Così fan tutte, Royal Opera, 27 January 2012

Royal Opera House

Ferrando – Charles Castronovo
Guglielmo – Nikolai Borchev
Don Alfonso – Sir Thomas Allen
Fiordiligi – Malin Byström
Dorabella – Michèle Losier
Despina – Rosemary Joshua

Jonathan Miller (director)
Harry Fehr (revival director)
Jonathan Miller, Tim Blazdell, Andrew Jameson, Colin Maxwell, Catherine Smith, and Anthony Waterman (set designs)
Jonathan Miller and John Charlton (lighting)

Royal Opera Chorus (chorus master: Renato Balsadonna)
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Sir Colin Davis (conductor)

Ferrando (Charles Castronovo), Don Alfonso (Sir Thomas Allen), Guglielmo (Nikolai Borchev)
Image: Royal Opera/Johan Persson

In principle, there could be no better way of celebrating Mozart’s birthday than hearing Sir Colin Davis conduct Così fan tutte. It was certainly advisable to think of this performance from the standpoint of hearing two well-loved knights from British musical life: Davis, of course the world’s greatest living Mozartian, and Sir Thomas Allen, marking his fortieth year with the Royal Opera.

For Jonathan Miller’s production, always a tawdry slight upon this most ravishing and sophisticated of operatic masterpieces, has not improved with age. The ludicrous slapstick – in this of all works! – continues at best to irritate, not least given its effect upon sections of an extremely poorly-behaved audience. When not coughing, chattering, dropping items, reading the subtitles out aloud, or making strange oinking noises (the row behind me), far too many people seemed to find the appearance of mobile telephones intrinsically, indeed overpoweringly, hilarious, their selfishly prolongued guffaws well-night obliterating the magical strains of Mozart’s – and Sir Colin’s – orchestra. Designs for the most part now simply look dull, outlandish costumes representing an attempt to breathe life into a corpse that should be put out of our misery. (It is extraordinary to think that no fewer than six people, Miller included, are credited for the set designs. What could they all have been doing?) To take the most brazen example: why ever would the girls be interested in the hideous biker transformations to which Ferrando and Guglielmo are subjected? They are certainly unrecognisable, so the disguise at least has worked; yet, however fickle Fiordiligi and Dorabella may be, they would be in need of psychiatric attention to forget two handsome young men in favour of what is put in front of them. The only glimmer of a real idea – and it is, to be fair, an interesting one, partly to be attributed to Rosemary Joshua’s fine acting skills – is the final outcome for Despina, who appears genuinely troubled by what she has seen. Was this, though, the doing of revival director, Harry Fehr? I do not remember it from before, though that may simply be a matter of fallible memory. Enough of the production: I have probably dwelled too much on it in the past and have granted it far too great a benefit of the doubt. Let us proceed to the more congenial matter of the music.

Davis remains a master of this score. If he did not perhaps quite scale the heights of greatness I heard in 2007 – probably the best conducted Mozart opera I have ever heard – then it is difficult to conceive of anyone nearing, let alone matching, him. As so often, the overture gave a clue, its opening bars somehow both sensuous and magisterial, the unbearable lightness of being that followed a true and poignant opening to the work as a whole. There is often more than one answer to a puzzle of tempo, but Sir Colin’s wisdom ensured that we never realised there was a puzzle in the first place, every number so seemingly ‘natural’ both in pacing and progress that one could not imagine it being performed otherwise, and every number of course integrated into a greater whole. That is the key to this opera, both in music and drama: the highest artifice, expressed with the greatest ease. (Would that Miller had been listening.) The wind ravished, as they must, witnesses to the unspeakable pain that Mozart as musical dramatist inflicts upon us, more so, should we listen, than anything even in Wagner. There were a few occasions, however, when, in a house of this size, the excellent strings would have sounded even better had they been augmented. Paul Wynne Griffith’s witty, ever-musical harpsichord continuo proved a joy throughout, attesting as did Davis’s conducting to some of the truths voiced in David Syrus’s splendid programme note, ‘Interpreting Mozart Operas’. As Syrus, writes, ‘Directors don’t always welcome discussion of music when rehearsing recitative, and some prefer to treat the text as if it was as free for interpretation as a spoken play.’ How many times have we all suffered, as again here, from un-musical directors? And how greatly do we value directors such as Peter Konwitschny, and Stefan Herheim, who are musicians?

