Oberon, Proms, 6 August 2026

Royal Albert Hall

Oberon – Nicky Spence
Reiza – Jennifer Davis
Sir Huon – John Findon
Sherasmin – Yannick Debus
Fatima – Rachael Wilson
Puck – J’Nai Bridges
Mermaids – Charlotte Bowden, Jessica Cale

Narrator – Tamsin Greig
Emma Doherty (stage director)

Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique
Monteverdi Choir (chorus-master: Richard Wilberforce)
Mark Elder (conductor)

What to do with Oberon? Staging it ‘as is’ – or ‘was’ – is barely an option, though it would be far from without interest for those of us who care deeply about its music. Even if we resolved, as well we might, never to see it again like that, we should have gained a greater sense of its conception. The problem lies squarely with James Robinson Planché’s English libretto for Covent Garden, a product of taste (or lack thereof) and time rather than straightforward incompetence, and in its way an object of fascination, yet hardly enough for someone to take the plunge. It lies of course more broadly with the state of English opera at the time. Even if we were to avoid value judgements, taste and expectation are so utterly removed from ours – far more so than, say, eighteenth-century opera seria at the height of its alienation from a Romantically inclined public – that it will not happen. 

Value judgement, moreover, is pretty much impossible to avoid in this case. However much I may attempt to resist temptation – in truth, not so very much – I shall eventually end up quoting Donald Tovey, so may as well do so here. For this strange spin-off from Wieland and Shakespeare, perhaps lost in translation yet also at least a window on a Romantic window on traditions and conceptions that are not ours, Weber ‘poured his last and finest music into this pig-trough’. Or as Clive Brown, only a little more diplomatically, wrote in the New Grove: ‘It is a remarkable testimony to Weber’s operatic genius that, notwithstanding the unmitigated awfulness of its libretto, Oberon has maintained a toe-hold in the repertory. To a very considerable extent he was able to compensate for triviality and inconsequence in the libretto by skilful musical treatment.’ It is not simply the quality of the libretto, though, but the nature of the ‘work’ to which the composer was obliged to contribute. In the words of him who, advancing consumption notwithstanding, had hurriedly and with marked success learned his English lessons in order to provide for his family: ‘The intermixing of so many principal actors who do not sing, the omission of the music in the most important moments – all these things deprive our Oberon the title of an opera, and will make him unfit for all other Theatres in Europe; which is a very bad thing for me, but – passons la dessus.’ 

So, what to do? Or rather, what was done here in this semi-staging – perhaps closer to ‘concert staging’, though the boundaries are as porous as for opera, semi-opera, Singspiel, etc. – from the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras (here in Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique guise)? In a resourceful conception of its own, brought to the Proms rather than conceived by it, the orchestra formed the centre-piece around which Emma Doherty’s direction of the singers took place. Oberon’s horn, seen and heard first from the organ loft, later from its own solo spot onstage, rightly took its place as fons et origo of the action. There was a good deal of activity, running- on and offstage and even, in one case for Sir Huon and Sherasmin, lost en route to rescue Reiza, on the arena. The fate of near-eternal gardening prior to reunion of our pairs of lovers, was illustrated with watering cans and so on. It did not take itself too seriously, but nor did it merely send things up or wallow in self-regard. 

Would that I might say the same for Timothy Knapman’s new English narration, replacing Planché’s dialogue. It was not his fault that many characters simply disappeared from the stage; imagine, say, an Entführung without Bassa Selim. Nor was it necessarily a bad idea to condense those aspects of the action into verse narration. The all-too-obvious quotations from Shakespeare, forced rhymes – readily amused members of the audience laughing some time before their delivery on account of surtitle pre-emption – and general air of facetiousness quickly grew wearing. True, something had to substitute for what would – should – have been theatrical spectacle. It would have been lovely to have had some of that, in some sense reimagined, but that was never on the cards. But there is a line between not taking oneself too seriously and not taking anything seriously at all. One might have been tempted to ask: why bother at all?

Fortunately, Weber and his performers prevented one asking that, and ensured audience gratitude for what is, after all, a rare opportunity. (Covent Garden was due to stage the work a few years ago, but unceremoniously withdrew. My sole previous live encounter was an enterprising performance from New Sussex Opera in 2014.) Bar a couple of highly noticeable occasions when string tuning went horribly awry, the ORR played beautifully. Under Mark Elder’s guidance, the orchestra had none of the inflexibility and astringency forced upon it – and us – by its founding conductor, departed to fight (literally) other battles elsewhere. Accustomed to modern instruments, my ears took a little time to adjust, but Elder and the orchestra brought a lovely intimacy to musical proceedings, feather-light, gossamer intimations of Mendelssohn, equally germane recollections of The Magic Flute and Die Entführung, and more than occasional foreshadowings of Wagner all part of a rich historical mix nonetheless centred upon Weber’s particularity. It was arguably a little too introspective at times, a little too loved by Elder; but if so, that was a fault in the right direction. For herein lay genuine love for the opera less in evidence from narrative condescension. 

