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Andrew Cooper's Letters from Wexford, 2002
Wexford is a small town with a population of about 10,000 in the south-east of Ireland. It's an unlikely setting for an international opera festival but a very pleasant place to spend a few days in October/November. It's about an 90 mile (140 km) drive south from Dublin, and bus and train (3 per day) transport is also available. Rosslare Harbour (ferries from Wales and France) is about 15 miles to the south of Wexford. In the Wexford area there are plenty of interesting architectural, historic and scenic places to visit during the day. I've been going to the Wexford Festival since 1984. It was founded in 1951, when Balfe's The Rose of Castile was performed. It grew gradually, and since 1963 three operas have been performed each year. The attraction is the unusual repertory: in the last five years, for example, I've seen operas by Adam, Zandonai, Goldmark, Moniuszko, Pavel Haas, Dargomizhky and others, as well as rarely-performed works by Flotow, Tchaikovsky, Giordano and Massenet. The Festival extends over 18 days starting on a Thursday in mid-October, and there are six performances of each opera in rotation - so all three operas can be seen in a visit of any three days. Booking opens in June. The Theatre Royal is quite small, but it is usually not too difficult to obtain tickets, especially for midweek performances. The principal singers are usually fairly young and up-and-coming, and talent-spotting is part of the experience. In 1996, for example, I saw Juan Diego Flórez in a small part in Meyerbeer's L'Etoile du Nord.
On October 23, after a late arrival at the Talbot Hotel, a quick change into the tuxedo and a brisk ten-minute walk up the road to the Theatre Royal for a much-needed glass of wine, we saw Mercadante's Il giuramento. The story: In 14th century Syracuse, Elaisa is in love with Viscardo, but he pines for a woman whose name he does not know. Elaisa is also seeking a woman, one who saved her father from execution and to whom she has pledged an oath of gratitude. Brunoro, who has been slighted by Bianca but knows that she is Viscardo's love, arranges a meeting between the two of them, but this is interrupted first by Elaisa (whose anger dissipates when she realises that Bianca is the woman who saved her father) and then - at the treacherous Brunoro's instigation - by Bianca's jealous husband Manfredo (who loves Elaisa). Before Manfredo can do anything, however, news arrives that the army of Agrigento is attacking, and he rushes off to battle. Syracuse is winning, but Brunoro has been killed and Bianca's death is also reported. Actually, Manfredo has shut her up in the family tomb and is planning to kill her, but he is summoned back to the fray. Elaisa tells Bianca that she has persuaded Manfredo that poison is the best way to kill an adulterous wife, but for the poison she has substituted one of those 'Friar Lawrence' drugs that just makes you appear to be dead, and pledges to unite Bianca and Viscardo; she herself is resolved to die. All goes according to plan, and the apparently dead Bianca is taken to Elaisa's house. Viscardo blames Elaisa for allowing Bianca to be poisoned, and stabs her when she doesn't deny this. Then Bianca wakes up, the lovers are reunited and Elaisa dies happy, having lost her love but fulfilled her oath.
I was surprised to read in Tom Kaufman's interesting programme-note that this opera is based on Angelo by Victor Hugo (hélas!), and is also the source of La Gioconda. Sure, the self-sacrificing woman and the business with the `poison' are familiar, but not a lot else. Anyway, I greatly enjoyed the opera, the production (Director, Joseph Rochlitz), the singing - and even the playing of the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Belarus (under Paolo Arrivabene), who sounded quite a bit better this year than they did last. The opera has a lot of good dramatic situations with plenty of big and small ensembles and some rousing music, and, though there are some routine and unconvincing bits, it sounds like a missing link between Donizetti/Bellini and early Verdi (it dates from 1837). I caught a few pre-echoes of Nabucco and Ernani, and I liked the way the action started straight away, with no overture and hardly any introduction (there was a nice cello-laden introduction to the third act, though). It doesn't have anything like Verdi's tunefulness, but it's a good piece to see in the theatre and the final duet between Elaisa and Viscardo was quite exciting. The sets (by Lucia Goj) were simple but serviceable, with an intriguing Paolozzi-style drop-curtain and some bits of statuary. There was even a bit of a coup de theatre as a curtain in Bianca's room was drawn aside to reveal the boat on which Manfredo sets out for battle. At the end, Elaisa's final collapse brought down the white veil that hid the dead/sleeping Bianca, displaying its blood-red other side. Red was also a dominant colour in the (period) costumes (Silvia Aymonino), though Bianca, of course, wore white.
Festival Director Luigi Ferrari appeared on stage at the start to tell us that tenor Manrico Tedeschi (Viscardo) was still recovering from bronchitis but would sing, and the performance would be given without omission. Apparently, one or more of his three big solos had been omitted during the 17 and 20 October performances. Some people around me were worried that Ferrari might have said "without intermission". Anyway, Tedeschi started quite well, but mostly sounded under par. I thought that the voice did have a reasonable basic quality, but when the opera was broadcast by the BBC six days later (no apology for him this time), he didn't sound much better, with rather a bleating sound. Serena Farnocchia (Elaisa)'s soprano sounded a bit tight at first, but she loosened up and gave a committed, even moving, performance. An interesting production point was that she started off in betrousered principal boy style and gradually became more feminine as the opera went on, unleashing lots of fair hair in the final scene.
The mezzo Hadar Halevy (from Israel) had a more conventional part as Bianca, starting with a Casta Diva-ish solo and singing strongly throughout (there was a pretty good duet for the two women). I didn't really take to her personality, though, especially when at the curtain-calls she outstayed her welcome by very obviously indicating that she ought to be acknowledged as the star of the show. I was impressed by the smooth baritone of the Manfredo (Davide Damiani), who had two juicy solos and lots of opportunities for melodramatic acting. The two small roles were indifferently sung - Alessandra Panaro as Bianca's confidante Isaura had a rather acid tone, and the tenor Simeon Esper (an American) as the villainous Brunoro was clearly trying to make his mark by singing as loudly as possible throughout his rather small allocation of recitative and arioso (he was hampered by having to creep around wordlessly at various times, no doubt to establish his importance to the plot, if not the music). Nevertheless, a good, if long, evening at the opera.
Next day it was Martinu's Mirandolina. The story (after Goldoni's `La Locandiera'): Mirandolina is a single innkeeper, courted by the Marquis and the Count, who have taken up residence and try to outdo each other in impressing her with their wealth and/or rank. The servant Fabrizio adores her, but she takes him for granted while trying - successfully - to convert the misogynistic Cavaliere into her slave. Eventually, the Cavaliere is reduced to rage at her ignoring him and departs, and Mirandolina realises that she has to give up flirting and marry the loyal Fabrizio. The Marquis and the Count are upset, but each is relieved that the other has not triumphed. This is essentially a cosmopolitan farce, written in Nice in 1953-4 to an Italian libretto and premièred in Prague in 1959. Paul Curran (director) and Kevin Knight (designer) rather wittily updated it to the 1950s, with the Marquis in David Niven-style blazer, the Cavalier wearing a sleeveless pullover, old-fashioned telephones, etc., and incorporated a gang of builders who contrived to organise the scene-changes while ostensibly renovating the hotel, both before the opera started and during the musical interludes. This allowed for a number of visual gags: for example, when the hotel lobby was being transformed into the Cavaliere's room, they ripped the payphone off the wall just as one of the characters was trying to use it.
