Tosca, English National Opera, 3 October 2016

Coliseum

(sung in English)

Tosca (Keri Alkema), Spoletta (Scott Davies), and Scarpia (Craig Colclough)
Images: Richard Hubert Smith

Floria Tosca – Keri Alkerna

Mario Cavaradossi – Gwyn Hughes Jones
Baron Scarpia – Craig Colclough
Cesare Angelotti – Andri Björn Róbertsson
Sacristan – Adrian Powter
Spoletta – Scott Davies
Sciarrone – Graeme Danby
Gaoler – Robert Winslade Anderson
Shepherd Boy – Alessandro MacKinnon
 

Catherine Malfitano (director)

Donna Stirrup (revival director)
Frank Peter Schlössman (set designs)
Gideon Davey (costumes)
David Martin Jacques, Kevin Sleep (lighting)
 

Chorus of the English National Opera (chorus master: James Henshaw)

Orchestra of the English National Opera
Oleg Caetani (conductor)

 

Poor Puccini. He is far too often treated as a ‘box-office hit’ by our ‘major’ opera houses, at least in Anglophone countries. For so consummate a musical dramatist, that is something beyond a pity. Here in London, one is far better advised to go to Holland Park for interesting, intelligent productions, although ENO’s offerings have often had something to be said for them. Catherine Malfitano’s production once had a somewhat literalistic yet straightforward integrity to it; now it seems simply to flounder. When I saw it previously, in 2011, the Personenregie at least proved generally accomplished; here it veers (too little rehearsal time for a revival, perhaps?) between the non-existent and the all-too-local am-dram. The lack of any discernible concept thus matters far more than previously it did. We simply have sets and costumes and wandering around. Quite why the Sacristan looks as though he comes from Shoreditch-cum-Kandahar I have no idea. Nor do I understand the weirdly inter-galactic backdrop for the third act. The rest – well, the rest is unobjectionable, yet nothing more.

Cavaradossi (Gwyn Hughes Jones) and Tosca

The ENO Orchestra, as usual, was on excellent form. Oleg Caetani summoned up some luscious sounds, especially in the third act, although I found the first act a little jocular in tone. There was, in general, a reasonable sense of line, although Caetani fell some way short of the more distinguished ‘symphonic’ realisations. (No, it is not really quite the right word, but we all know what it means in this context.) Greater variegation would also have been welcome; I never felt Caetani was engaging with anything other than the score’s (impressive) surface. Choral singing was also of a high standard; let us never forget the sterling work the chorus undertakes day in, day out.

It was not, however, a vintage night for solo singing. Keri Alkerna offered an alert performance in the title role, but it rarely caught fire until the second act, and only intermittently then. Gwyn Hughes Jones clearly has quite a following at the Coliseum. Although he certainly has vocal heft, I was unable to discern much beyond that in his Cavaradossi: his singing was generalised – far too often a problem in this role, I have found – and his acting at best rudimentary. Craig Colclough’s underpowered Scarpia came across in strangely camp fashion, at least on those occasions when his voice rose above the orchestra and/or chorus. I am all for revisionist readings, but pantomime villain faces are not a satisfactory substitute for true malevolence. The smaller roles, however, tended to impress, Andri Björn Róbertsson’s Angelotti, Scott Davies's Spoletta, and young Alessandro MacKinnon’s Shepherd Boy were all especially well presented.

There was nothing bad here, then, but nor was there much over which to rejoice. Next time, might we have something that engages with the dramatic possibilities of the work, rather than pandering to the reactionary ‘taste’ of an imaginary ‘general’ audience? The Arts Council has behaved disgracefully towards ENO, but timidity never helped anyone, and it certainly does not help Puccini.

