Miller and Lehnhoff Reviving Revivals

Equally interesting and satisfying were the revivals of Jonathan Miller’s hilarious take on Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado and of Nikolaus Lehnhoff’s Parsifal.

I cannot let them pass without noting that John Tomlinson played Gurnemanz in English for the very first time, a role he first played in German in the 1990s. Every word was clear, his singing was wonderful, and he made of what is potentially the most boring character in all of opera a deeply impressive, fascinating and sympathetic man, conveying also the story of the Grail as compellingly as if you were sitting around a campfire one night listening to an old sage.

The singing of all the cast was superb. Stuart Skelton sang brilliantly the part of Parsifal, the ‘innocent fool’ who revitalises the Grail Knights’ moribund, moralistic world through the power of his human compassion; and Jane Dutton, was a compelling Kundry.  I have some quibbles about the production (I would like the transformations back, please) but essentially this was an exceedingly  intelligent as well as dramatically and musically strong Parsifal.

 The Mikado, the famous Jonathan Miller production being now revived for its 25^th anniversary, is still hilarious. It’s also timely and was good to see again after the recent and special Elixir of Love that Miller directed for the ENO last year.

What I like about Jonathan Miller is that he always interprets what the composer or author actually gives him; he always illuminates what is truly in the text, whether we notice it there before or not; and he never simply imposes some idiosyncratic vision. However idiosyncratic things appear to be when the curtain first goes up (Rigoletto in 1950s New York, Elixir in 1950s Nevada) Miller justifies the concept as the evening goes on and you “get” the opera in new ways that really work.  He also knows how to stage things so that the singers can actually sound their best.

Miller just gets better and better and his productions age well. Is Jonathan Miller perhaps the most under-rated great director produced by the UK in recent memory? Or does that award go to Elijah Moshinsky? Despite Miller’s successes, no one seems to quite acknowledge how versatile he is and how much he tends to illuminate, with complete ease, any opera or play he undertakes.

A New Violin Star is Born

The Warners Classical label is developing a new violin superstar – Charlie Siem. I first heard him in London when he was a mere teenage prodigy a few years ago and I must say that his first CD announces the arrival of someone to keep listening out for. It is a collection of virtuoso dazzlers such as Waxman’s Carmen Fantasie and Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen, played with both dash and intelligence, and a stunningly controlled and rich tone. The accompaniment by Caroline Jaya-Ratnam is sensitive. A disc, then, that is a pure pleasure today and a promise of much more to come. It is musically exciting and utterly charming.

Have a look and listen here.

The Creature Takes to the Stage

One of the best theatre pieces in London at the moment is Danny Boyle’s Frankenstein. It has been praised elsewhere copiously, especially for the casting of Jonny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch alternating in the roles of Dr Frankenstein and the Creature. It deserves all its high praise. It somehow conveys the moral questioning and deeper philosophical concerns of the original Mary Shelley novel. With any luck the play should drive you back to read or re-read this remarkable and almost Jungian novel produced by a young woman of about 18 and then published when she was about 21 in 1819.

Like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, like Dorian Gray and his portrait, a man and his shadow are embodied in a tale that resonates mythically for us all and also shows the fine line between the creative and the dark sides of human nature. Though specific details are missing, the understanding of the novel is vividly present in this play adapted by Nick Dear. Add to that the immensely vivid theatricality of Boyle’s approach, the visual excitement of the production and the completely compelling and superb acting on all fronts, and it’s worth queuing for day seats if you are in London – and/or seeing the broadcasts to cinemas of the live performances. Hopefully, one day there will be a DVD.

Vintage Wine in a New, Distressed Bottle? Stratford Redux?

I went off to Stratford for the official opening of the new theatre, where I saw revivals of King Lear and Romeo and Juliet. If anything, Greg Hicks is now even more substantially living the part of Lear; and Romeo and Juliet is just as glib but glitzy and showy as ever. The audience still loved it. I still thought that it would be better as a staging of the Gounod version.

For me the building itself is a bit disappointing. I am in a minority here. I guess I have been spoiled by the really pleasant atmosphere of The Courtyard and that is not quite achieved in the new main theatre to my mind. I am not certain about all the distressed architectural features of the rebuild. The restaurant at the top of the building serves good food that is not too wildly expensive but is shaped like a long corridor  or crescent moon so that the poor waiters keep running along it from the kitchen at one end – though the views over Stratford and the countryside are worth it.  Also, in my opinion they have put the bookshop, bars and coffee shop in some peculiar spaces that make them more cramped than one would like.