It all went very well, and, broadly speaking, I enjoyed it, though I had two problems, one accidental and one intrinsic. The first problem was that our seats were very near the stage. As well as making the interval journeys to the bar tremendously slow, this also meant that the sets were seen from an odd angle and, worse, the supertitles - essential in a fast-moving conversational work of this type - could only be read by craning the neck and taking one's eyes off the stage. But second, and most important, was the music. One of my friends categorised it as 'wallpaper', which was unkind; I felt merely that it was neither here nor there. It was tremendously busy, often seemed to consist of endless passages of 3/4 or 6/8 - but without the melodies to compensate - and was just generally lacking in character, maybe more akin to film music than wallpaper. It certainly didn't sound Czech in any way, unlike, say, The Greek Passion - clearly Martinu was aiming at something Italianate, and indeed he incorporated a certain amount of eighteenth-century pastiche. Otherwise, the main influence seemed to be Stravinsky in neo-classical mode à la Rake's Progress. I actually found it quite pleasant background music when the BBC broadcast a performance a week later, but no more than that. Still, I'd rather sit through this than, say, Pelléas et Mélisande or A Village Romeo and Juliet, so it must have had some merit. I should finally say that, though my musical tastes are very eclectic, I've never been able to get to grips with anything by Martinu, which doesn't mean that I wasn't, as here, prepared to try.
Leaving that aside, it was very well done, the acting was terrific and the young flexible voices of the (mostly Italian) cast coped admirably, though none of them really stood out. Daniela Bruera (Mirandolina) had by far the largest part and certainly deserved the big ovation that she received, both for her singing (no problems with the coloratura) and her vivacious acting. The programme says that she's currently singing Sophie and lots of Mozart (Susanna, Zerlina, Despina) at the Berlin Staatsoper: a name to look out for, there and elsewhere. Enrico Marabelli (Cavaliere di Ripafratta) displayed a very pleasant baritone and managed the transformations from bored to bemused to lovesick to furious adeptly, though I felt that the character was intended to be older than he appeared (his beard looked like one that I tried to grow when aged 19).
Of the two comic suitors, I preferred the resonant bass of Simone Alberghinito (Marquis of Forlimpopoli) to the thinnish tenor of Simon Edwards (Count of Albafiorita), who comes from Harrogate and is a Rossini specialist. Massimiliano Tonsini (Fabrizio) didn't have a lot to sing - his tenor was of the more robust sort - and I liked his slightly caricatured pop-eyed stock servant who could have inhabited any century. Simeon Esper as the Cavaliere's servant was much better and a lot less loud than in Il Giuramento, and provided some enjoyable dead-pan comedy. Ortensia and Dejanira, who appear at the start of the second act, are supposed to be actresses disguised as aristocrats, but from the supertitles it appeared that they were actually 'actresses' pretending to be actresses disguised as aristocrats. They are minor characters, redressing the male/female imbalance, but provided a very enjoyable diversion from the main plot. The Czech soprano Tereza Mátlová as Ortensia (seen and enjoyed by me here in Die Königin von Saba in 1999), and Elena Traversi (a mezzo new to me) as Dejanira certainly acted the parts to the hilt, the former confirming her promise and the latter providing striking rich contraltoish tone. Conductor Riccardo Frizza seemed well on top of the busy score.
Auber's Manon Lescaut (on 25 October) was, to my surprise, the least interesting of this year's operas. The story - well, the one we know from Massenet and Puccini, with some quite important exceptions (Scribe, Auber's librettist, didn't bother too much with the details of Prévost's story). First, there is no Amiens scene, and the opera opens in Paris. Second, Des Grieux enlists in the army to pay a large restaurant bill (he had the money, but Lescaut has gambled it away). Third, the Marquis d'Hérigny (the Guillot/Geronte figure) is Des Grieux's commander, and, when Des Grieux becomes a fugitive after injuring a superior officer, he agrees to Des Grieux's exile, provided that Manon becomes his (the Marquis') mistress and never sees Des Grieux again. Fourth, the Marquis is killed by Des Grieux, whom he catches in Manon's company notwithstanding this agreement, and that is the reason for their transportation to America. Fifth, there is a subsidiary pair, Marguerite (a neighbour of Manon in Paris) and Gervais (her fiancé), who turn up as plantation-owners in Louisiana, where they help Manon and Des Grieux to escape to the desert. Another opera, another appearance by Festival Director Luigi Ferrari on stage. He regretted that the scheduled Marguerite was ill, and that her cover (Johanna Burton) wasn't able to sing the whole role (why?). So we lost most of the Marguerite/Gervais scenes, which upset the balance of the opera and caused me, at least, some confusion when we got to Louisiana ("who are these people?).
It's always interesting to see neglected versions of familar operatic stories, and it's welcome to see another in the Wexford sequence of, for example, Massenet's Cendrillon, Paisiello's Barber of Seville, Leoncavallo's La Bohème, Dargomizhsky's Rusalka and the memorable double-bill of Gazzaniga's Don Giovanni and Busoni's Turandot (memorable not least for ending around midnight!). On the other hand, it enables one to see why the more familiar versions are still in the repertory and most of these aren't. From what I was able to see of the opera on this occasion, I found four possible reasons for the neglect of this work. First, Auber is a generally neglected composer. This is the first time I've seen anything by him. Neither Fra Diavolo nor La muette de Portici have appeared on my radar, and I doubt whether even these are much seen in France or anywhere else. Second, Manon dominates the opera and Des Grieux is almost a minor character until the final scene (the Marquis has more arias than Des Grieux, despite his second-act demise), so the usual soprano/tenor balance is upset.
Third, this is an opéra-comique, so the drama is continually being interrupted by spoken dialogue. That isn't a problem with really dramatic works like Médée or Fidelio or Carmen or Der Freischütz (or with comedies like Die Zauberflöte or HMS Pinafore), but I felt here that the chunks of music were often insufficient to stand up by themselves before the next dialogue passage came in. Fourth, the music isn't very involving. I wasn't the only one in my party of four who felt like this - we divided 3-1. Auber was in his 70s when he wrote the music, and I wondered whether he'd run out of steam. It was good to finally see Manon's laughing-song in context (I have Galli-Curci singing this on an ancient LP), and to discover that this is just part of the Act 1 finale, and not a full-blown coloratura showpiece followed by ecstatic audience applause, but there weren't many other stand-out moments apart from a gripping final scene. But maybe the best music was in the bits that got left out the night I was there... All that said, the production by Jean-Philippe Clarac and Olivier Deloieul, the playing by the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Belarus, the conducting by Jean-Luc Tingaud and the singing were entirely satisfactory. Wexford in my time has had a string of good productions of French operas, e.g. Mignon, Zampa, Si J'étais Roi, even last year's Massenet Sapho, another whose music I didn't think much of.