There was, quite rightly, an extended curtain call for our other musical knight, at which he was presented with a cake in honour of those forty years. The humanity of Sir Thomas Allen shone through both in his brief, typically modest response, and of course in his portrayal of Don Alfonso. (From my encounters, including an interview at Covent Garden, I can attest that every personal compliment paid him is if anything an understatement.) Allen held the stage as much through his visual as his musical assumption of the role: indeed, the two were quite properly indivisible. However many times he may have played Don Alfonso, the freshness is such that it might have been the first. He was, it must be said, equally fine in Salzburg, where he was blessed with a far superior production. Joshua’s Despina was a pleasure too: far removed from the frequent portrayal of a servant several years past her best. (One only has to read the libretto to be disabused of that strange notion.) As agile of voice as on stage, hers is a Despina to be savoured. Of Charles Castronovo, I am afraid I can only repeat, word for word, what I said of Matthew Polenzani last year in Paris: ‘… he sounded strangely miscast. “Un aura amoroso” received great applause, but this was an emoting delivery, vibrato disconcertingly wide, the all-too noticeable ‘effect’ of his mezza voce more appropriate to Puccini than to Mozart. It was almost Pavarotti-lite ...’ Così simply does not work – thank goodness – as La bohème. The contrast with the superlatively sensitive Egyptian cotton spun by the orchestra was stark, similarly with Malin Byström’s Fiordiligi. There were a few too many times when she failed to maintain her vocal line, and as for the attempt a crude sexual humour upon a trill… Whether her idea or the director’s, it has no place in Mozart. Nikolai Borchev’s Guglielmo and Michèle Losier’s Dorabella occasionally lacked the proper degree of Mozartian chiaroscuro, yet nevertheless had much to offer in musical sensitivity.

Mozart Unwrapped (3): Joshua/Aurora Orchestra/Collon, 9 March 2011

Hall One, Kings Place

Le nozze di Figaro, KV 492: Overture
‘Non più. Tutto ascoltai… Non temer, amato bene,’ KV 490
Symphony no.27 in G major, KV 199
Adagio and Fugue in C minor, KV 546
‘Bella mia fiamma, addio… Resta, o cara,’ KV 528
Symphony no.31 in D major, KV 297/300a, ‘Paris’

Rosemary Joshua (soprano)
Thomas Gould (violin)
Aurora Orchestra
Nicholas Collon (conductor)


Let me get my one real disappointment out of the way: Nicholas Collon opened this latest instalment in Kings Place’s ‘Mozart Unwrapped’ season with a breathless, hard-driven Figaro overture. It was very well played indeed by the Aurora Orchestra, even if the kettledrums boomed a little loudly in the Hall One acoustic. Yet in this, the overture to that most human of all comedies, it sounded as though the sole purpose was to despatch Mozart’s notes (too many?) as quickly as possible, the composer’s smiling replaced with an extended grimace.

Thereafter, however, Collon relaxed, and his uniformly excellent band of young musicians truly came into their own. Rosemary Joshua joined them for two items. The first was an insertion aria for Idomeneo, ‘Non più. Tutto ascoltai… Non temer, amato bene’. From the opening of Mozart’s rich recitativo accompagnato, the orchestra pulsated with Gluckian drama. Wonderfully ripe woodwind distinguished themselves. There was, moreover, fine flexibility on display from orchestra and soloist. Leader Thomas Gould, who had distinguished himself in an earlier concert as concerto soloist, provided silvery violin obbligato. Joshua stood quite beyond reproach in terms of clarity of line, diction, and delivery of coloratura. It was a little odd, during the recitative, to hear her assume the roles of both Ilia and Idamante, but that was not her fault. ‘Bella mia fiamma, addio! … Resta, o cara,’ is a bona fide concert aria. If anything, it proved even finer. Flexibility was once again commendable, as was the genuine pathos Joshua brought to the vocal part. Mozart’s chromaticisms here are as erotic and as threatening of tonal disintegration as anything in Tristan und Isolde; however, they held no fear for our soloist. The final climax was impressively and expressively despatched.