The thrust stage in the main auditorium is a mirror of the one at the Courtyard, but the auditorium is a bit more cramped, there are overhangs to contend with, and the acoustic didn’t seem to me to be as sharp as it could be.

But in the end these are all merely quibbles. It is good to have the old place open again; the redesign is certainly an improvement on the old one, even if it does not reach breathtaking perfect; and the play is the thing. You will enjoy the surroundings, they are certainly serviceable; and since The Courtyard is supposed to be dismantled, it will not be there for comparison for very long.

Meanwhile, the season that is coming up looks very interesting indeed, especially the Greg Doran realization of Shakespeare’s lost play, Cardenio.

Have a look at what is coming up at the RSC web site.

AND speaking of Shakespeare …

One of my real pleasures of the past few weeks is coming across Reading Shakespeare’s Sonnets, a new commentary, sonnet by sonnet, by poet Don Paterson. Paterson is himself quite a considerable and well-recognized writer with a lovely, easy and accessible style; and nothing could be more accessible – or help you with the sonnets – than this commentary.

Discussing each poem in a conversational and cheeky style, the text by Paterson gives you the feeling of being talked to by someone who is very smart, very witty and quite easy going.  I’ve been reading the text a few sonnets at a time. Read the poem, read the commentary, re-read the poem which now makes much more sense, re-read the commentary and get some of the jokes you missed before, re-read the sonnet; move on.  Three a day is my aim.

Paterson is very frank about the poems he hates and the ones he loves; and goes into little conversational asides with earlier commentators whom he admires but often disagrees with. He is also very straightforward about the homoeroticism in the text. Basically he reads the poems as if he were a Shakespeare contemporary who really gets all the allusions and jokes. Take the opening of his gloss on Sonnet 20 (A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted,/Hast thought, the master mistress of my passion; …), for example.

‘Dude”, as Aerosmith sang with such vacant gusto, ‘looks like a lady’. OK: this is as good a place any to clear this up. I feel I will scarcely be believed, but this poem has been often cited as evidence of William Shakespeare’s non-homoerotic intent. No: really. As levels of denial go, this is right up there with the health-benefits of Marlboros. …

See what I mean? It’s at times a bit like having Monty Python’s Comments on Shakespeare’s Sonnets – but the commentary seems to me to be not only witty but genuinely illuminating – and, most of all, fun.

I am having a great time with this book and with re-reading each Sonnet and then having it retold by Don Paterson. And you know what? It’s driving me to read all of Don Paterson’s poetry and other writings too. Highly, highly recommended, Dude.

Let’s Hear it for Charles, let’s hear it by Charles

The death of Charles Mackerras saddened me a lot. During my years working as a classical music DJ on Classic FM in the UK I met him many times not just for interviews but socially; and he’s one of the people from whom one just went on learning – because he went on learning and re-thinking at the most phenomenal rate until his last day. Not only was he an incredibly fine person to know personally, his knowledge and enthusiasm were both immense and infectious. His was the kind of high seriousness that you absorbed with ease through his wit, intelligence and sheer energy for life at all levels, from the most personal to the most professional.

I first heard him on stage giving what is still the most memorable performance of the Bach St John Passion I have ever been privileged to attend. His Messiah was revelatory; his Mozart the best. But this is also the man whose performances of Janacek, Martinu and Stravinsky were among the most compelling and convincing I have ever heard.

All this is a pre-amble to point out that a lot of his work was recorded – and that I live in hopes that pirate recordings will be released of some of the major pieces he did not record in the studio! And at the moment I have taken out his later complete recording of the Beethoven Symphonies. They were recorded at live concerts he gave at the Edinburgh Festival in 2006 with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Philharmonia Orchestra and for me they are right up there with the legendary Toscanini, Furtwangler or Klemperer recordings. They are very different, of course; and they are a real measure of the Mackerras approach to music. Stylistically impeccable, full of life and energy, you can feel the love for the music and the sheer responsiveness to it. The sanity and clarity of his approach can almost mask its intensity if you are not listening carefully. But the emotional life is also fully engaged; and this is very special music making, as was always the case with Mackerras.

