The Virtues of Things, Royal Opera, 2 May 2015 (world premiere)

Ellipsis (Fiona Kimm), Peg (Robyn Allegra Parton), Eames (Paul Curievici), Selby (David Stout)
Images; Stephen Cummiskey/ROH

Linbury Studio Theatre

Selby de Selby – David Stout

Ellipsis de Selby – Fiona Kimm

Peg de Selby – Robyn Allegra Parton

Eames – Paul Curievici

Dr Gravid – Richard Mosley-Evans

Bijan Sheibani (director)

Giles Cadle (designs)

Matt Haskins (lighting)

Aurora Orchestra

Richard Baker (conductor)

A good number of recent shorter operas, particularly those performed in this country, made a stronger impression with their libretti than their scores. Glare, performed in the Linbury just a few months ago, was a case in point; so, I think, was The Virtues of Things. The former work is highly plot-driven, more after the manner of a television drama than we tend to expect.; this is somewhat different, a welcome stab at a contemporary operatic comedy, but one whose words, by Sally O’Reilly, seem to get in the way of musical setting, which in turn, or perhaps even fundamentally, never seems able to free itself enough of those words. Maybe I am hopelessly outdated in thinking that a libretto should provide space for music and not attempt too much on its own, but this opera seems to offer some confirmation. The relationship between Wort and Ton has, of course, been the concern of many a treatise, and indeed a good few operas, but this work in three short acts, about eighty minutes in total, seemed rather too lengthy for its material. Capriccio it is not. I could not help but wonder whether it might have been better at about half the length, paired with another, contrasting work, as happened last year, in the first such collaboration between the Royal Opera, Aldeburgh, and Opera North: The Commission and Café Kafka.

A traditionalist prop-making company, the de Selby family Business, is imperilled by illness, Parabola having fallen ill (the same illness will soon strike the other senior designer, Ellipsis), and then by the visit of a technologically-minded freelance replacement, Eames. There are some interesting enough observations upon the nature of stagecraft; should one, for instance, start with something naturalistic and generalise, or the other way around? But the thrust eventually seems to concern significance, in a more or less semiological sense. Ellipsis – yes, the clue, it would seem, lies in the name – reacts in absurdly strong fashion to the props and their meaning. Increasingly, the family seems incapable of distinguishing between art and reality, snatches of different operas on which it has worked appearing and taking over, until all fall down – and a bemused Eames departs.

The problem, as hinted above, seems to be that there is little space left for music, or at least that little space is created by it. Matt Rogers’s score is perhaps at its strongest in the broader distinctions it offers, the quasi-bureaucratic tidiness of the first act gradually disintegrating in parallel to the family’s minds. Instrumentation – string quintet and wind quintet – puts one in mind of an ensemble approaching, although not quite reaching, that of, say, Schoenberg’s First Chamber Symphony, and indeed, in the excellence of performance offered by the Aurora Orchestra and Richard Baker, there is something of that brilliance. Was that a deliberate nod towards Schoenberg’s score in the first act, when ‘complexity’ was discussed; or was it just my imagination? I am genuinely not sure, though I was intrigued by the thought itself and by the ambiguity of my response. Otherwise, however, the setting remains, at least for my taste, a little too closely tied to the needs of the words, rarely if ever breaking free and thus offering the prospect of higher conflict and/or integration. It is difficult, moreover, to perceive anything much in the way of affection or consideration for voices. Again, the words, it seems, take precedence.

 

Within the frame of Bijan Sheibani’s sharp direction and Giles Cadle’s resourceful designs – an excellent, properly naturalistic workshop, transformed by the action and, at the end, by Matt Haskins's striking lighting of the opera, The Virtues of Things – the cast did an excellent job. David Stout’s steadfast, honourable traditionalist and Fiona Kimm’s increasingly unhinged, often scene-stealing Ellipsis vied against Paul Curievici’s splendid stage and vocal presence, Robyn Allegra Parton’s often-high yet sometimes challengingly low soprano veering towards the youthful attractions of the latter, at least earlier on. Richard Mosley-Evans’s quack doctor did a fine turn too. Diction was excellent throughout. I simply wish there had been more of interest in the vocal and indeed in much of the instrumental writing.


