Linbury Studio Theatre, Royal
Opera House
John Worthing – Paul
Curievici
Revd Canon Chasuble –
Geoffrey Dolton
Lady Bracknell – Alan Ewing
Gwendolen Fairfax – Stephanie
Marshall
Algernon Moncrieff – Benedict
Nelson
Miss Prism – Hilary Summers
Lane/Merriman – Simon Wilding
Cecily – Ida Falk Winland
Ramin Gary (director)
Ben Clark (associate designer,
after an idea by Johannes Schütze)
Franz Peter David (lighting)
Christina Cunningham
(costumes)
Britten Sinfonia
Tim Murray (conductor)
The
Importance of Being Earnest,
Gerald Barry’s fifth opera, was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic
Orchestra and the Barbican, and was first performed in concert, Thomas Adès
conducting the London premiere. This production marks the first London staging,
though the honour of the first staging went to Nancy’s Opéra national de
Lorraine. It may be considered a resounding success, perhaps all the more surprising
given the paucity of worthwhile comic operas. (The inability of stage directors
to distinguish between the comic and comedy as a form is one of the greatest
banes of an opera-goer’s life, but let us leave that on one side for the moment.)
Barry may have studied with
Stockhausen but it is his study with Mauricio Kagel that comes to mind here, in
the work’s anarchic – though, in its compositional control decidedly not
anarchistic – irreverence. An almost Dadaistic sensibility perhaps also brings
to mind the Ligeti of Aventures and Nouvelles
aventures; smashing of plates, forty of them, must surely offer a reference,
perhaps even an hommage. Humour arises not just from Wilde’s play and
what Barry does with or to it, but also from the interaction of ‘action’ and
music, seemingly autonomous, until one has decided that it is definitely is, at
which point it tempts one to think that it might have something in common with
the text after all. Parody, for instance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, whether
its opening or the ‘Ode to Joy’, and of Auld
Lang Syne, almost inevitably recalls Peter Maxwell Davies, but I am not
sure that the method is actually so very similar. For one thing, it seems more
to be the tunes themselves that in some strange sense are forming the drama;
words at times follow Auld Lang Syne
rather than vice versa, resulting in
a cyclical process one might – or might not – consider to be a parody of
serialism. (I did, but I have no idea whether that were intended.) Stravinskian
motor-rhythms power the music along, until it stops – or are they still doing
so? And just occasionally, the poster-paint aggression – or is it an
affectionate parody thereof? – seems to melt into something more tender. But is
that merely wish-fulfilment on the spectator’s part? Is the joke on the
audience?
Ramin Gray’s production seems
to operate in a similar or at least parallel fashion. There are interactions,
for instance when the loudspeaker music plays from Algernon’s iPhone. And the
action is cut, stopped, made to continue according to some ticking imperative.
Moments impress, stick in the memory, for instance the case of co-ordinated
tea-drinking. One begins to ask what they ‘mean’, but already knows or at least
fears that one is asking the wrong question. Surrealism, or something like it,
becomes genuinely funny. Or is it that the funny becomes genuinely surreal?
Modern dress works well, banishing any thought that period ‘absurdity’ might
heighten the farce, if that be what it is. For disjuncture, by its very nature,
continues to bring us up short. Alienation, in work and in staging, both
distances and yet brings us tantalisingly close. For, despite or even on
account of the artificiality, one senses a deep humanity lying somewhere
beneath. (Perhaps like Wilde; perhaps not.)
The Britten Sinfonia under
Tim Murray proves at least an equal partner to the madness. Brashly rhythmic,
lovingly precise, this is an estimable performance throughout from an ensemble
whose versatility seems yet to extend itself with every year. That the players
are called upon to shout and to stamp their feet almost seems expected. Paul
Curievici impresses with great musicality as Jack Worthing, or whatever we want
to call him, Benedict Nelson a bluff foil as Algie. Hilary Summers, surely as
versatile an artist as the Britten Sinfonia, makes excellent use of her contralto
range and tone as Miss Prism, with a splendidly complementary stage gawkiness.
Stephanie Marshall’s Gwendolen and Ida Falk Winland’s Cecily shine on the mezzo
and soprano fronts, the former often warmly lyrical, the latter seemingly
effortless in the aggressively higher reaches of her range. Simon Wilding’s
Lane and Merriman offer a nice hint of rebellion, nevertheless handsomely despatched.
Meanwhile, Lady Bracknell is played by a bass, not in drag but in a suitably
ghastly barrister pinstripe; Alan Ewing rises to the occasion, and somehow
seems more real than much of the chaos around him. The cast, as the cliché has
it, proves more than the sum of its parts, as is the performance as a whole,
however awkward that fitting together or clashing of those parts may be.
