Master of deception
Michael Tanner
Otello Royal Opera Così fan tutte Royal College of Music The Birds St Andrew’s, Holborn Supposing many of the Royal Opera’s recent productions of Verdi remain in the repertoire, it will be interesting to see how well they weather. I suspect that few of them will show the staying power of Elijah Moshinsky’s Otello, with set designs by Timothy O’Brien, which was first mounted in 1987, but still not only looks handsome and spruce, but has also served for a wide range of singers. I notice quite a few alterations from revival to revival, but that may be how associate directors earn their fee, or just my fallible memory and capacity for noticing things. The latest revival features Ben Heppner making his role debut in London, and was to have also starred Renée Fleming, who however withdrew from the first two performances. I can only regard that as gain. If Desdemona fails to come across as guileless, utterly lacking in worldliness, then she is nothing more than an annoying fool who dim-wittedly fails to notice that Cassio is a touchy subject with her husband, and who has unfailingly lovely music to sing, the most consistently beautiful, possibly, that Verdi awarded any of his heroines.
Whatever qualities Fleming may be thought to possess, lack of knowingness is not among them. A megastar isn’t required here. Even her Marschallin was all too archly aware. No doubt her fans by now have lavishly welcomed her return, nonetheless. On the first night we had Amanda Roocroft, unfortunately not in her best voice. Desdemona may be a size too large for her anyway, though her performance gained stature as the evening wore on, and she was good, if not great, in the hideous scene with Otello at the beginning of Act III, and in the whole of Act IV, which in any case is largely a concert for Desdemona, quite out of scale with the rest of the opera.
The grizzled Moor himself was even more grizzled than he intended, his voice in unreliable shape, letting him down in some of his crucial moments. He failed to make much impression with his opening proclamation, and that’s enough to throw anyone. But Heppner has delved deeper into this part than he normally does, in my experience, and though nothing new was discovered, the portrayal of the tormented animal was quite vivid, certainly leaving me, as Otello should, with a stricken sense of the absurd dreadfulness with which peo ple treat one another when they feel that they are being deceived, and then become addicted to the notion. Heppner sang the whole part, never resorted to rants or sobbing, and died with agonised dignity.
Lucio Gallo was in best voice among the principals, but his Iago became annoying, with far too much nodding and winking at the audience; sporting a pair of spectacles with which he made great play, but to no purpose; and had an excess of animal spirits, which however failed to contribute to his development of the character. The smaller roles were all cast from strength, and Christine Rice’s Emilia made one irritated with Verdi for giving her so little to do. Antonio Pappano’s conducting was good, though he indulged his proclivity for dynamic extremes, especially in close proximity. I found it a more satisfying evening than most of the audience, to judge from the low applause levels.
Così fan tutte is about actual as opposed to imagined female infidelity, and furious if not murderous male responses to it (even though the men are suspect too), but there the similarity with Otello ends. This opera seems to be obsessing performers at present: almost no month passes without a production. I wonder why. Its teasing ambiguities do give its producers and singers more chance for legitimate creative reinterpretation than the other great Mozart operas, and that was realised to excellent effect in the Royal College of Music’s production, of which I saw the second cast (and was able to stay only for Act I of that). Its excellence placed it second only to Opera North’s inspired production of last autumn. Michael Rosewell gave a lesson in how conducting can be both authentically fleet and yet quite weighty too, as in his handling of the opera’s opening bars. I wish I could name all the cast, they were so good, but I will single out the Fiordiligi of Pumeza Matshikiza, hoping that it is not too un-PC to ask her to change her name to something more memorable; and adding that, for beauty of appearance and movement, and intensity of communication of the character, combined with quite glorious singing, one would be lucky to encounter another young singer of her standing. The pacing of Act I was so skilful that I can’t remember a performance in which what can seem a long act with a laborious finale seemed so compact.
I Fagiolini is a prodigiously gifted group of singers, who are going on tour with an opera by Ed Hughes based on Aristophanes’ The Birds, in association with The Opera Group. They began at St Andrew’s, Holborn, a sombre setting for a highly coloured affair, of which the first ten minutes were fun, the rest tedious near-repetition. The boomy acoustics of the church sharply reduced intelligibility. Perhaps in more intimate surroundings the evident gifts of this team will seem better employed than they did here.
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