The man ran the English National Opera and the Welsh National Opera and did so much of his music making in the UK that I think he was rather under-rated abroad and perhaps even in Britain.

But fortunately he has left a splendid legacy of recordings. I recommend you start with his Janacek recordings on Decca with the Vienna Philharmonic, his Messiah on EMI from 1965, any of the Mozart operas, any of his Mahler recordings or his Haydn symphonies. A lot of it is now available to download. If we download enough and agitate a bit perhaps more will appear? Do we have that kind of power in the age of the inter-net? I would love someone to release his live performances of Meistersinger, Tristan or Rosenkavalier, for example. Or how about his Handel opera performances? Julius Caesar with Janet Baker in the title role is still available but what about the others?

Meantime, I think that in this, the year of his death, there should be more celebration of his achievements; and I am thankful for all the recordings that have been preserved.

And right at this moment, for the fact that his cycle of Beethoven Symphonies from 2006 is available. So consider buying:

Sir Charles Mackerras, The Beethoven Symphonies (Live from the Edinburgh Festival) Hyperion CDS 44301/5

An Introduction to Verdi’s “La Traviata”

For anyone who wants to know what Guiseppe Verdi’s opera “La Traviata” is really about and why, listen to Mel give a short intro to the background, the opera, and the themes behind the story.

Failing Fidelio?

Despite earlier performances in which I am told his voice was uncomfortably effortful, the night I saw the new Welsh National Opera production of Fidelio, the legendary Dennis O’Neill was in fine form and some of dryness in the voice could even be ascribed to characterization of a man who has been living for two years in solitary confinement and has not eaten or drunk for days. Seeing O’Neill in anything these day, it is important to realize that it may be a last chance to see in action a man whose career should be applauded. I see no harm in acknowledging that. The rest of the cast was strong. The sets and costumes worked; the lighting was interestingly done; and above all the singing and conducting verged on the exemplary. Lisa Milne certainly has the voice and presence to be a moving Leonore/Fidelio. And the conductor, Lothar Koenigs, certainly has a grasp of the sweep and subtleties of the score and of the musical idiom.

So why am I in a state of furious frustration over this Fidelio that has made me even angrier than a totally inept performance would? Partly because it is one of the greatest stage works ever, a monument of Western culture, and I have not seen a decent production with any sense of its nuances or subtexts for years. People just don’t seem to get Fidelio any more – and this production was, ultimately, one of the worst of all despite ticking several boxes in the list of what to do with Fidelio. Maybe because it achieved quite a lot and then missed the most important aspects of all.

My quibble — and it is a major one — was the decision made by Giuseppe Frigeni, the director and designer, to cut out the dialogue in Fidelio. Don’t they have a dramaturg who could have convinced Frigeni he was making a massive mistake and actually going against the whole feel and even a lot of the point of the work? The idiom Beethoven chose was very specific — the singspiel — and it betrays a terrible lack of understanding of this to cut the dialogue. You might as well stage My Fair Lady or West Side Story without its dialogue. Think about how that would work? The songs are great, but without the context given them by the dialogue, they do very little for your understanding of the characters, their story or the progress of the plot. In this opera, Fidelio has to be the one to convince Rocco to the let the prisoners out for some exercise in Act One: but that dialogue is gone. Fidelio begs Rocco to give Florestan water when they have entered the dungeon to dig his grave in Act Two. Gone. Florestan, after Fidelio has pulled the gun on Pizzaro and stopped the murder, has this famous line: Oh, my Leonore, what have you done for me! And she replies: it was nothing, nothing my Florestan. That always has everyone weeping. But in this production: gone. Does Frigeni really think it is irrelevant? Does he think that a modern audience is too impatient to put up with all those in-between bits and just wants to skeleton, the music?

And what about the missing action to go along with the missing dialogue? No grave being dug. No water or bread. When Don Fernando, the King’s Minister, figures out in the last scene what has happened, he turns to Leonore and says she must remove the shackles from Florestan. No shackles, no removal of shackles. A great dramatic moment built into the work: gone. It makes the work as a whole and its reputation completely incomprehensible.

All this stuff is actually important action, important for the revelation of character and deeply symbolic. The dialogue is also there to tie the opera in to the Enlightenment thinking behind the story. All gone!