The designs by Greco were fairly simple, and were updated, like those for Mirandolina, to around the time of composition. Of the singers, the Manon of Marina Vyskvorkina (from the Ukraine) carried all before her, and she and the Des Grieux, Alexander Swan (who is French), really chewed the carpet in the final scene. The young baritone Luca Salsi (returning after a success in Sapho to play the Marquis d'Hérigny) had a substantial presence and a fruity voice, and was a much more effective and threatening villain than are the character-tenors one sees in the Massenet and Puccini operas. The Lescaut (Matthieu Lécroart) had a much smaller role than Massenet and Puccini give him. Still, an unsatisfying evening, for me at least. Of course, having to make snap judgements on works one has never seen before isn't easy (though I remain a firm believer in an innocent ear approach rather than engaging in lots of homework beforehand), and these things are matters of taste, but . . .
© Andrew Cooper, 21 November 2002 2003
There's an old Wexford adage that each year's three operas consist of: a) an unjustly neglected work, b) one of historical interest, and c) a turkey - though sometimes opinions differed on which was which! This year, the old adage worked for me, though I saw the operas in the wrong order. My first opera this year (30 October) was the unjustly neglected work: Svanda the Bagpiper (Svanda dudák) by the Czech composer Jaromir Weinberger. The story: Svanda has been married for only a week, but is persuaded by Babinsky, a legendary Robin Hood figure who fancies Svanda's wife Dorota, to go with him to the kingdom of a Queen whose heart has been frozen by a magician. Svanda's music (the famous polka) duly cures her, but he is condemned to death for preferring Dorota, who has followed him, to the Queen, and the magician confiscates his pipes. Before his execution, the Queen grants him a last request. Of course, he wants to play his pipes, and, when these are retrieved by Babinsky, Svanda's playing makes everyone dance (Zauberflöte, anyone?), and he, Babinsky and Dorota escape. Svanda then makes the mistake of declaring that the Devil can take him to Hell if he has kissed the Queen and - because he has kissed the Queen - he is indeed swept away to Hell by the Devil himself. Dorota rejects Babinsky's advances, but he nevertheless promises to bring Svanda back. In the second act, Svanda sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for his freedom, but the Devil has no intention of letting him go, and Babinsky again retrieves the situation by out-cheating the Devil at cards and returning Svanda to earth, where he is reunited with Dorota. Babinsky goes on his way.
I've long wanted to see this opera, having been familiar with the polka (mentioned above) and fugue (played at the Devil's special request) since at least the 60s and having at the same time read the story of 'Schwanda the Bagpiper', as they called it, in an old book of opera stories perhaps published in the 30s after Svanda dudák had taken the world by storm with 2000 performances worldwide in the four years after its première in 1927. Weinberger never had another success like it, and having fled from the Nazis (he was Jewish), died in the USA, essentially forgotten, as late as 1967.
I found most of the principals rather too loud for the tiny theatre, though admittedly I was sitting in the fourth row of the stalls. The exceptions were the glamorous Russian mezzo of Larisa Kostyuk as the frozen-hearted Queen and the fruity Russian-sounding bass of Alexander Teliga from Poland, who was first the Klingsor-like Magician and then the sharp-suited Devil. This isn't to say that the Svanda (Slovenian baritone Matjaz Robavs), the Dorota (soprano Tatiana Monogarova from Russia) and the Babinsky (the Belorussian tenor Ivan Choupenitch) weren't good (though the latter seemed a little uncomfortable in higher-lying passages), it was just that I felt that they were trying to impress talent-scouts rather than tailoring their voices to the situation. The two men also had a tendency to sing at the audience rather than to the other characters.
Production (Damiano Michieletto) and the stylish costumes and sets (Robin Rawstorne) were excellent. At the start, a cloaked and top-hatted Babinsky started the action by pulling a switch on a prominent junction-box to the left of the stage to turn up the stage lights. At the end of the first act, he pulled out all the junction-box's wires in order to fuse the electrics and free Svanda, and at the end he flipped the switch to turn out the lights - all of this confirming that he's a legendary figure with quasi-supernatural powers who controls the action.
In the first scene, Svanda's home was like a primitive gypsy caravan - a wooden cylinder on its side with windows and a crooked chimney. The second scene featured an enormous modernistic (Brancusi? Leger?) sculpture which rotated to disclose the trapped Queen. Svanda and his pipes appeared through a door at the back of the set which, in the third (execution) scene, snapped open so that the Devil could haul Svanda away. The execution was to be by electric chair (the 'executioner' was a mad-scientist figure) and Svanda, previously in a nondescript suit, was dressed up in an orange execution garment (reminding me of the end of Peter Sellars's Glyndebourne Theodora). Costumes otherwise were vaguely 1950s - Dorota throughout wore a floral print dress, the Queen wore a slinky crimson evening-gown, the Magician was in a tuxedo (albeit with a science-fiction wig and an enormous crab-claw in place of his left hand), and the Devil was a spiv or conman. Hell was a seedy night-club with denizens to match and the short final reconciliation scene took place not in front of Svanda's home but on a bed of bright flowers created by lowering the back wall of the Hell scene - something of a coup de théâtre. My one reservation about the designs was with Svanda's bagpipes, a sort of cross between a turtle-shell and a jellyfish that was strapped to his chest and emitted flashing lights. Why on earth not provide something more resembling real bagpipes?
So, next day, from the unjustly neglected work to the interesting historical one, Weber's Die drei Pintos. Weber worked on this comedy intermittently before and during the composition of Euryanthe and Oberon, but after his death only the sketches for seven numbers (out of the 17 that had been projected) survived in written form. The composer's widow, apparently against her will, entrusted these to Meyerbeer, who sat on them for 20 years before announcing that he couldn't do anything with them. It was eventually 60 years after Weber's death that his grandson Carl, who had reworked the original libretto, asked the young Gustav Mahler (then Nikisch's assistant at the Leipzig Opera) to try to complete the opera. This Mahler did, using other music by Weber to fill in the gaps and doing most of the scoring himself.
Despite Michael Kennedy's assertion in his programme-note that those "who hear this delightful work ... will be left in two minds: have they heard Mahler or Weber?", I was left in only one mind - it sounded just like Weber and nothing like Mahler. And so it should, as all the tunes are Weber's, and Mahler was only in his mid-20s when he prepared the work for performance - he was an admirer of Weber's music, so this was clearly a labour of love. As I too am a great lover of Weber, and these are good tunes, I enjoyed the evening. This isn't another Freischütz or Euryanthe: it's only an uncomplicated comedy with mostly short numbers and a rather unfocused and lop-sided dramatic structure.