 

Tosca, Royal Opera, 10 May 2014

Royal Opera House

Cesare Angelotti – Michel de Souza

Sacristan – Jeremy White

Mario Cavaradossi – Roberto Alagna

Floria Tosca – Oksana Dyka

Baron Scarpia – Marco Vratogna

Spoletta – Martyn Hill

Sciarrone – Jihoon Kim

Shepherd Boy – Michael Clayton-Jolly

Gaoler – Olle Zetterström

Jonathan Kent (director)

Andrew Sinclair (revival director)

Paul Brown (designs)

Mark Henderson (lighting)

Royal Opera Chorus and Extra Chorus (chorus master: Renato Balsadonna)

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Oleg Caetani (conductor)

 

Scarpia (Marco Vratogna) and Tosca (Oksana Dyka)
Copyright: ROH/Catherine Ashmore

 

 

All in all, a dispiriting evening, this. Jonathan Kent’s 2006 staging of Tosca, revived again, as last year (!), by Andrew Sinclair, certainly does not reveal greater subtleties of meaning with further acquaintance. Indeed, it makes little or no attempt at conveying meaning at all, be it subtle or otherwise. There is nothing wrong in principle with setting the work when and where specified in the libretto, just as there is nothing wrong with reimagining it, though an over-exposed opera such as this more or less cries out for some element of rethinking. But irrespective of the relatively unimportant question of setting, there needs to be something, or rather a great deal, more to a production than that. Not only is there no sense, as I wrote last time, of dialogue between Puccini’s time, our own, and the time at which the opera is set; there sadly is no sense of drama beyond the gunshots in the third act. Paul Brown’s large scale sets might have imparted a welcome impression of menace, of claustrophobia, but again they could hardly do that on their own. I have no idea how much or how little rehearsal was permitted, but interaction between the singers was often so rudimentary as to suggest none whatsoever (which cannot have been the case).

 

Roberto Alagna at least offered energetic commitment on stage, unlike his Tosca and Scarpia. Alagna’s first act was shaky vocally; indeed his opening suffered from wild intonation and vocal constriction. Later on, however, he improved, though cleaner lines would often have been welcome. Such matters are, however, partly a matter of taste, and on his own terms, the second and third acts were reasonably impressive. Alas, Oksana Dyka’s vibrato was so wide as often to encompass the best part a minor third; her acting skills on this occasion were well-nigh non-existent. Perhaps it was as well that she simply strolled off the battlement rather than attempting anything that would vaguely qualify as a ‘leap’, but it hardly made for much of a climax. Marco Vratogna’s Scarpia also suffered from dryness and constriction in the first act, proving more focused in the second. His acting, however, matched that of his Scarpia; would that the Carry On element of his demise had been born of irony. The smaller parts were generally well taken, however. If only we had seen and heard more from Michel de Souza’s dynamic Angelotti, Jeremy White's characterful, bumbling Sacristan, or Martyn Hill’s nasty Spoletta.

 

The orchestra played well enough, though the strings sometimes tended towards thinness. However, Oleg Caetani’s inconsistent conducting proved a considerable break upon the flowering or, more plainly, the progress of the score. He seemed undecided what he thought of it and therefore unable to make it cohere. The first act’s lack of sentimentality was to be welcomed, but instead it was brutalised; hard-driven rather than riven with menace. Phrasing throughout was short-breathed, instances of a longer line standing out awkwardly, given their lack of relation to what surrounded them. Alas, as with so much of what we saw and heard, what might have passed muster in a small, provincial theatre wedded to the repertory system simply was not good enough for a world stage, upon which this Tosca was presented as a major revival. All with ears to hear will have praised the Royal Opera House to the skies for its recent, superlative performances of Die Frau ohne Schatten; if a work which it performs so incessantly as Tosca is to be performed again any time soon, it needs to be done with similar care and attention. This spoke more of cynicism than of having ‘lived for art’.  