Further performances will take place at the Linbury (5. 6 May), the Britten Studio, Snape (9 May), and the Howard Assembly Room, Leeds (15 May).

Le nozze di Figaro, English National Opera, 25 October 2014

(sung in English, as The Marriage of Figaro)

Coliseum

Count Almaviva – Benedict Nelson

The Countess – Sarah-Jane Brandon

Susanna – Mary Bevan

Figaro – David Stout

Cherubino – Samantha Price

Marcellina – Lucy Schaufer

Doctor Bartolo – Jonathan Best

Don Basilio – Colin Judson

Don Curzio – Alun Rhys-Jenkins

Antonio – Martin Lamb

Barbarina – Ellie Laugharne

Two Girls – Ella Kirkpatrick, Lydia Marchione 

Fiona Shaw (director)

Peter McKintosh (designer)

Jean Kalman (lighting)

Kim Brandstrup (movement)

Ian William Galloway (video)

Chorus of the English National Opera (chorus master: Genevieve Ellis)

Orchestra of the English National Opera

Jaime Martin (conductor)

This first revival of Fiona Shaw’s Figaro production genuinely surprised me. Last time around, it proved, at least in terms of staging, a dismal failure; this time, it is considerably improved. Although there is still too much additional ‘business’ going on, that was toned down, and more often than not, something approaching the drama created by Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte, albeit neutered by a bizarre lack of receptivity to social tensions and by Jeremy Sams’s narcissistic translation, is permitted more or less to emerge. There are still, however, problems, too many problems. Do we really need people to don horns at so many points, in order to evoke a spirit of cuckoldry? More seriously, we certainly do not need the revolve to spin around so dizzyingly; and we still have no need of a strange excursion to the kitchen. Most seriously of all, Shaw continues to misunderstand the nature of this most sophisticated of comedies. She does not merely confuse comedy and the comic; she pushes it towards vulgar farce. Barbarina as drunkard and the Count with his trousers round his ankles are unedifying and, more to the point, entirely unnecessary spectacles. And yet, for reasons I am not entirely sure I can identify, the piece as a whole worked better than it had in 2011.

 

Perhaps that is a reflection of the ease with which the cast seemed to work together. Mary Bevan was the undoubted star of the show, hers a world-class Susanna, her singing as beautiful and as truthful as her acting. (If only we had been able to hear her in Italian!) David Stout’s Figaro made for a winning foil, and more than that in the fourth act, in which, quite rightly, he stood out against Shaw’s prevailing silliness. Unfortunately, the Almavivas were less impressive. There was little or nothing dangerous about Benedict Nelson’s Count, too much of a buffo figure, and on occasion worryingly thin of tone. Sarah-Jane Brandon’s Countess failed to engage one’s sympathies, her acting restricted to stock gestures, and more disturbingly, her vibrato too thick and her tuning too often awry. When one finally felt her role as agent of redemption, that was the orchestra’s doing rather than hers; her two arias seemed at best observed rather than experienced. (That is not, though, to excuse the appalling behaviour of those in the audience who applauded in the middle – yes, the middle! – of ‘Dove sono’, in the pause following ‘non trapassò?’ Would that I had had a machine gun at my disposal.) Lucy Schaufer made the very most of Marcellina, despite the loss of her aria. (Am I the only one to deplore the ‘traditional’ cuts in the final act?) This was as sharply observed and as vividly communicated a portrayal as I can recall, making use of the vernacular to such a degree as to come close to convincing a translation-curmudgeon such as I. Samantha Price’s Cherubino improved noticeably as the evening progressed, her success in presenting his awkwardness as a girl laudable indeed. Special mention should go to Martin Lamb’s thoroughly convincing Antonio: quite inside the role vocally and on stage.

 

Jaime Martin did a good job in the pit, with the ENO Orchestra generally on fine form: a far rarer thing for orchestras in Mozart than it should be. If there were occasions, most notably in the Overture, in which Martin pushed too hard, they remained the exceptions. Ebb and flow were in general nicely judged, likewise orchestral chiaroscuro. Mozart’s larger structures, such as the second act finale, were for the most part well-paced, those breakneck, would-be Rossini speeds that have become all too fashionable in certain quarters having no place here. One would hardly have expected the profundity of the late Sir Colin Davis, with a lifetime’s experience of the work, but Martin’s achievement in mitigating the worst excesses of Shaw’s production stands worthy of proper recognition.