The story: Act 1 takes place in an inn, where Don Gaston, who has just left the University of Salamanca, celebrates his entry into the real world with fellow-students, his servant Ambrosio and the innkeeper's daughter Inez. Don Pinto, bound for Madrid where he is to marry Clarissa, the daughter of a friend of his father, arrives, and Gaston, who thinks him a clumsy country bumpkin, gets him drunk, steals his letter of introduction and sets off under the name of Don Pinto to find Clarissa and marry her himself. In Acts 2 and 3, it is apparent that Clarissa is secretly in love with Don Gomez and has no wish to marry the stranger (Don Pinto) chosen by her father, Don Pantaleone. Gaston arrives in Madrid, but before he can claim his bride he meets Gomez, who, thinking that Gaston is Pinto, persuades him to abandon any thought of Clarissa's hand and hand over the letter. Gomez now masquerades as Pinto and makes a good impression on Pantaleone (to Clarissa's amazement and delight). But the real Don Pinto appears, to the consternation of Gomez and Gaston. His clumsy behaviour annoys Pantaleone, who is sure that he is an imposter. Pinto then recognises Gaston and accuses him of trickery, whereupon the latter demands satisfaction. Pinto loses his nerve and is thrown out, Clarissa reveals to her father who Gomez really is, and all ends happily as Pantaleone gives his consent to their marriage.
Again, good designs (Kevin Knight) and production (Michal Znaniecki). The costumes generally were a mixture of timeless Spanish dresses, military uniforms (for Pantaleone and Gomez-as-Pinto), and smartish light suits such as students might have worn in the 1930s for Gaston and his friends (that was perhaps the last era when students like Gaston actually had their own manservants!). The inn of Act 1 was represented by a curved-glass window (also vaguely 1930s and reminiscent of Edward Hopper's 'Nighthawks') atop a steeply-raked stage, the latter perfect for drunken students to stagger about or lie on during the beginning of the opera. Later, the window opened to disclose Inez and the customers inside, and Don Pinto's drinking session took place on a bench in front of it. The letter wasn't all that was stolen from him - at the end of the act when he was in a stupor, customers leaned out of the window and gradually robbed him of his outer clothes (he was wearing a solar topee, bush-shirt, shorts, etc.) and possessions (butterfly-net and other paraphernalia). He was depicted as an unworldly figure of fun, incapable of appreciating the etiquette lesson that Gaston was trying to give him (aided by Ambrosio in rudimentary drag, complete with Madonna-style conical bra - a rather irritating scene).
Acts 2 and 3 were set in a dark green circular reception-room with gallery above, the walls crammed with display cases for numerous curios and objets d'art which were illuminated to good effect a couple of times. Act 2 started with an attractive entr'acte (composed by Mahler on themes from Weber's sketches), during which a large sheet on the stage gradually started moving about, eventually disclosing Gomez and Clarissa in night attire. Mildly amusing, but it didn't really fit with the music, and I'm sure that nothing like this was envisaged by Carl Weber or Mahler. In Act 3, the real Don Pinto's arrival was through a circular opening in the middle of the stage, and it was difficult not to think of Jokanaan in Salome at this point. He was a rather pathetic figure in undershirt, shorts and one shoe. Don Gaston (for this one performance) was Canadian tenor Eric Shaw, who has apparently sung this role during the 2003 Bard Festival at the Lincoln Centre, NYC. He was more of an Ian Bostridge lookalike than the younger-Heppner-style singer who sang the rest of the performances. He's a lightish tenor with a flexible voice (I see he sings a lot of Rossini) and made a convincing student. I was impressed. Of the other principals, I liked the real Don Pinto, Alessandro Svab, best. He's a pleasant-voiced buffo bass from Italy who had to appear ridiculous in both of the acts in which he appeared, but managed to make me, at least, feel sorry for him. Clarissa was the German soprano Barbara Zechmeister, a Mozart specialist who sang with taste and did what she could with a rather uninteresting role. The sharp-featured Swiss mezzo Sophie Marilley as Clarissa's maid Laura made the most of her one aria; likewise, Sinead Campbell (a soprano from Ireland!) made a big impression with her (rather silly) Act 1 aria about two cats and then disappeared from the action, never to return.
I was less impressed by American tenor Peter Furlong's Don Gomez, whose dubious intonation at the upper end of his role hurt my ears, and felt that Robert Holzer's Don Pantaleone could have done with a more sonorous sound (he had an arioso that reminded me of Don Fernando in Fidelio or the Hermit in Der Freischütz). The youngish Slovakian baritone Ales Jenis as Ambrosio preserved his dignity during the tiresome Act 1 drag act but seemed too determined to make an impression during his Act 3 Ariette and in consequence sang far too loudly. Thankfully he was the only singer to misjudge the size of the house, in contrast to my experience of the previous evening's cast, and I was only two rows further back than on the Thursday. I have to mention, among the minor parts, a person described as Anon, who played the short speaking role of Don Pantaleone's Major-Domo. This turned out to be Festival Chairman Ted Howlin who retires this year after a five-year stint, and who modestly didn't take a curtain-call. The chorus is a notable feature of this opera (there's a particularly enjoyable servants' chorus at the start of Act 2, and the singing by the Festival Chorus was good throughout this opera and the others), but I detected some lapses in co-ordination between orchestra and stage on the part of conductor Paolo Arrivabeni, who otherwise seemed well on top of the music. One of the perks of being a Friend of the Wexford Festival is an invitation to one of the numerous Friends Parties (free champagne, Guinness and nibbles) that are held throughout the season, and I took my own friends along to the one held after this opera. I enjoyed recognising the artists from Die Drei Pintos and Svanda Dudák in mufti and was able to congratulate Shaw and Svab in person. (Another Friends perk, as well as priority booking and a free programme, is a CD in which Ian Fox introduces the operas - excellent listening for the drive down from Dublin)
My third opera (1 November) was Enrique Granados's Maria del Carmen. This has not been performed since the 1960s and has never before been seen outside Spain. It was Granados's first opera, premièred in 1898 when the composer was 31, 18 years before the only opera for which he is remembered, Goyescas. (Most people know Granados as primarily a composer of piano music, and indeed Goyescas is derived from the piano suite of the same name. Returning from its first performance at the Metropolitan Opera, New York in 1916, Granados died trying to save his wife after their boat was torpedoed in the English Channel.)
Sounds quite dramatic, doesn't it? Before going to Ireland, I'd heard (in background mode) an earlier performance broadcast on BBC radio, and had quite liked the sound of it, especially the end of the opera. However, in the theatre it rapidly became apparent that the opera was completely inert and undramatic, and the samey music began to pall before the interval (during which, in the Gents, someone said to me "does it all sound like this?"). To me, it sounded like some ghastly cross between A Village Romeo and Juliet and Pelléas et Mélisande, and even the ending sounded oh-ah, in contrast to what I'd been expecting. Definitely one to be heard in background mode, if at all.
The singing and playing was all right, as far as I could tell (the conductor was Spaniard Max Bragado-Darman). I'd heard good reports of Mexican baritone Jesus Suaste's Pencho, and he didn't disappoint, though he's now somewhat bulkier than his photo suggests. The foursquare and impassive Maria (Diana Veronese, from Georgia rather than Italy) looked as if she wished she was somewhere else, whereas Javier (another Mexican, tenor Dante Alcala), bearded and hobbling, glowered impressively and sang quite nicely. Baritone Alberto Arrabal (Pepuso) had a lot to sing in the opening scene and it wasn't his fault that the opera had already started to drag by the time he'd finished. Likewise, Gianfranco Montresor (Domingo) did what he could with his monochrome part. The applause at the end didn't rise much above tepid (very surprising for a Saturday night at Wexford), so my views were clearly shared by many other audience members.
