Coliseum
(sung in English)
Hermann – Peter Hoare
Count Tomsky – Gregory DahlPrince Yeletsky – Nicholas Pallesen
The Countess – Dame Felicity Palmer
Lisa – Giselle Allen
Pauline – Catherine Young
Chekalinsky – Colin Judson
Surin – Wyn Pencarreg
Chaplitsky – Peter van Hulle
Narumov – Charles Johnston
Governess – Katie Bird
David Alden (director)
Gideon Davey (designs)
Wolfgang Goebbel (lighting)
Lorena Randi (choreography)
Oh dear! What a maddeningly
inconsistent director David Alden is. Or is he maddeningly consistent, his
productions suiting some works, or perhaps better, some swathes of the
repertoire, better than others? His ENO
Peter Grimes was a brilliant
reassessment of a work that is weaker than partisans allow; it engaged with
Britten’s opera at a level deeper than most have dared. This Queen of Spades barely engages with
Tchaikovsky’s opera at all. I cannot help but conclude that high Romanticism –
call it what one will – is really not Alden’s thing. He exhibits no sympathy
for any of the characters, nor for their predicament. He seems to have no interest
in the plot, not even to deconstruct it. All we have is a tiresome parade of
clichés, as if designed to rouse the ire of operatic ‘conservatives’ and
nothing more. Dark glasses, piles of chairs, flippantly unmotivated cross-dressing, a
ragbag assemblage of costumes from different periods (the Kruschchev era (?)
meets something older, though not of course Tchaikovsky’s brand of Mozartiana,
and with no real sense of interplay), a hospital ward, extras who are not
extras but are treated as such until they are not, party guests with animal
masks: all these and more put in their mandatory appearances. Contemptuously tossed
bank notes might make a point, but it is all but drowned under the frenetic,
meaningless goings on. Is there a hint that the Countess is a gay icon, even a
drag queen? Perhaps, but it is taken no further. And why does the clock never
reach twelve, even when we are told that it does? This audience member was long
past caring. My fear was that everything lay in Hermann’s – or rather Alden’s –
tortured, or careless, mind. What a novel idea! If you despise the opera and
everything surrounding it quite so much, if you really think it so clichéd that
you have nothing to add beyond further cliché, might there not be a degree of
integrity in leaving it to the care of another director?
The orchestra, however,
sounded terrific, as it generally does now, especially under Edward Gardner.
Precision, weight, delicacy: all were present. If only Gardner’s prowess as an
orchestral trainer were matched by insight into the score. His conducting was
often stiff, save when he accelerated too quickly. There were moments of
repose, not least in the realm of Mozartian parody (which Gardner clearly
esteems more highly than Alden), but there was little to indicate a longer
line. Continuity was fractured less than on stage, but Tchaikovsky needs more
than that. The chorus was on fine form too, its virtues – and its acting,
however misplaced – every inch the equal of the orchestral performance.
ENO also offered a splendid
cast. Peter Hoare proved an unusually thoughtful Hermann, his detailed
attention to the text (that is, to words and
music) exemplary throughout. Giselle Allen’s Lisa provided a near-ideal
mixture of, or perhaps better confrontation between, coldness and warmth; her
confidante, Pauline (Catherine Young) mirroring and to an extent extending such
qualities on her smaller scale. What on earth Alden was thinking of in her
case, I hardly dare consider. Felicity Palmer retains the most formidable star
quality; her Grétry aria was as moving as anything we heard. For once, a degree
of stillness! The richness of Nicolas Pallessen’s baritone proved a welcome
luxury in the role of Prince Yeletsky. Despite the absurdities of the
production at large, there was always a proper sense of interaction between all
on stage; almost all excelled. What a pity, then, that the director seemed
determined to undermine, even to negate, such manifest virtues.