La bohème, English National Opera, 29 April 2013

The Coliseum

Marcello – Richard Burkhard

Rodlofo – Gwyn Hughes Jones
Colline – Andrew Craig Brown
Schaunard – Duncan Rock
Benoit, Alcindoro – Simon Butteriss
Mimì – Kate Valentine
Parpignol – Philip Daggett
Musetta – Angel Blue
Policeman – Paul Sheehan
Foreman – Andrew Tinkler

Jonathan Miller (director)

Natascha Metherell (revival director)
Isabella Bywater (designs)
Jean Kalman, Kevin Sleep (lighting). Chorus of the English National Opera (chorus master: Genevieve Ellis)

Orchestra of the English National Opera

Oleg Caetani (conductor)

 

This second revival of Jonathan Miller’s La bohème was the first time I had caught the production. Miller has often been over-praised, particularly by those ‘of a certain age’, apparently unaware or unwilling to accept that the world has moved on from the 1960s of their youth; indeed, Miller’s Royal Opera Così fan tutte is not simply bad, but one of the most objectionable stagings I have seen of anything. This Bohème, whilst hardly groundbreaking, does its job reasonably enough. For some reason, the action is updated to the Paris of the 1930s. Beyond imparting a certain cinematic quality – though not necessarily nearly so much as Miller and his designer, Isabella Bywater seem to think it does – it is not clear what is gained, but nor for that matter is a great deal lost. An individual’s fondness for the photography of George Brassaï does not in itself seem to me justification for a production, but anyway... The characters are for well directed on stage, for which revival director, Natascha Metherell should doubtless receive much of the credit. (Both Metherell and Miller appeared on stage to take a bow.) Occasionally, I wondered whether the action were a little too prey to domestification of the wrong way; the meeting between Rodolfo and Mimì is decidedly low-key, more akin to a neighbourhood watch meeting than an ignition of passion. However, the selfishness of ‘Bohemian’ youth comes across at least as strongly as I can recall upon other occasions: are not these boys to some extent playing at poverty, whilst Mimì’s suffering is the real thing?

 

Described in the publicity blurb as a ‘cast of young British talent’, that is for the most part what it is. I have little patience with those who castigate ENO – or Covent Garden, for that matter – for ‘failing to promote British artists’. The arts world has, let us be grateful, yet to capitulate to the insidious yet hysterical nationalism pervading much of our political class and media. What we want are singers, artists in general, who are good, and preferably more than that. With the exception of Gwyn Hughes Jones, we did pretty well. Though his Rodolfo improved somewhat during the third and fourth acts, and was not without sensitivity, there was too much that was simply crude, almost an allegedly ‘Italianate’ parody, or strangely faceless. The vacuum extended to stage presence too; it would have been well-nigh impossible to believe in him as a Romantic lead. Kate Valentine’s Mimì, on the other hand, was a credit to her and to ENO. Nobility of spirit was allied to sterling, necessary musical values of phrasing and tonal variegation. It was a delight to make the acquaintance of the charismatic American singer, the splendidly named Angel Blue (an exception in terms of nationality, but certainly not quality). She sang as well as she acted, holding the stage without effort, imparting both ‘artistic’ superiority to Musetta as singer and, increasingly, warm humanity to her as woman. Richard Burkhard’s Marcello impressed too, as did the excellently sung – and acted – Colline of Andrew Craig Brown and Schaunard of Duncan Rock. It was a pity that Simon Butteriss over-acted – ‘silly voice’ rather than expression of the text through singing – in the role of Benoit; maybe he was doing so under orders. A greater pity was the banality of Amanda Holden’s translation; making Puccini sound satisfactory in English is not the easiest of tasks, but too often, a tin ear revealed itself in the straightforward incompatibility of words and vocal line.

 

Oleg Caetani made a very welcome return to the Coliseum. His direction of the ENO Orchestra was splendid, rich in tone – sometimes, a little more, alla Daniele Gatti, would have been appreciated there, but then Gatti, last summer, had the Vienna Philharmonic – but above all, dramatically alert. Temptations to linger, to sentimentalise, were eschewed, without draining the drama of its lifeblood. Wagnerisms – I noticed some especially Tristan-esque progressions – and modernisms were not necessarily underlined, yet, given Caetani’s ear for balance and line, caught one’s ear nevertheless. I should love one day to hear a properly modernistic Bohème – or Tosca. This was not it, but refusal to play to the gallery, and underlining of solid, yet certainly not stolid, musical virtues proved a great relief for a work in which superficial gloss can all too readily hold sway. Choral singing and direction of the chorus also proved estimable throughout.