Surrounding that aria in the concert’s second half were the great C minor Adagio and Fugue for strings, and the Paris Symphony. The former’s Adagio was given a rhetorical account, in which rests were truly made to tell. It is not the only way to perform the music, and I could not help hankering a little after the majesty of Karajan (especially in Vienna); nevertheless, the strings dug deep in a performance that sounded closer to chamber than orchestral music. The fugue had more than a hint of Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge, not least in the threat of disjuncture: nothing comfortable here. The Paris Symphony was, of course, written for a much bigger orchestra than the Aurora, something about which the ‘authenticists’ tend to remain silent, but there is no need to be fundamentalist: in a small hall, a small orchestra can work well. The first movement benefited from not being rushed; again, it was somewhat rhetorical in tone, but never irritatingly so. There were several instances of illuminating musical detail, not least the development’s clarinet imitation of the celebrated opening coup d’archet. The slow movement – Mozart’s original, as is usually performed – was pleasant, if not always probing. And one could forgive the driven nature of the finale, for it was despatched in style. This is, after all, Mozart showing off to the Parisians, and revelling in the skill of the great orchestra of the Concert Spirituel. As ever, the players of the Aurora Orchestra delivered with verve.

For me, however, the earlier performance of the G major symphony, no.27, was finer. During the opening movement, great care was taken with varieties of articulation, without descending into fussiness. Mozart, one sensed, as in the later Paris Symphony, was relishing the delights of the orchestra, albeit a smaller band. Minor mode vehemence was present in the development without the grotesque exaggeration that disfigures so many ‘period’ accounts. Above all, there was that truly Mozartian joy that had been remarkable by its absence in the Figaro overture. The second repeat was taken: unnecessary perhaps, but one could understand why the players might have wanted to give us the music again. Andantino grazioso was not an inappropriate marking for what we heard in the slow movement: it was certainly graceful, and if the walk was a little on the brisk side, it never turned into a canter. Rhythms were nicely sprung, and the quiet passages truly made one listen. The fugal opening of the finale is a rare case of Mozartian awkwardness: it seems unmotivated, though the later fugal treatment works much better, even seeming prophetic of mature masterpieces. It was brilliantly performed, the violins in particular truly scintillating. Quite properly, the opera house never sounded distant.

The Rake's Progress, Royal Opera, 22 January 2010

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

Trulove – Jeremy White
Anne Trulove – Rosemary Joshua
Tom Rakewell – Toby Spence
Nick Shadow – Kyle Ketelsen
Mother Goose – Frances McCafferty
Baba the Turk – Patricia Bardon
Sellem – Graham Clark
Madhouse Keeper – Jonathan Coad

Robert Lepage (director)
Sybille Wilson (revival director)
Carl Fillon (set designs)
François Barbeau (costumes)
Etienne Boucher (lighting)
Boris Firquet (video)
Michael Keegan Dolan (choreography)
Rachel Poirer and Milos Galko (revival choreography)

Royal Opera Chorus (chorus master: Stephen Westrop)
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Ingo Metzmacher (conductor)

First time around, I had rather liked Robert Lepage’s production of The Rake’s Progress, writing: ‘Lepage made a good case for the updating to 1950s America, for instance through his mention of Stravinsky's great interest in the new medium, delineation of Hollywood's 'false historicism', and citation of an essay in which Auden made clear his opposition to naturalism. The best case, however, was on stage, in which one was perfectly at liberty to consider the parallels between the setting and its original form, yet without feeling unduly constrained.’ A little later, I quoted Lepage saying that he had not ‘“set out to make a piece of social criticism, so the political and social dimension to the production has arisen through choices that seemed right to me”. This is interesting, since the political and social dimension came across strong and clear. Today's “celebrity”-fuelled culture, we were reminded, is in many respects nothing new, although it may somehow be even more vacuous than it once was. Hollywood and advertising, as we saw on stage, pursued this cult from the very earliest years, and the figure of Baba the Turk reminds us that notoriety was a great selling-point - literally - during the eighteenth century too. What could be more Hogarthian, post-war, or contemporary than setting off to the City in search of riches and losing them - and much else in the process?’

