Arts
Irony and detachment
Rodney Milnes
Eugene Onegin; The Golden Cockerel; The Turn of the Screw (Edinburgh International Festival) Kent Opera's new Traviata. at Edinburgh struck me as being just what a festival production should be. It is difficult to say exactly why Scottish Opera's new Onegin should have turned out to be slightly disappointing. The Scottish National Orchestra was certainly below par. There was much chat about their having been too heavily engaged elsewhere (Proms in London, a new Lutoslawski piece to learn) for ideally relaxed playing. The absence of a pit emphasised the scratchiness and caused problems of balance: it is good to learn that part of Ove Arup's brief at the King's is to dig a hole under the stage in which the brass can be safely immured.
But I fear the problem goes deeper. David Pountney, the producer, is high on Pushkin, which is of course a very lovely thing to be, though inserting chunks of his verse into Seraglio a couple of years ago was possibly a case of Going Too Far. But there is no getting away from the fact that Tchaikovsky was not setting Pushkin, but using him (abusing him, many would say) for his own purposes. To write admiringly of irony and detachment, as Mr Pountney does in his programme note, is all very well but not strictly relevant to the matter in hand. Tchaikovsky was not concerned with detachment. He was very deeply concerned with the pain involved in the sort of nonrelationships depicted in the poem.
This emerges at one obvious level in Tatyana's Letter scene, which he set first, but there is also an unstated sub-text around his personal involvement with his (not Pushkin's) Onegin, about which he lied in his letters as much as Onegin lies, or evades, in the Berry-picking scene — which at one point threatens to turn into his Letter scene. The composer was paddling in murky waters here, as indeed am I, which is where the music comes in. The level of detachment in Mr Pountney's production might have been more acceptable if the music had been saying what Pushkin didn't want to say and Tchaikovsky couldn't say, but the music does. Perhaps Sir Alexander Gibson had caught too heavy a dose of the detached irony virus. In any event, many musical moments that should seize you by the throat simply didn't — the postlude to the Letter scene, say, or the duel — and they coincided with moments where the singers were detachedly doing nothing on stage.
These lacunae may have been accentuated by principals less than expert in suggesting something while doing nothing. fohn Shirley-Quirk, a musicianly and intel ligent artist, sadly looks too mature for either Pushkin's ice-cold dandy or Tchaikovsky's helplessly screwed-up version of same. At his rejection of Tatyana he seemed merely a blasé older man. He started to freak out in the finale, but this is unfortunately where Lilian Sukis, infinitely touching in Tatyana's earlier scenes, failed to rise vocally or dramatically to the occasion. The detachment, or tastefulness of their singing, and that of Anthony Rolfe Johnson as Lensky, was in its way pleasing (though a melting mezza voce has less effect if the whole role has been sung pretty mezza voce), but I did long for some good old Slavonic boilers to start belting the music out.
Yet there was much to admire. In contrast to the ideal stillness of the opening — I swear there was only one gesture in the whole quartet — the bustle and pomp of the two ball scenes were perfectly organised, and the Scottish Opera Chorus's execution of Terry Gilbert's demanding choreography was stunning. And there were three lovely performances. Cynthia Buchan's Olga was much more than the usual flibbertigibbet, a mature girl who miscalculated her tactics with people she didn't quite understand. But Noreen Berry's Nurse knew exactly what was going on; her reactions to Tatyana's outpourings were precisely judged, and while others fussed over the swooning Olga she brought comfort where it was really needed — to Tatyana downstage left. And Claire Livingstone as Mme Larina managed with the one gesture mentioned above — to her neck — to suggest a life emotionally wasted. Roger Butlin's sets, his usual adroit mixture of extreme economy and boundless suggestion, were masterly, and they were wonderfully lit by Nick Chelton. The basis of a good Onegin is here: some adjustments to the casting and shots all round of whichever antibiotics cure good taste could do the trick.
There is nothing in the least tasteful about Mr Pountney's version of The Golden Cockerel. The reason for its revival, as if any were needed, was the festival's Diaghilev theme, and the riotous costumes and sets by Maria Bjornsen and Sue Blanc suggested a dizzy Panto version of the Ballets Russes, The invention in the production never flags — thank heavens, as it does occasionally in Rimsky's score. As before, attention was divided between the trapeze artist Inga-Lise in the title role, who not only brought hearts to -mouths with her one instep swing high above the orchestra but was throughout extraordinarily musical, and Elizabeth Gale as the Queen of Shemakhan, who exposed a great deal of her luscious torso to our admiring gaze, bumped and ground as to the manner born and, incidentally, sang extremely well. William McCue bumbled cheerfully as Dodon, and John Winfield piped creepily as the Astrologer. With the playing of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Henry Lewis putting the SNO to shame, this was an evening of unadulerated delight — though I still wish I knew what the opera was actually about.
I don't at all want to know what The Turn of the Screw is about, lest it expose Brittenish traumas so disturbing as to make Tchaikovsky look like the merest beginner. Anthony Besch's production, a good ten years old, was enlivened by a truly festival cast.! think the doubling of the Governess's employer and Quint a mistake, as in a work in which nothing is stated this tells us something that we might work out for ourselves if we want to (I don't). But there are enough ambiguities to keep audiences on the hop (to whom is Miles's 'You devil!' addressed'?) and the sort of cast we had at full stretch. Catherine Wilson's Governess is milder than some, but with flashes of nagging bitchery in the second act. George Shirley's Quint suggests unimaginable corruption simply with the caressed labial of his first 'Miles', and his stage presence exudes indescribable physical power. I have seen naughtier children than Kenneth Love and Rosanne Brackenridge, but seldom heard such musical and technically assured singing. The casting from strength of Mrs Grose and Miss Jessell paid off handsomely: both Patricia Kern and Mille Andrew brought sheer vocal distinction and inventiveness to nuance and movement of the kind that I have not experienced since the days of Joan Cross and Arda Mandikian. Sir Peter Pears, as then, was the Prologue. What ultimately made this a performance in a thousand was the playing of handpicked soloists from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra under Roderick Brydon. Mr Brydon kept the piece on the move and relaxed the screwed up tension for not one instant, and the playing was simply breathtaking in its musicianship and dramatic impact. Caroline Garden's timpani solo in the last interlude was something to lift you right out of your seat.
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