 

Aurora Orchestra/Collon - Bach, St John Passion, 16 March 2013

Hall One, Kings Place

 

Evangelist: John Mark Ainsley
Christus: Roland Wood

Malin Christensson (soprano)

Iestyn Davies (alto)
Andrew Tortise (tenor)
David Stout (Pilate/bass)

Choir of Clare College, Cambridge

Aurora Orchestra

Nicholas Collon (conductor)

 

 

I hope readers will forgive me if I make this review relatively brief, the reason being that events outside the control of the performers, or indeed the hall, made it rather difficult to come to a conventional judgement concerning the performance. A good part of the second part fell under the shadow of an audience member apparently losing consciousness, collapsing, and receiving medical treatment, most of that going on, immediately next to my seat, whilst the performance continued. I mention that not to over-dramatise, and certainly not in any sense to complain, my thoughts being very much with the man concerned, but simply to explain why inevitably, I am not in the best position to go into great detail.

 

This was the first time I had heard the Aurora Orchestra in Baroque repertoire, though I have had quite a bit of Mozart from them and from Nicholas Collon. The swift tempo for the great opening chorus had me worried, as did the relative reticence of the strings, but my fears were confounded; tempi were, at least by present-day standards, remarkably unobjectionable, and more than that well-chosen. Nor was there for the most part a lack of flexibility such as one all too often hears now in this repertoire. The orchestra was very small (strings 4.4.3.2.1) – though doubtless the ayatollahs of one-to-a-part ‘authenticity’ would dissent – but Hall One at Kings Place is not a large space, and for the most part, it was only in making mental comparisons with great recorded performances such as those by Gunther Ramin, Eugen Jochum, and Richter that one keenly felt the loss. Likewise, though warmer string tone would at times have been desirable, there was commendably little of the hair-shirt to the performance. I am having to rely on the evidence of my ears, but it sounded to me as though some at least, perhaps all, of the violins were employing gut strings. Vibrato was mercifully not absent – a noteworthy feature in our Alice in Wonderland world of Bach performance. The woodwind were especially fine, every obbligato solo assumed with excellence of technique and feeling. Oliver Coates’s cello stood out from the continuo group and indeed as a superlative obbligato instrument.

 

The Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, offered fine performances, by turn angry and devotional, as text and role required. The turba choruses were vivid, the chorales heartfelt but clear-eyed. Diction, moreover, was thoroughly excellent. The tiny part of the Maid, taken by one of the choir members, was unfortunate in intonation, but otherwise there was little about which anyone might reasonably complain. John Mark Ainsley occasionally took his Evangelist to the limit of what might be desirably in terms of hectoring, but there was no doubting his commitment and understanding and, so long as one did not insist upon the mellifluous tones of an Ernst Haefliger, much by which to be moved. Roland Wood’s Christus was less individual, but well delivered, and that may indeed have been the point. He is not, after all, a ‘character’ in the conventional sense. All of the other soloists shone, Malin Christensson striking a fine balance between an almost operatic beauty of tone and attention to the text, likewise Iestyn Davies, the ‘operatic’ quality of whose outburst in the extraordinary ‘Es ist vollbracht!’ could hardly have been more arresting. (If I still find a counter-tenor more apt for Handel than Bach, still preferring the warmth of a mezzo or contralto, then that is arguably just a personal matter.) Andrew Tortise offered plangency and, again, detailed attention to the text, whilst David Stout’s baritone suggested a consolation consonant with that offered by the Aurora woodwind.    

 

That, then, is indicative of my experience, compromised though it was by events. It certainly augurs well for a December Aurora/Clare Mass in B minor. I wish, however, that the Kings Place website had not described the work as ‘Bach’s iconic St John Passion’. It is surely now time that that much-abused word be proscribed until further notice, if only so that it might regain a little meaning.