What, then, had changed? First, I suspect that the production itself is subject to diminishing returns. The Hollywood trappings – Nick Shadow filming, Tom Rakewell’s trailer, the swimming pool and so on – do not seem to offer up any more upon a second viewing. The loss of London grated rather more than it had, since the replacement did not seem adequate, an especially unfortunate moment coming during the third act when it was suggested that Tom had fled ‘to America’. Had he ever been away? Second, the revival direction seemed to me significantly less sharp than the original. Social criticism might not have been intentional the first time around, but it shone through nevertheless. Here, one wondered whether Hollywood were being enjoyed for its own sake; there was certainly little if any hint of McCarthyism. And third, the audience really did not help. Expecting anything much from the greater part of a Covent Garden audience is doubtless foolish, but this seemed to be an especially unimaginative, uncomprehending bunch. Applause and laughter could be heard all over the place, sometimes at the most truly inopportune moments. (What on earth was amusing about the graveyard scene?) The multiple alienations Stravinsky, Auden, and, one might at least have hoped, the production set before us went as pearls before swine; a friend of mine heard someone next to her exclaim that ‘the show’ reminded him of Hello, Dolly! Many of the people, moreover, would appear to have been deaf – rendering opera an eccentric choice for their evening’s ‘entertainment’ – since they could not even hear when numbers came to a close, applauding some time beforehand, sometimes whistling too (?!). These people, apparently determined to show off however much they have paid for their tickets, do not seem prepared even to attempt to think, and lessen the experience for the rest of us.

The musical performances varied. Patricia Bardon once again proved a strong Baba, touching in a way one rarely experiences, a trouper of the old school. (Stephanie Blythe had pulled out, likewise the anticipated Kate Royal as Anne Trulove.) There was nothing one could reasonably complain about in Kyle Ketelsen’s Nick, but he seemed to take time to warm up. Certainly by the second act, and then especially during the graveyard scene, he seemed properly possessed by the demon and his demons. Rosemary Joshua seemed to me a considerably stronger Anne than Sally Matthews had: purity of voice and character did not this time entail an inability to make her words tell, far from it. Graham Clark’s Sellem was more character actor than singer; his voice faltered alarmingly more than once. But sadly, the principal disappointment was Toby Spence’s Tom. There is a degree of blankness to the character, I appreciate, yet I was surprised nevertheless by Spence’s woodenness. The developmental aspect I noted to Charles Castronovo’s portrayal in 2008 was considerably less apparent. Moreover, there were times when the vocal line was not nearly so well shaped as it might have been. Choral singing improved, but was disturbingly unfocused in Mother Goose’s brothel.

Ingo Metzmacher’s account of the score ultimately proved puzzling, almost a mirror-image of that of Thomas Adès, whose conducting had proved the major drawback a year-and-a-half ago. There was much greater bite to the first two acts, a proper Stravinskian desiccation, which both repels and fascinates. For this, the fine form of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House must be credited. I longed for greater warmth – but that is just as it should be. To give in would be to risk collapse of the neo-classical conceit. However, the Bedlam Scene proved interminable, weirdly sentimentalised. Clearly a contrast was being drawn, but I wish it had not been, since much of the earlier good work was undone. Nothing though could quite detract from the brilliance of the graveyard scene, where Stravinsky achieves the near-impossible in harpsichord writing that does not make one long for the piano. Is this the mask dropping? It is probably just another mask, but at least the question is posed.