Next year's operas will be Bellini's Adelson e Salvini (revised 1828-9), J B Foerster's Eva (1899) and Walter Braunfels's Prinzessin Brambilla (new version 1929-30). The festival will run from 14-31 October, and general booking opens on 1 June. © Andrew Cooper, 22 November 2003 2004
This was the final season of Luigi Ferrari’s ten-year reign as Artistic Director of Wexford Festival Opera in southeast Ireland, which every autumn presents three unusual or neglected operas. Ferrari’s choice of operas has sometimes been criticized, but he has introduced a number of rising stars to a wider public over the years, for example conductor Vladimir Jurowski (now Music Director at Glyndebourne), tenor Joseph Calleja (who has appeared at Covent Garden and the Vienna State Opera) and director Paul Curran (soon to debut at La Scala). The first opera that I saw this year (on 25 October) was Prinzessin Brambilla by Walter Braunfels (1882-1954). The story is based on a novella by E T A Hoffmann: Bastianello and his servant Pantalone, disguised for the Roman Carnival, happen upon Claudio, a young actor who is dissatisfied that his girlfriend, Giazinta, is only a seamstress. Bastianello invents a Princess Brambilla, pining for a lost Assyrian prince, and, with the aid of some allegedly magic blue glasses, convinces Claudio that the Princess is destined to be his lover. Meanwhile, Giazinta, who is making a dress commissioned by Bastianello, dreams of being a princess. Pantalone arrives to collect the dress, but departs quickly once he realises that Giazinta’s cynical companion Barbara is his abandoned wife. Encountering Claudio and his drinking companions, he invites them all to meet Princess Brambilla at Bastianello’s palace. By this time, Claudio believes that he is the Assyrian prince (and his friends think he is mad). At the palace, Claudio denounces Giazinta but is mesmerised by the veiled princess (she, of course, is Giazinta, wearing the dress that she made, but heavily veiled). Everyone is laughing at him, and he imagines that he is being pursued by a doppelgänger. Finally, the Carnival reaches its climax: Claudio (as he thinks) kills the doppelgänger and claims the still-veiled Princess, while Barbara catches up with Pantalone. When midnight signals the end of Carnival, the masks come off, and Claudio comes to his senses and is reunited with Giazinta. Bastianello rejoices that his plan has worked, though Pantalone (really Theodor) is not sure whether he wants to get back together with Barbara or not.
All I’d previously heard by Braunfels was some of his most well-known opera, Die Vögel (The Birds), which I’d liked. The music of this opera (in a revised version of 1929/30, over twenty years after it was premièred and ten years after Die Vögel) seemed more eclectic. At first I thought of Rimsky-Korsakov, but there were echoes of Strauss, some things that reminded me of Busoni and others of the Love for Three Oranges, and there was a fair bit of neo-classical Stravinsky (though to my ears more Rake’s Progress than Pulcinella) and touches of Nielson’s Maskarade - altogether, perhaps, something to do with a general revival of interest in the commedia dell’arte in the early 20th century. Every so often there was a really good tune, though there were also longueurs, mostly during Claudio’s maunderings and Pantalone’s reflections on life. The scenes were linked by entr’actes. At the interval (between the drinking and palace scenes), I was ready to declare the work to be Wexford’s annual turkey. None of the characters, except just possibly Giazinta, seemed to be worth bothering with, and the plot, such as it was, was a mixture of the ridiculous and the obvious. I was reminded of 2002’s Mirandolina, a busy piece which didn’t really go anywhere (though Braunfels’s music was certainly a cut above Martinu’s).
Strangely, though, things seemed to come together in the second half, with the appearance of the supposed Princess, some enjoyable carnival music and the touching reconciliation of Claudio and Giazinta, and overall I enjoyed the evening. The designs updated the setting to the 1920s/30s, with Giazinta’s room represented by a backcloth based on Magritte’s 'Le Viol' and featuring a pair-of-lips sofa, and the cocktail bar boasting some Picasso/Braque wallpaper. The Princess’s dress was one that any flapper would have been proud of, and her henchmen could easily have come out of the Ballets Russes (say, 'Jeu de Cartes'). On the other hand, the rest of the designs (Maria Rosalia Tartaglia) seemed rather amateurish, and Rome was hardly suggested at all (just a scattering of architectural drawings round the proscenium). The director was Rosetta Cucchi.
The singing was generally satisfactory, if sometimes too loud - too many singers advanced to the front of the stage for no very obvious reason. Bastianello was played by Peter Paul, who has a nice warm baritone but wasn’t authoritative enough. I liked Eric Shaw (Claudio) in last year’s Die Drei Pintos, but here he seemed to be trying too hard, though he wasn’t helped by the composer or the director. Elena Lo Forte (Giazinta) has, according to the programme, started singing Lady Macbeth, which is probably rather more suited to her odd method of vocal production. Enrico Marabelli did what he could with the rather annoying role of Pantalone, but surely this ought to have been played as an old, and not a young man. Likewise, Ekaterina Gubanova didn’t look nearly old enough for the role of the rejected Barbara. In the minor roles of Claudio’s drinking companions, Vicenç Esteve (Gaston) has been promoted since last year (and Alessandro Svab, as Brutz, seemingly demoted).
My ear was caught by the quite striking tenor sound of newcomer Riccardo Massi (Buffel). Paul Doyle, as Claudio’s doppelgänger, was a dancer who materialized from time to time looking rather like the Phantom of the Opera. The young conductor, Daniele Belardinelli, had a little trouble with the Irish National Anthem (played before every performance at the Festival) but seemed well in control thereafter. The orchestra this year was the Cracow Philharmonic, an improvement on the Belorussians who have inhabited the pit since the RTE Orchestra was deemed too expensive, and looked more like human beings. How to sum up? Rather a mixed bag, but at least it got better rather than worse!
Next day, I was back for a performance of Mercadante’s La vestale of 1840: The story, again set in Rome: Emilia, believing her lover Decio killed in battle, has become a vestal virgin. Decio, however, is alive and has won a famous victory over the Gauls. He and Emilia meet clandestinely in the temple, where Emilia is guarding the sacred flame. Their passionate duet ends when the flame goes out, predicting doom for Rome. Decio, aided by his friend Publio, escapes, but the High Priest has Emilia put on trial, and she is condemned by Licinio (the First Consul and Decio’s father) to be buried alive, despite her friend Giunia attempting to take the blame herself and despite Decio revealing that he was partly to blame. Publio appeals to Licinio, but in vain; then Decio attempts to raise a rebellion, but he is repulsed by Licinio and the High Priest. As Emilia, who has lost her reason, is sealed into the tomb, Decio kills himself. During the 2003 Festival, the opera announced for this slot was Bellini’s Adelson e Salvini. I haven’t seen any explanation for the change, but I personally was not at all unhappy to be seeing major Mercadante rather than minor Bellini. Hands up anyone who has (like me) seen three operas by Mercadante? I thought not! Ferrari clearly has a soft spot for this neglected Italian composer, with La vestale having been preceded at Wexford by Elena da Feltre (in 1997) and Il Giuramento (2002). All have proved to be very enjoyable and, most importantly, very theatrical. I’d heard a BBC broadcast of La vestale a few days before I saw it, and, listening in background mode and without much idea of what was going on at any specific point, I thought 'pleasant but oh-ah'. In the theatre it was quite different, alternately gripping, stirring, sad, and so on.
