recent Meistersinger around 20 stalls were sold off at standby rate (be- tween £10 and £20) shortly before curtain- rise — there must be a reason other than the stated one of economy. There may be a clue in Frances Donaldson's book The Royal Opera House in the 20th Century (Weidenfeld, 1988). Lady Donaldson's husband was briefly Minister for the Arts and for 16 years a member of the board of the ROH, and her book, fiercely anti-critic in tone, may be presumed to reflect the atmosphere at board level. The general feeling seems to have been, and may still be, 'How dare mere critics carp at the consistently superb work mounted at this centre of excellence', to which many critics Claudio Desderi, Francois Le Roar and Dean van der Walt in a production of La cenerentola which did little to appease the lonely critics at Covent Garden would reply that if they hear those dread and meaningless words `centre of excel- lence' just once more they will reach for their pistols, and what does the majority of the ROH board know about opera save at the most superficial consumerist level?
In fact a significant section of the press has by and large been sympathetic to the new Haitink-Isaacs regime at the Royal Opera, positively willing it to succeed and giving it the benefit of the doubt on any number of counts, and it was the way in which a general aura of good will seemed to have been dispelled at a blow during the preliminaries to the annual press confer- ence — grumpy and resentful hacks on one side, ROH staff as nervous as cats walking on glass on the other — that led to my well publicised premature departure, not the fact (unknown to me) that Messrs Haitink and Isaacs were about to break another age-old custom and decline to take ques- tions from the floor. This too seems a great pity: last time, Haitink answered questions with disarming candour, which was both refreshing and enormously endearing, and Isaacs proved fully capable of taking on all corners and giving as good as he got which was ditto ditto. Grumpiness and resentment, then, were redoubled and this at a time when Mr Isaacs, with his sup- remely provocative £5 million deficit under fire from both the Minister for the Arts and the Chairman of the Arts Council, needs all the friends he can get. He sure goes about it a funny way, with a projected saving in this instance of a couple of salaries in his hugely overstaffed, Parkinso- manly busy organisation. What to say, then, about this Cenerento- la? If I say it was terrible, I shall draw accusations of sour grapes; if I say it was wonderful, people will say I'm crawling. Oh dear, I suppose it will have to be the truth: it was terrible. Michael Hampe's production was devised for Salzburg, with all that that implies: tiresome sight-gags and dainty decor (the latter looked fright- ful the powder-blue public-lavatory- tile surround needed to make it fit on the Covent Garden stage, complete with built- in screen for graffiti, sorry, I mean surti- tles). Whoever thought that Agnes Baltsa, who may be a popular artist but whose technique has been in tatters for many a season, was appropriate casting for the title role (her singing was profoundly embarras- sing), or that Francois Le Roux has the right vocal range for Dandini, needs their Wrist slapping hard, or at least a cut in salary. And the same goes for whoever thought we needed this dreary production for the Royal Opera. The only bright spots were Claudio Desderi's effortlessly stylish Don Magnifico (which we have enjoyed at Olyndebourne) and the conductor Carlo Rizzi, who is an appreciable musician but whose speeds would have worked better in a house half the size of Covent Garden.
While not for a moment suggesting that I 'night have loathed it less had I not been on my own, some merry bleats from a more easily pleased goat in the next seat might at least have softened the blow.
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