Opera
The Elixir of Love (English National Opera) The Enchantress (Royal Opera, Festival Hall)
Innocent charm
Michael Tanner
The new production of Donizetti's mar- vellous comedy — marvellous in that I find it never wears thin as everything about it would lead one to expect — which the ENO mounted last week is an almost unqualified triumph; the only qualification, odd as it may seem to be so unemphatic about it, is the production itself; or rather the settings, and odd moments of the stag- ing.
For reasons which, if they exist, I would prefer not to know about, Robert Jones has set it in a mythical part of the former Sovi- et bloc, as you can tell from the fact that their alphabet reverses its 'It's. Behind the grim office-cum-factory is a vast totalitari- an-style statue of Big Brother, which top- ples in the final moments of the opera. Adina is a severe-looking secretary, usually carrying a file; Nemorino is a postboy. Oth- erwise the production is traditional, if rather fussy. No one is ever allowed merely to sing, or rather other people are always doing animated things in the background. It is not a staging which manifests much trust in the work. The work has its revenge by ignoring the impertinences which designer and director attempt to inflict on it, and gently asserting its charm.
The musical side of things is so effort- lessly right, though without any stars, that all else falls into place. Mary Plazas is always sweet-toned, and, when it comes to the extremely testing coloratura towards the end, positively sensational. I don't mean to be snide in saying that her singing so far eclipses her acting that the incon- gruity between them causes no problems. If anything, it adds a dimension to the story: you feel that her voice is her personality trying to escape its rather grim exterior, and that Nemorino, for all his goofiness, has discerned what she is truly like. I have to admit that his exterior is a snag. Barry Banks, even in civvies, or perhaps even more then, is so much of an inept adoles- cent that even if he is able to sing 'Una furtiva lagrima' with caressing warmth, and to introduce petulant tones without sound- ing maudlin, it would have to be a mater- nally inclined woman who married him. Banks is at his best, in acting, when drunk from a small quantity of Bordeaux. Though Nemorino shouldn't come on too strong, one needs to think that he knows what used to be called the facts of life, and that is hard to credit with Banks. As a singer, he ought to have a big future, preferably in the recording studio.
Whether Dulcamara needs as many trim- mings as he is provided with here is open to question. Andrew Shore, looking every inch a charlatan, would fool Nemorino, maybe even the other apparatchiks, with- out a ponytailed, hippy assistant and a mute, sexy wife. As it is, he has a fun Fifties car, possibly discovered in rummaging through old props, a leftover from Le Grand Macabre, which unfolds to reveal numerous potions, and has enough devices for several fairground attractions. It means that one tends not to listen to Shore's admirable singing. Ashley Holland's Bel- core is left to look after himself, and is up to the others' standard. Add a conductor, Michael Lloyd, who has a natural sense of pulse and tempo, and the recipe for an evening which is up to the standard which the ENO has set itself this season is safe. This is the least malicious of comedies, yet it manages to maintain as firm a grip as many klater Italian melodrama. It is that rare thing, a genuinely innocent work.
Tchaikovsky's extremely rarely per- formed The Enchantress, by comparison, is a hopelessly problematic work, and it was probably a good thing that the Royal Opera didn't stage it, but continued with their series of concert performances in the Festival Hall. This was a remarkable achievement, as anyone who listened to the Radio Three broadcast will agree though it was well worth attending if only to get the programme with the complete text in transliterated (sometimes inade- quately or confusingly) Russian and trans- lation. It was hard to take one's eyes off Gergiev, so subdued for most of the time but periodically becoming airborne, possi- bly the first conductor since Bernstein to take off with such abandon; but it was imperative to follow the text. He kept the confused drama moving along, while never sacrificing the orchestral colour and detail, often the most interesting things about the score. One can see why the composer chose it, apart from his uncertain literary Judgment, which failed to recognise in this case an intolerably wordy and prolix tale. The first two acts, which last for almost two hours, really cover very little ground, while the last two, slightly shorter, are packed with interesting incident, some of it madly implausible. As usual, Tchaikovsky was unable to portray character: he is inter- ested only in states of mind, especially if they are obsessional, and/or belong to fig- ures he can identify with. So love of a woman for an attractive young prince is convincing, as is hatred and jealousy on the part of an older man. The Prince and his father are in love with the same woman and the Prince's mother recruits a semi- comic sorcerer to poison her. Catastrophe ensues for all concerned.
It is the most dreadful hocus-pocus, but there are enough moments of Tchaikovskian hysteria, far fewer of his lyricism, to justify the occasional outing (if that's the word). The men were a fabulous Crew, above all Gegam Grigorian as the Prince and Vladimar Matorin in two sub- stantial roles. The object of so much love and loathing was Galina Gorchakova, beginning uncertainly, with squalls and inaudibility, but progressing, like the work Itself, to far finer things in the second half, where indeed she achieved vocal and dra- matic greatness. The vindictive mother and wife was, even so, still more telling: Larissa Diadkova is clearly a major artist, and her terrifying outbursts haunt the mind. Though such things are unfashionable, I feel that a heavily abridged version of this score — here it suffered only mild snips might be a real gain for the repertoire, as the complete work could never be.
Dammit, Hargreaves, not giraffe again.'
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