The big strength of this opera is the ensembles, from duets upwards to big concertati at the end of the first two acts. More to the point, there are only three real arias, none of them for Emilia or Decio, the principal characters! Giunia has an attractive prayer with flute (or was it oboe?) obbligato at the start of the second (temple) act; the High Priest has a rather good solo-with-chorus as the action hots up later in the act, and Publio has a fairly conventional number with cabaletta – pleading with Licinio, then rousing the troops for an insurrection - at the start of the third and last act. Emilia and Decio have to make do with duets, and only one of those is with each other, though they do have some short solos that turn into ensembles or into the aforesaid duets. Musically, it was pretty good, and conductor Paolo Arrivabene (who also conducted Il Giuramento in 2002 and Die drei Pintos last year) clearly relished the music. Of the singers, I particularly liked the basso cantante of the young High Priest Andrea Patucelli, who seems only to have sung in Italy thus far, but the others were all at least OK. Doriana Milazzo (Emilia) was an arresting figure, petite but packing a punch, and affecting in her short mad scene at the end. Dante Alcalá (Decio), who smouldered impressively in 2003's Maria del Carmen, pulled out all the Italianate stops, perhaps frustrated by having no 'Di quella pira' or anything like it, to sing.
Agata Bienkowska was far from a comprimario confidante as Giunia, doing her aria justice and providing good backup in the duets. On the (slightly) downside, Davide Damiani (a look-alike for Anthony Michaels-Moore but with a bit more hair), who was impressive in Il Giuramento, didn’t quite cut the mustard as Publio, sounding hoarse in his aria, though projecting a sympathetic character. Danna Glaser, as the high priestess, who got to sing the notes of 'Ritorna vincitor' near the start (Verdi is supposed to have got some ideas for Aida from this opera) was of the plums-in-mouth school of mezzo-singing, whereas Ladislav Elgr (a tenor) was a bit weedy in the ungrateful part of Decio’s implacable father Licinio. The chorus had a whale of a time, and I liked the brief contribution of chorister Mattia Denti as a sinister Second Consul. As to the production (director: Thomas de Mallet Burgess) and designs (Jamie Vartan), there was even less sign that the opera takes place in Rome than in Prinzessin Brambilla. The prevailing colour was grey, except when some red was added, e.g. when the vestals put on their house-coats. The chorus greeting the arrival of Decio in Act 1 was arranged in a kind of double-decker bus-shelter at the back, unless it was some sort of train, or a rather cramped space-ship. Act 2’s sacred flame seemed to be kept in a long chest with glowing holes in it – was this some sort of sci-fi film reference? (I am indifferent to the genre, so, if it was, it was lost on me.) The intimate scenes for Emilia and Giunia and for Decio and Publio took place at the sides of the stage, accompanied by a fold-down bed (hers) and a fold-out filing-cabinet and bathroom (his). Licinio refused Publio’s appeal from a window high up on the right side of the proscenium. Decio only had a penknife with which to kill himself. From time to time the chorus engaged in hieratic gestures with their arms, but at least they moved at normal, rather than Robert-Wilson-style, speeds. Well, all this made an intriguing visual display, even if it didn’t do a lot for the drama. I wasn’t too bothered, especially with music that built up to such exciting climaxes. A most enjoyable evening was greeted by enthusiastic applause by a Tuesday full house.
My third and final opera, the following evening, was Eva by Josef Bohuslav Foerster (1859-1951). There was heavy rain and flooding in Wexford, and the performance started late (with a number of empty seats) after Festival Chief Executive Jerome Hynes had appeared on stage to offer us a free glass of wine in the first interval. The story: Eva is a seamstress, whose relationship with the rich Mánek is under threat from Mesjanovka, his mother, who wants him to marry a girl of his own class or else she will disinherit him. Samko, a furrier, loves Eva, and after some inner turmoil she agrees to marry him, to Mánek’s dismay. The marriage is not a happy one, and in Act 2 we see Eva grieving for her daughter, whose death, according to Samko, had been God’s will and nothing to do with his having refused to summon a doctor. He hears that Mánek, now married, still hankers after Eva and threatens to keep her indoors, but Mánek and Eva do meet and, after a row with Samko in which he tries to strike her, she runs away with Mánek to Austria. Act 3 takes place on Mánek and Eva’s farm there. Eva seems to be divorced from Samko, but she is uncomfortable at being Mánek’s mistress. Mesjanovka arrives and Mánek tries to stand up to her, but she produces an official document which says that he cannot have a divorce. Mánek tells Eva that they can stay as they are and that he will pay occasional visits to his family, but she is distraught and drowns herself. So - a bit like a cross between Janacek’s Jenufa and Kat’a Kabanova, although Samko is no Laca and the domineering mother has less power than the Kabanicha. I found the music difficult to pin down (the opera premièred in 1899). Apart from some folkloric dances, it didn’t have the Czechoslovakian sound I associate with Smetana or Dvorak, or the completely original sound of Janacek, let alone anything approaching Italian verismo. It sounded good to start with, but Act 1 seemed very long (in fact, I thought it was about to end when it suddenly started up again). Act 2 was gloom-laden and Act 3, after a bright start, also fell prey to the prevailing tone, until it ended rather suddenly. Altogether, I couldn’t really warm to the work, though it was well done (director: Paul Curran). But maybe that extra glass of wine did something to my critical faculties.
Like both the other 2004 operas, this was updated - to the 1920s (designer: Paul Edwards), as evidenced by the fabulous but sinister black ostrich-feather gear of Mesjanovka, who, however, looked rather too young to be Mánek’s mother. Eva was in white, Samko in dark grey and Mánek in grey, then cream… something of a pattern emerging here. Samko’s dwelling seemed too large for a cottage (despite the small size of the Wexford stage), but the rural scene was well evoked by a view of corn stooks and electricity pylons. Curran directed 2002’s fast-moving Mirandolina. This was a different kettle of fish, but I thought he mostly got it right again – for example, Samko’s addiction to the Bible, Mesjanovka as the Demon King, popping up like Scarpia behind the chorus in the first act and ending the opera alone on stage unaware that she has done anything wrong, again like the Kabanicha in some productions. I wasn’t too happy with the Little Lady Fauntleroy apparition of Eva’s dead child, though, but I have something in common with W C Fields on this one. The singers all took their chances gratefully - the Eva of Iveta Jiríková was a real tragic heroine (nice bright sound and expressive features), Kostyantyn Andreyev as Mánek was the chinless rich boy who can’t empathise (slightly acid-toned tenor voice), Igor Tarasov was Samko, the lover who bides his time but can’t cope with crises (secure baritone) and Denisa Hamarova the bullying mother – surprising how little she had to sing. Elizabeth Batton, as the maid and Roland Davitt, whom I remember from RNCM productions, as the drunken and abusive farm-worker, turned in nice cameos. I can’t really comment on the conducting - but Jaroslav Kyzlink is Slovakian and must have this music in his blood. Interesting that the titles of all three of this season's Wexford offerings and all three of next season's (Fauré’s Pénélope, Donizetti’s Maria di Rohan and Floyd’s Susannah) place women in the forefront of the opera. After next year’s operas, the Theatre Royal, Wexford, will close for rebuilding. As far as I know, no announcement has been made about whether the 2006 Festival will take place, but watch this space. © Andrew Cooper, 22 November 2004 2005
This was one of the two or three most enjoyable season of operas in my 20-something years of Wexford-going. All three operas were well worth seeing - alas, this isn’t the case every year - and the musical and dramatic elements, give or take one eccentric production, were spot on. Fauré’s Pénélope (1913), which I saw on 24 October, was a nice surprise. Everyone knows his Requiem (it’s clear that he could produce a good tune when required) but most of his output was small-scale - songs, chamber music and works for piano, including the amusing 'Souvenirs de Bayreuth' written with Messager. Pénélope was his only opera (unless you count Prométhée, a blockbuster written for open-air performance with much declaimed dialogue, which hasn’t been seen in toto for 90 years or so). There was some Debussy in the music, but not as much as I’d feared - for example, the overture sounded like Wagner with an admixture of Mahler - and the plot kept moving with a lot of action and (sung) dialogue punctuated by a few set-pieces. I greatly enjoyed it all, despite a production which only became comprehensible once one had read the 'Director’s Note'.