This was, moreover, a performance in the best sense considerate to a fine cast of singers that was yet not, for the most part, Wagnerian as we understand the term. As Oberon, at least in this version, Nicky Spence has relatively little to do, but did it well—and with undeniable sense of theatre. His fellow tenor John Findon had considerably more on his plate as Sir Huon of Bordeaux, and rose to Weber’s challenges with winning ease. So too did Jennifer Davis, of course very much a Wagnerian, in the parallel role of Reiza. Both gave spirited and subtle performances that made the most of the dramatic opportunities this particular brand of staging could provide. Much the same might be said of the ‘lesser’ couple – think Papageno and Papagena, albeit with greater balance in their minutes of music – of Yannick Debus as Sherasmin and Rachael Wilson as Fatima: both animated, and stylish throughout, Wilson offering a touching, lovelorn ‘A lonely Arab maid’. With a lovely mermaid duet (Charlotte Bowden and Jessica Cale), all the more bewildering without much in the way of context, a spirited J’Nai Bridges as Puck, and a fine collection of soloists in their own right from the Monteverdi Chori, the score and some at least of its context were brought vividly to life. Tamsin Greig, moreover, delivered her narration with collaborative ease and the keenest ear for verse. As in any ‘version’ of the work, content was not the responsibility of the performers. 

Had Weber lived to return to Germany, he would almost certainly have revised the opera for its stages, introducing recitative and doing away with some of its more problematic aspects. (Hearing it in German translation, however inauthentic on a literalist level, is in aesthetic terms a great improvement.) Maybe some day, someone will offer us Planché’s 1860 revision in Italian (by then, more to the taste of opera-going London). Mahler’s version, which I have never heard in the theatre, probably offers the best way forward in German, treating us not only to the revision of one of the opera house’s greatest animating forces, but also to Mahler’s own extension of Weber’s material for transitional music. But there are worse things than a work that confounds possibilities for performance. (So too, in different ways, do many others—Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron included.) This was a valiant attempt, offering a proper degree of bewitchment. Now where is Euryanthe?

Oberon, New Sussex Opera, 25 November 2014

Cadogan Hall

 

 

Oberon – Adam Tunnicliffe

Puck – Siân Griffiths

Sir Huon – Adrian Dwyer

Sherasmin – Damian Thantrey

Reiza – Sally Silver

Fatima – Carolyn Dobbin

Five Fairies – Nisha McIntyer-Burnei, Beatrice Monaco, Michael Diamini, Rachel Farago, Rachel Shouksmith

 

 

Harry Fehr (director)

Charlie Lucas (lighting)

Victoria Newlyn (choreography)

 

 

St Paul’s Sinfonia

New Sussex Opera Chorus

Nicholas Jenkins (conductor)

 

What on earth to do with Oberon, Weber’s last opera, written – are you listening, the Royal Opera? – for Covent Garden? Many consider it to contain his greatest music. I am not sure I should go so far; or, perhaps better, the genre with which Weber was lumbered, made it simply impossible for the music to tell as it should. If we think that Purcell had it bad with the dreadful mess of ‘semi-opera’, at least he had Dryden, although, as Sir Donald Tovey put it, ‘Our first and greatest man of genius in dramatic music was … condemned to inaugurate a tradition whereby English opera consisted of music that merely added a series of lyric and spectacular digressions to a play which, if good at all, would be better without the digressions.’ Weber, alas, had James Robinson Planché, whose libretto for Oberon for Tovey ‘represents an advance on [semi-opera] … inasmuch as the play would not be better without the digressions,’ thus leading up to what, regrettably, remains an unforgettable and largely unarguable claim: Weber ‘poured his last and finest music into this pig-trough.’ A sequel to A Midsummer Night’s Dream might seem ill-advised at the best of times; this, however, was certainly not the best of times.

 

 

And so, it was a brave and highly laudable decision for New Sussex Opera to stage Oberon. Nothing, I am afraid, can begin to redeem the libretto, whose lack of dramaturgical coherence is truly a thing of wonder. (One is almost left wishing that England had truly been a Land ohne Musik at the time.) Considering a roughly comparable – and far from un-problematical – work, Schubert’s Fierrabras, does not help; but then nothing can, save perhaps for the deconstructionist reimagining production of one’s dreams. Neuenfels or Herheim perhaps? That, of course, is not what we have, or could have have, here. Harry Fehr has limited resources and for the most part elects to play things straight, save, perhaps for some dubious – or dubiously executed? – choreography. Dress is more or less ‘modern’ but not really in the service of any particular ‘concept’. Chairs are perhaps over-used; waving them around to depict a storm seemed on the verge of exhausting some members of the chorus. A few sheets might have done the job better. But Fehr’s is clearly a thankless task and the contours of the drama, such as it is, register clearly enough.

It was a great pity that the orchestra could not have been augmented. (Might not some amateur string players have been found?) A string section of 4.2.2.2.1, even in a smallish hall, is bound, with the best will in the world, to sound undernourished at times for Weber’s score. That said, the players of St Paul’s Sinfonia for the most part responded admirably to Nicholas Jenkins’s sensitive, keenly dramatic traversal. Flexible and cultivated, with plenty of direction: his was a reading worthy both of Weber and of the gamble the company had made in mounting the enterprise. I should be keen to hear more of the conductor in such and indeed other repertoire.

The chorus had some shakier moments but for the most part acquitted itself well, summoning up a good, full sound for the close. Soloists did their best to bring to life the ‘characters’. Adrian Dwyer showed no sign of tiring from the difficult demands of the tenor hero, Sir Huon, offering creditable nobility of tone throughout. Sally Silver coped very well indeed with the loss of a monitor at the beginning of the second act, leaving her unable to see the conductor at all during ‘Ocean! Thou mighty monster!’ If her intonation was not always perfect, slips did not unduly distract, and she again invested the role with a dignity it perhaps does not entirely deserve. Carolyn Dobbin proved a lively Fatima, drawing one in as much as one could reasonably expect. Adam Tunnicliffe’s Oberon sounded destined – and I hope it will be – for a larger hall or theatre. Most importantly, then, we had a good opportunity to experience this opera ‘live’, for which thanks and congratulations should go to New Sussex Opera.