 |
| The possibility of a new era dawning in Nikolaus Lehnhoff's excellent production of Parsifal for ENO Image: Richard Hubert Smith |
I
thought several times – maybe I should have thought a few more – before starting
to write something on the ‘ENO debate’. I know little about the internal
politics, which is not to say that they are unimportant, but shall leave them
to those, whoever they might be, who know more. I do, however, have some
thoughts concerning what one might consider the more fundamental issues
surrounding English National Opera, some of them sharpened – I hope – by discussion
on Twitter this afternoon. They are not intended to dismiss opposing viewpoints
– unlike, for instance, one newspaper critic whom I noted haughtily dismiss those
questioning him on such issues as ‘a snooty, elitist & reactionary
generation of younger critics’. (Some
might take such dismissive language to be more than a little ‘snooty, elitist
& reactionary’ in itself; but then, some newspaper critics take far more
kindly than others to other audience members, be they musicians, academics,
enthusiasts, first-timers, whoever, daring to voice their own opinions.) However, I shall
naturally argue my own points rather than those of others, who are well able to
speak for themselves.
First
comes the ‘language issue’. This is, I fear, a serious problem. No serious
research seems to have been done on this, so all arguments, mine included, tend
towards the anecdotal. (And that includes asking actual audiences: of course they
are less likely than others to mind opera in translation, since they have
actually paid to attend such performances, whereas those who do not like the
idea will more often than not have stayed at home.) I certainly tend very much
to preferring the original language, although some translations are admittedly preferable
to some others, and some languages are much more accommodating to translation
than others. However, I do not stay away on account of translation.
Many
people to whom I have spoken do, though, and they are not necessarily ‘snooty,
elitist & reactionary’. Indeed, some of the friends I have in mind are
people who will listen to quite a bit of music, probably to Radio 3 more often
than I do, but who attend far fewer performances. For them, hearing opera in
translation will generally ‘sound wrong’, so they shun ENO, save for occasional
performances of English opera. That is not to say that their judgement is right
or wrong, but let us not presume that translation somehow attracts new
audiences, or that it does not have some stay away. I can certainly say that I
have never met anyone who stayed away from a performance at, say, Covent
Garden, on account of its being in the original language, but I have met many
who have been dissatisfied by translation there and many more who avoid ENO on
account of its English-language policy.
No
one, so far as I am aware, is insisting that any company should never perform works in translation. The dogmatism
seems to be entirely on the other foot. Moreover, it seems a peculiarly
misplaced dogmatism, redolent, doubtless intentionally, of the wilder reaches
of UKIP, to insist on English in a city and, increasingly, a country in which
large swathes of the audience have other languages as their mother tongues. A
more democratic approach would arguably be to stage works (often, not necessarily
always) in the original, and to provide back-of-seat translations for those who
wish to see them in languages from English to French to Bengali, catering for
tourists and migrants alike. Expensive? Doubtless, but given the amount of
time, energy, and money spent on questionable ‘access’ schemes, I suspect it
would actually save money, as well as affording a more genuinely – as opposed
to ‘box-tickingly’ – welcoming experience.
To
those who claim that funding is and will always be contingent on linguistic ‘distinctiveness’,
it is difficult to respond otherwise than: ‘pull the other one’. The Arts
Council, or ‘Arts Council England’ as I suppose we must now call it, does not
fund a single symphony orchestra, even in London. There are plenty of other,
more relevant ways to offer operatic pluralism than to insist that it must be
through the medium of translation. (The Royal Opera, after all, does not always perform works in the
original.) There are plenty of works desperately deserving of staging which are
unlikely to be performed in the foreseeable future at Covent Garden. Be they
Baroque, contemporary, or even nineteenth-century (Die Feen, anyone?), there is plenty of room for distinctiveness in
that respect. There is likewise plenty of room with respect to staging. Despite
welcome changes under Kasper Holten’s directorship of the Royal Opera, one
would still hesitate to think of the company as offering much in the way of
what is more experimental; many of the great directors of our time, for
instance Calixto Bieito, Peter Konwitschny, or Hans Neuenfels, have still to
present work for the ROH. Two out of those three have at ENO, to widespread
acclaim; why not build upon such achievement? Christopher Alden's A Midsummer Night's Dream and David Alden's Peter Grimes showed the company at its superlative best, reassessing English works and ensuring that we should never think of them in the same way again.
Moreover,
there would be nothing wrong with having a certain emphasis, so long as it did
not tend to the parochial, upon English (or British) opera: a Blow to Birtwistle season,
interspersed with interesting new work would again appeal far beyond present audiences.
But let us not get hung up on the ‘English’ or ‘National’ part of the
organisation. What matters is great art, wherever it may come from. That goes
for works and performers alike. The last thing we want, surely, is to aid any
UKIP tendency in our cultural midst. ‘Fish and chips are served at this holiday
resort’ should be reserved for a Farage Hall offering ‘revivals’ of
antediluvian stagings with ‘pretty frocks’ and the like. The rest of us might
then be able to concentrate upon something more artistically worthwhile.
Ultimately,
and as with all generalisations there will be many exceptions to this, it seems
to me that part of the problem is generational. Many older audience members
think fondly of a time without surtitles, in which they savoured the apparently
perfect diction of Valerie Masterson, et
al. Quite apart from the usually-implied criticism of today’s artists – do we
really think that contemporary singers do not care about the words? – and even
apart from the tendency perhaps to remember the best of what they heard and not
the worst, or even the indifferent, that is not necessarily going to help us
today. The Coliseum remains an albatross for the company. Selling out such a
house is most likely an entirely unrealistic expectation for much interesting work.
Moreover, seats too far away from the stage offer distinct visual and aural
challenges. Were it possible to achieve, a move away from its West End ‘home’
might liberate ENO from the tyranny of a (too?) fondly remembered past, from
the building’s associations with ‘all must be in English’, and from the questionable
practice of placing two of the country’s – and let us remember that we are not
just dealing with London – opera companies so close to each other. Might not a
more flexible approach to venues in London, or indeed a more suitable London
home, combine with a greater willingness and ability to tour? (Few readers will
need reminding of the heroic efforts of English Touring Opera, often met with
very great success indeed in performance.)
And
if, as has sometimes been alleged, prevent that, the policies of funding bodies
then they need to be put right too. Relying upon outmoded dogmas of whatever stripe,
let alone upon mere sentimentality, will not secure a bright future for ENO. Thinking
of its future, not as inextricably
linked to ‘nights with Reggie’ at ‘the Coli’, but as a properly adventurous, cosmopolitan,
internationalist future might yet help. Much good work has been done in that
connection; I certainly do not need to imply any great novelty to what I am
suggesting. By all means honour the past, just as we do with old recordings, but it and they should never prevent new Masters - we shall soon have an ENO Meistersinger/Mastersinger - from coming forward. May the best be built upon, and that from which we have moved on –
which may well have worked wonderfully in a monoglot era before surtitles – at
the very least be called into question.
(With particular thanks to Hugo Shirley
and Anna Picard, since what I have said draws heavily on earlier conversation
with them.)