The story is the familiar one from Homer’s Odyssey, but the narrative centres around Pénélope rather than Ulysse (Ulysses) and neither the Gods nor Telemachus appear. Act 1 starts with Pénélope’s maids discussing her situation – it is ten years after the Trojan War and her husband Ulysse has not returned. Five suitors are vying for her hand, and she has promised to decide once she has finished a shroud that she is weaving for Ulysse’s late father – but at night she is secretly unpicking the day’s work, so the shroud never gets finished, as she is convinced that Ulysse will return. A beggar arrives and is treated well by Pénélope despite the derision of the suitors. Pénélope’s old nurse Euryclée realises that this is Ulysse in disguise, but he swears her to secrecy. Pénélope’s suitors discover that the shroud is being unpicked and demand that she choose between them on the following day. In Act 2, the disguised Ulysse tells Pénélope that he met her husband in Crete, and reassures her that he will be home soon. He suggests to her that the way to choose between the suitors is to see which one can draw the great bow that Ulysse left behind. He then reveals himself to the blind shepherd Eumée and enlists his and the other shepherds’ help for the next day’s confrontation with the suitors. Next day, in Act 3, the suitors all try to bend the bow, and all fail. The 'beggar' asks to try, succeeds, reveals who he is and, with the aid of the shepherds, kills the suitors (offstage). He is reunited with Pénélope to general joy.
In this production, the overture was accompanied by a white-haired man and a woman dressed in red robes who adopted prayerful postures in front of a bright blue gauze Magritte-ish sky-and-sea-scape (with matching giant lamp-standard and table). The lights came up behind the gauze to disclose a cluttered and tilted living-room, about the size of a mobile home, with a man in white shirt and trousers sitting in front of a television drinking beer (and occasionally getting up to fetch extra bottles from the fridge) and a woman in a sort of ra-ra dress doing some housework, wringing her hands and eventually running her nails down the walls in frustration. What was going on? When the opera proper began, the maids, also in ra-ra gear but wearing half-face masks, lamented their lot and discussed Pénélope’s situation. Then the suitors arrived, each individually dressed and also half-masked: Antinoüs was a crooner, Eurymaque an activist in denims with a headscarf, Léodès a businessman, Ctésippe a soldier in fatigues, Pisandre an overalled mechanic. The woman from the living-room came down to the stage and proved to be Pénélope, at which point I wondered if the beer-drinking TV-watcher was Telemachus, but no, he was Ulysse, who appeared on the stage without any disguise to sing his lines and do some acting. Meanwhile, the white-haired man in red appeared on top of the container, looking in from time to time, and the white-haired woman proved to be Euryclée, who, washing the feet of the 'beggar', recognised a scar and thus his real identity. Ulysse’s secret rejoicing in his wife’s fidelity ended the Act on an upbeat note.
During the interval, I discovered that the programme contained a note by the director (Renaud Doucet) and designer (André Barbe): “Through Homer’s account of Ulysses’ return . . . we explore the mystery of long-term relationships. For many couples looking back, the period following their first love may indeed seem a kind of absence . . . ” Oh, so that’s what it was all about - nothing to do with a wanderer coming back home to his faithful wife when everyone else had thought him dead. Act 2 started with a nice solo for the white-haired man, who proved to be Ulysse’s faithful shepherd Eumée, now (for no obvious reason) blindfolded rather than blind. The Magritte seascape was more appropriate as the view from the shepherds' hillside than as the Act 1 representation of Ulysse's palace, while the hitherto unused table and lamp allowed Ulysse, Pénélope and Euryclée somewhere to sit. The rousing scene for Ulysse and the (besuited) shepherds gave this act, too, a stirring ending. In the third act, Ulysse’s bow was retrieved from the bric-à-brac in the mobile home (it had neither a string nor any arrows) and the suitors, maids and shepherds appeared without their half-masks. The rapturous final duet and stirring chorus ended the opera in a blaze of glory and enthusiastic applause.
So in the end, the production didn’t really matter, but I felt cheated by Ulysse’s lack of disguise and the un-intuitiveness of the production team’s psychological plot overlay. On the musical front, the energy with which conductor Jean-Luc Tingaud bounded into the pit for the Irish National Anthem was matched by the playing of the Cracow Philharmonic and most of the singing. Canadian mezzo Nora Sourouzian (Pénélope) displayed warm tone and feisty characterisation. Tenor Gerard Powers (Ulysse), who is from New York State, could perhaps have done with a more heroic sound, but that wasn’t a problem in the tiny Theatre Royal. Lorena Scarlata Rizzo (Euryclée) and Vincent Pavesi (Eumée) were well in the picture, though I’d have liked a fruitier bass sound from the latter, who was, incidentally, the only French singer in the cast (though Sourouzian is from Montreal). All the suitors were good, with tenor David Curry (Antinoüs) and baritone Paul Carey Jones (Eurymaque), both excellent, to the fore. The maids were more variable, but had less to sing.
Next day I saw Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. It was to have been conducted by Wexford’s new Canadian Artistic Director, David Agler, but, following the sudden death of Chief Executive Jerome Hynes only a month before the Festival opened, Agler had to pick up some of the administrative reins and withdraw from the musical front line. Christopher Larkin, an experienced conductor of 20th-century American opera, displayed no sign of suffering from unduly short preparation time, and the Cracovian chameleons sounded as American as they’d sounded French the previous day. The story of Susannah is is loosely based on The History of Susannah in the Apocrypha, an early detective story in which the young prophet Daniel saves Susannah from execution by proving that two elders, who had accused her of sinful behaviour after she had rejected their advances, were lying. In Floyd’s opera (written to his own libretto), the young and beautiful Susannah Polk lives with her brother Sam in a small community in rural Tennessee. She is seen bathing in a creek by some church Elders, who start rumours about her wanton behaviour and then extract from one of their sons (Little Bat McLean) a false confession that she has seduced him. Olin Blitch, an itinerant preacher who is leading the church revival meeting, tries to get her to confess and then follows her home and, in her brother’s absence, seduces her. Concealing his own guilty feelings, he tries to persuade the villagers of Susannah’s innocence, but to no avail. Meanwhile, Susannah has told the returning Sam everything. He seeks out and shoots Blitch and then flees, leaving Susannah isolated but defiant.