So despite voices and conducting, despite workmanlike sets and costumes and lighting, the opera is still made a mightily diminished experience and this production barely scrapes along the surface of its complexity of meaning and dramatic integrity.

Anyone who has never seen the opera, Fidelio, cannot have realized how much they were missing of the experience Beethoven had carefully crafted for them. The balance of dialogue to music, the decision of which bits to have as speech and which sung, was terribly important to Beethoven and carefully worked out over years of trial and error. Why did the WNO hire a director who has no real feeling for the idiom, the times in which the opera was first performed, or the integrity of the work? Why did they not tell him what a dreadful mistake he was making? Personally, I would have told him to restore the dialogue or get lost. Perhaps in this age of austerity they could not afford a cup for the water, a pickaxe or a full evening’s payment for the performers?

The rest of the WNO season was fine this autumn. The Magic Flute revival felt a bit warmed over but is based on a very strong concept by Dominic Cooke that relates it to the surrealism of Magritte; and the Ariadne auf Naxos was charming. Both productions seemed to me to make sense of the works in question and to engage with them; something that Frigeni signally failed to do. When properly performed, Fidelio has a grandeur and nobility that is incredibly moving. Giuseppe Frigeni does not get the point even a little bit. I have barely begun to point out the number of events in the opera that were simply directed by someone full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

The WNO seemed to me to have set up three operas in advance for the Autumn that make the backbone of a kind of tutorial in the development of German opera from Mozart to Richard Strauss. The weak link is a Fidelio that simply betrays a complete lack of confidence in the integrity and intelligence of the work and has no connection at all to its spirituality or humane philosophizing. No one should ever let Frigeni loose on this opera again!

Don’t Giovanni

I was looking forward to seeing what Rufus Norris would make of Don Giovanni. I really liked his direction of the play of Vernon God Little. Unfortunately, he has interpreted Don Giovanni in roughly the same way and to me it simply did not make any sense. There was no real characterization; very little understanding of the layers in the tale; and no response at all to the music. He staged the text; it is a bit of a mess without the music to bind it together; and so the whole evening is a bit of a mess. Rebecca Evans, who talked to me about the opera when she was in rehearsal, was ill.

All the voices were good and right for their parts. Iain Paterson, Matthew Best and John Molloy were all strong vocally; and I particularly was struck by the voice of Katherine Broderick. The conductor, Kirill Karabits, making his ENO debut, seemed to me to be struggling against the stage picture some of the time. It wasn’t particularly upsetting or controversial; I would have been more amused if it had been. It was more, as a friend said, like a high school production of the opera done by a wilful director who simply wished to show off and clearly had too little sympathy with or understanding of the actual work.

There Ought to be Popcorn

If you can’t get in to one of the Hot Ticket Shows in London, have an evening to kill, and are looking around for something you can probably get into, consider the new production of Ira Levin’s old play Deathtrap at the Noel Coward Theatre.

The original play was already a  “deconstruction” of the whole genre of hits like Dial M for Murder and Gaslight or even Rope. The direction of the new incarnation by Matthew Warchus is right on the money in keeping its tongue so firmly in its cheek that when you get hit in the face by some of the more outrageous coup de theatre shocks you are liable nearly to bite it off. The performances by Simon Russell Beale and Jonathan Groff, in particular, but also Claire Skinner, Terry Beaver and the adorable Estelle Parsons, are very appealing; and you’ll love the evocative Rob Howell set.

The show’s slick, professional and quite a lot of fun. The night I went the audience was mostly enjoying it as a witty but straightforward Agatha Christie thriller; but it’s a lot smarter than Agatha and very self-aware.  Deep, it ain’t; but it’s full of real surprises and makes for a nice brain-teasing game as well.

You can, of course, find plays even in a weak season in London, that are more intellectually and emotionally demanding, that aspire to greater artistry. But if you like the old fashioned pastime of seeing the Well-Made-Thriller with memorable, theatrical performances, this is one to try. Mind you, it still leaves the West End in a time warp. They’re even reviving The Country Girl.

Can I tell you a secret? My favourite moment on these time-warp nights, however much fun the actual show, is when we reach the curtain calls. It’s like all those curtain calls in All About Eve or other 1950s films about Broadway where you know the audience has been watching just the kind of “night out at the theatre” show you’ve just been watching. Except, of course, without the popcorn.