ARTS
Variegated
Rodney Milnes
Edinburgh Festival Opera
Luckily the question as to why anyone should bother to go to an international festival to see a production of The Barber of Seville by the Cologne Opera was answered by the production itself — brand new, painstakingly prepared and musically outstanding. Ezio Frigerio provided two of those characteristically cool, clean sets that take light beautifully and were indeed beautifully lit, and Mauro Pagano's costumes after Goya underlined the tendency of the producer, Michael Hampe, to take his lead from the music rather than from the commedia-dell'arte based plot. This was a warmly human Barber, not without sharpness though, free from mechanical gags, rich in observation. As at Glyndebourne, Dr Bartolo (Carlos Feller) was played absolutely straight; he, plainly, is the character we are all interested in in the Eighties. And, as at Glyndebourne, he suffered a heart spasm during 'A un dottor'. How interesting that two producers should have the same rather good and musically apt idea within weeks of each other.
The opera was well rather than brilliantly sung, though Leo Nucci's appropriately self-satisfied Figaro, with a grin as wide as Tommy Steele's if a great deal less innocent, had a gloriously Italiante freedom and resonance. No one can purl through Almaviva's fioriture so fluently as the ageless Luigi Alva, though some sustained notes did start to suggest the passing of years. Alicia Nafe was the warm-toned, slightly staid Rosina, and the nearest we came to a traditional characterisation was the cavernous-voiced Basilio of Justino Diaz. What made this a truly festive performance was the wonderfully appreciative playing of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra under John Pritchard. Together they captured the purely musical qualities of the score and made the King's Theatre and all within it glow with joy.
The SCO was sorely missed in the same company's revival of La clemenza di Tito in the sound production by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle seen in London in 1969. The Gurzenich Orchestra played efficiently but not always in tune with each other; whether this caused Mr Pritchard to have an offnight or boots were on other feet it is hard to say, but musically the performance obstinately refused to take fire. What fire there was came from Brigitte Fassbaender's classic Sextus, perfectly vocalised, forcefully acted, and from Werner Hollweg's seasoned Titus. Kathryn Montgomery had a good stab at Vitellia's character, but the technical demands were beyond her, as they are beyond almost every soprano today. A good performance in its way, but not quite good enough.
It might have been thought a risk to place the work of the Cologne Opera Studio before a festival public, but their production of Thea Musgrave's The Voice of Ariadne was both highly distinguished and a timely reminder of the standards that our own post-graduate institutions should at least be aiming at: this was a highly polished, thoroughly professional undertaking. The work itself, based on Henry James's story 'The Last of the Valerii', has problems: a twee libretto, too many characters, and some uncertain pacing. But the wholehearted commitment that these young artists brought to their task, in a production by Willy Decker in every way more imaginative than the one by the English Opera Group that launched the piece in 1974, made such problems fade into nearinsignificance. Shoestring decor, lighting, costumes (up-dated to dolce-vita Rome) and direction were flawless, and the playing of, once again, the SCO (this time under Hilary Griffiths) reminded us that, whatever the dramaturgical unevenness, Musgrave's score is of startling inventiveness. An eye-opening evening.
As Mark Amory noted last week, Bernstein's Candide isn't perfect either. The original version, very much operettaorientated, failed in 1956. Hearsay suggests that this was because Lillian Hellman's book was too literary at a time when musicals were growing ever more witless. The new version, devised for an offBroadway romp-in-the-round in 1973, is certainly not literary: the book is shapeless, ponderous, and fails to trust in the power of music to delineate character and situation, which Bernstein's writing is fully capable of doing, thank you very much. Some new lyrics show a sharp drop in sophistication compared to the originals, the few new numbers are quite dreadful, and too many of the good ones are cut. Perhaps we are all grown-up enough now for the 1956 version.
Nevertheless, the Birmingham Repertory Theatre's production fully deserves the rumoured West End transfer, for the energy and colour of the staging if not for its depth, for the entrancing wit of what is left of the score, and for some delightful individual performances. Rosemary Ashe, an alumna of Opera North, rightly stops the show with 'Glitter and be Gay' (it is very difficult indeed), Nichola McAuliffe gives a beautifully timed, richly comic account of the Old Lady (she should have 'Quiet' restored forthwith), and in the title role William Relton both shapes the vocal lines with innate musicianship and allows just enough narrow-eyed awareness to show through his breathless naivety. There is a satirical masterpiece lurking somewhere amidst the two Candides; it hasn't quite emerged yet, but this is fine to be going on with.
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