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.

 

LPO/Nézet-Séguin - Haydn and Strauss, 24 November 2012

Royal Festival Hall

Haydn – Missa in Angustiis, ‘Nelson Mass’, Hob. XXII:11

Strauss – Ein Heldenleben, op.40

Sarah-Jane Brandon (soprano)

Sarah Connolly (mezzo-soprano)
Robin Tritschler (tenor)
Luca Pisaroni (bass-baritone)

London Philharmonic Choir (chorus master: Neville Creed)
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Yannick Nézet-Séguin (conductor)
 

Haydn’s settings of the Mass ought to be heard incessantly, in churches and in the concert hall. For reasons that elude me, they are not, even this, the so-called Nelson Mass, arguably the most celebrated of all, if only on account of his nickname. Indeed classical sacred music in general, Mozart’s included, with a very few obvious exceptions, is unaccountably neglected by most concert programmers. (When did you last hear Beethoven’s Mass in C major, op.86, any of Gluck’s sacred music, anything that was not a Mass setting from the Salzburg Mozart, or indeed any of the shorter liturgical works by Schubert?) Perhaps performers, audiences, bureaucrats alike still have the Whiggish canard that the Enlightenment was somehow concerned with secularisation seared into their incurious minds; if so, send them away with a copy of Ernst Cassirer’s venerable Philosophy of the Enlightenment in one hand and a good few scores or recordings in the other. In any case, let us hope that the London Philharmonic will programme more of this wonderful repertoire, especially if performed with such success as it was here, under Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

 

The ‘Kyrie’ plunged us immediately into a world of high liturgical, symphonic, well-nigh operatic, drama, the D minor tonality of Don Giovanni ringing in our ears. It was driven, but not too much; Nézet-Séguin knew where to yield too. The London Philharmonic Choir, here as elsewhere, shone, fullness of tone and precision in no sense antithetical. Sarah-Jane Brandon imparted the necessary note of wartime terror to the return of the ‘Kyrie’ material, form sharply delineated by Nézet-Séguin. A propulsive opening to the ‘Gloria’ shared that marriage of choral weight and transparency. It struck me, perhaps for the first time, how much Haydn’s writing for soprano against choir prefigures the ‘Hymn’ in The Creation, which lay, after all, just around the corner. The setting of the words ‘miserere nobis’ seemed to evoke Mozart – which of course in many senses it does, Haydn always keen to learn at the hands of the younger genius.

 

A particularly Haydnesque combination of Baroque sturdy figured bass, such as one always finds in his setting of the Creed (‘Tu es Petrus’) and Beethovenian symphonism characterised the opening section of the ‘Credo’. It was nicely shaded too, without fussiness. The cult of alte Musik furthered by Gottfried van Swieten, Viennese patron to Mozart and Haydn, as well as librettist (of sorts) for Haydn’s oratorios, was heard here for the inspirational influence it was: none of today’s mere antiquarianism (at best), but a vital force, informing performance and composition alike. Just listen to the words ‘et homo factus est’, Handel channelled via Haydn’s loving yet vigorous offices. The final section, like much of the rest of the faster material, was taken at a challenging tempo, or at least a tempo that would have proved challenging, had it not been for the excellence of orchestral and choral execution.

 

The ‘Sanctus’ was properly imploring, taken at a magnificently slow tempo, without the slightest hint of dragging. ‘Pleni sunt cœli...’ came as a thunderbolt of joy. A flowing contrast to both parts of that preceding movement was offered by a flowing ‘Benedicturs’. Militarism made its point, chillingly, yet commendably without the exaggeration one would most likely have endured from latter-day ‘authenticke’ freak-shows. Textures were clear and weighty (where necessary). Nézet-Séguin handled the ‘Agnus Dei’ with loving tenderness. Sarah Connolly offered excellent solo work at the opening, soon joined by her equally fine colleagues, Brandon, Robin Tritschler, and Luca Pisaroni. ‘Dona nobis pacem’ brought a wonderful, elating feeling of choral and orchestral release. Was anyone a more joyful contrapuntist – or homophonist! – than Haydn? As he is alleged to have said to a (slightly dubious) biographer, Giuseppe Carpani, ‘At the thought of God my heart leaps for joy, and I cannot help my music doing the same.’

 

Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben followed the interval. It is difficult to think of anything meaningful to connect the two works, so it was better approached simply as a contrast – which indeed it was. Nézet-Séguin and the LPO revelled in the opening kaleidoscope of colour, which sometimes, quite rightly, tended a little towards the phantasmagorically nauseous.  The LPO’s cellos shone particularly, horns (led by David Pyatt) here and elsewhere quite glorious. Strauss’s critics were properly carping; Pieter Schoeman’s violin solo offered a delectable ‘feminine’ contrast, clean but not clinical, sinuous but not cloying. It was an interesting reading taken as a whole: not overtly symphonic, yet by the same token certainly not without form. Rather, the latter seemed to emerge from the material, which is doubtless as it should be. (Not that there is just one way of that happening, of course.) Battle was instrumental in more than one sense, a battery of brass and percussion both impressing and amusing: Strauss the inveterate ironist. It was brutal, but in a toy soldiers’ sort of way. There were a few occasions when I thought Nézet-Séguin might have relaxed a little more, but that was certainly preferable to meandering, always a danger in this score. The difficulty of shooting’s one bolt too early – I am not even convinced that Karajan always showed himself innocent of that all-too-seductive mistake – was avoided completely: quite an achievement.