Grim stuff, but with very approachable music, starting with a square-dance version of a violin solo by Bach and proceeding into territory that might be described as Oklahoma meets Peter Grimes (though Floyd says in the programme that he was unfamiliar with Britten in 1955). There’s some strophic stuff, a lot of arioso and a certain amount of atmospheric film-music musical wallpaper of the sort employed by Puccini in La Fanciulla del West, but it all fits the drama, which is generally fast-moving, and it all made for a gripping evening. This opera is a rarity in Britain, but it’s performed quite frequently in the USA and from time to time in continental Europe.
The character of Susannah dominates the piece, and Emily Pulley, who has sung all sorts of roles at the Met and elsewhere, gave a bravura performance with all the vocal and histrionic stops pulled out. However, in such a small theatre it was difficult to believe that she was an impulsive teenager - more helpful costuming would have been beneficial. (And of course it’s open to doubt whether a younger singer would have pulled the role off as well. It’s the Butterfly paradox.) Burly Irishman Simon O'Neill (Sam) has a ringing tenor sound which he let rip rather too much for the size of the house in the last act (I see that he’s singing Wagner at the Met this season). Stephen Kechulius (Blitch) has a pleasant baritone, but was taxed by the lower reaches of the role. Glenn Alamilla (Little Bat), fresh from performing one of Pénélope’s suitors the previous day, has an agreeable light tenor and a lot of acting ability. The rest of the roles (the four elders and their wives) are rather one-dimensional, which isn’t to say that they weren’t generally done well, although Susannah’s principal persecutor, Little Bat’s mother Mrs McLean (Anna Burford, a firm mezzo), was unbecomingly costumed in far too short a skirt for a repressive community or a scourge of allegedly loose morals.
I did wonder whether the Festival had spent most of its design budget on Pénélope (I suppose, on the other hand, they might have spent a lot of their casting budget on Pulley and O’Neill), as Susannah was lumbered with an drab and inflexible unitary dark wood set (designer: Conor Murphy) which comprised mainly a wide flight of steps and a few sliding flats. This was fine for the front of the Polks’ house in the woods but very unsatisfactory for most of the other scenes. Specifically, the square dance in the opening scene had to take place on the steps - bizarre! - and there was no real sense of the creek where Susannah bathes. Director John Fulljames managed the interactions of the characters well.
My final visit to the Theatre Royal, on 26 October, was for Donizetti's penultimate opera, Maria di Rohan, written for Vienna. It has only about 90 minutes of music and is tautly constructed and very dramatic, with none of the fat that some bel canto works carry. It apparently remained popular for some time after its 1843 première, and it's difficult to see why it isn't revived more often. The story: Enrico (the baritone) is in prison, having incurred the displeasure of the Prime Minister. Maria (soprano), the woman Enrico has secretly married, asks her former lover Riccardo (the tenor) to intercede with the Prime Minister on Enrico's behalf. He is successful, but when Armando, a comprimario courtier, implies that Maria is the Prime Minister's mistress, Riccardo challenges Armando to a duel. Enrico is released and, hearing that the Prime Minister has been overthrown, makes public his marriage to Maria. Act 1 ends with Riccardo expressing his devastation at this news, followed by the arrival of an emissary to tell him that he is the new Prime Minister.
Before the duel, Riccardo writes a letter to be delivered to Maria if he should be killed. She appears, warning him that the previous Prime Minister is about to return to power and begging him to flee. When Enrico arrives to accompany Riccardo to the duel, she hides. Riccardo persuades Enrico to go on ahead, and he and Maria declare their love for one another. In Act 3, we discover that Riccardo's brief spell as Prime Minister is over and his predecessor is back in power. Riccardo also arrived too late to fight the duel, and Enrico fought and was wounded in his place.Enrico urges Riccardo, who is being pursued by the Prime Minister’s men, to flee through a secret passage that leads to the city walls. Riccardo secretly arranges with Maria that he will meet her outside the walls and departs. But now Riccardo’s incriminating letter is delivered to Enrico, who denounces Maria as unfaithful to him. She, of course, has been unable to escape, and now Riccardo appears from the passage to look for her. Enrico forces him back down the passage, where he kills himself. Enrico returns to condemn Maria to live a life of shame with a husband whom she does not love. Typical Italian opera, eh? But, notwithstanding the Italian names, the opera takes place in Louis XIII’s France, and the Prime Minister (who never appears) is Cardinal Richelieu.
The designs (Charles Edwards, who also directed) were dominated first by an enormous portrait of Richelieu, then by various period features such as shields, portraits and Fleurs-de-lys wallpaper, and later by a 'High Noon' style clock that struck the hours as Riccardo’s doom approached. The tiny stage was sensibly uncluttered for the public scenes in the first act, and grand rooms were suggested for the later intimate scenes. Only the secret passage doorway seemed out of keeping.
Cuban soprano Eglise Gutiérrez (Maria), who has appeared at the Colón and OONY and has engagements at the Rome and Trieste Operas, is a pretty intense actress and was in very good voice. I was less happy with the Armenian tenor Yeghishe Manucharyan (Riccardo), whose voice became stringier as it ascended, but I was pleased to see baritone James Westman, whom I remember from the 1999 Cardiff Singer of the World competition, lending solid support and a nicely curling lip in the last act as Enrico. Roberto Polastri, who conducted Parisina here in 1996, delivered a gripping account of the score (he replaced the previously announced Antonino Fogliani, apparently at rather short notice). The audience went mad at the end (but Italian opera always turns them on – I sometimes wonder if the Irish are the lost tribe of Italy!). I hardly ever go mad myself, but it was a pretty good evening to round off my visit.
The Theatre Royal (funding permitting) will be demolished shortly and rebuilt in enlarged and more comfortable form in 2006, though not in time for the 2006 Festival. Will there be a 2006 Festival? If so, will it be in Wexford? It was enjoyable to have the opportunity to meet a few people in the know (including Mr Agler), but frustrating to discover that their lips were sealed until a press conference some time in December. But whatever the future may hold, it looks as if the Festival is in good hands. I’ll be back, whenever and wherever it takes place.
© Andrew Cooper, 25 November 2005 Andrew Cooper was educated in Nairobi, climbing Mt Kilimanjaro as a schoolboy, and Oxford. Between 1975 and 1984 he performed in wagon-stagings of medieval mystery plays as Herod Antipas, Caiaphas, Herod the Great and ultimately God (after which there was nowhere to go but down). After 30 years as a librarian and an activist in the lecturers' union, AUT, he is now a Life Fellow of Leeds University. He has attended staged professional performances of over 300 different operas, and is currently a co-listowner of the Opera-l mailing-list.
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