Opera
Different
Rodney Milnes
The programmed reaction to the Royal Opera's revival of Tippett's Priam should probably be 'not as good as Kent Opera's revealing production of last year', but things aren't as easy as that. To quote Alan Bennett's Habeas Corpus, that in- exhaustibly comprehensive repository of all 20th-century wisdom, 'not more, diffe- rent'. The Sam Wanamaker/Sean Kenny staging of 1962 is as much a period piece as the Visconti Don Carlos or the Zeffirelli Lucia di Lammermoor – there is an agree- able time-warp to much of Covent Gar- den's recent work – and it has been carefully revived as such by Ande Ander- son (production) and Robert Bryan (lighting).
Visual details that could have been tactfully expunged are instead paraded: the angular projections like giant music-stands that come and go, the lady harpist strum- ming away in Achilles's tent, the pretty little Aztec-deco wine jug – all constitute a time-capsule of contemporary decorative taste. The predominantly young audience at the performance I attended – the last in the Royal Opera's Youth Week – for some reason found the appearance of the three goddesses in their Cycladic top hats irre- sistibly funny, and the fact that I can't for the life of me see why must mean that the generation gap is now unbridgeable. But the sense of space, of light and air, about this staging is in its way as memorable as and scarcely less appropriate than the claustrophobia of David Fielding's decor for Kent.
Without going into invidious compari-
sons, which the different terms of refer- ence of the two companies render meaningless, the casting at Covent Garden is very strong indeed. Felicity Palmer's Andromache, as concentrated in its in- tensity in these more airy surroundings as was Sarah Walker's last year, underlined the fact that this is a great operatic role in the traditional sense, inviting myriad varieties of interpretative nuance – lucky we are indeed to have two such accom- plished mezzos for it. That Anne Howells's Helen of Troy should have been a bewitch- ing amalgam of vocal lusciousness, verbal clarity and physical allure should have come as no surprise, but it was none the less riveting for that. More surprising was Kim Begley (Achilles): this hugely promis- ing young tenor has been teetering on the edge of stardom for a season or two, and here leapt over the gap decisively, his tone warmly liquid yet virile, his projection faultless, his authority total. Robin Leg- gate's Paris, triumphing even over a fear- some bleached-blond Diana Dors wig – the one period detail without which one could very well have done, and Phyllis Cannan's barn-storming Hecuba were equally force- ful, and young Nicholas Sillitoe's Paris-as- boy was astoundingly assured.
The one calculated risk was the casting of the Swiss bass Alexander Malta in the title-role. His words were less muddy than notices of the first night had led one to expect, and his warmly modulated singing even more expressive, but there was a certain lack of concentration in his per- formance, just as there was in the easily paced orchestral playing under Elgar Howarth. The spare sound of so much of this score expanded gratefully into the auditorium – the third-act interludes glor- iously so – but some imprecise tuning and ragged ensemble suggested that the band was having an off-night; this was the one department in which Kent won hands down. But the important thing is that two very different stagings of Priam made very different but equally valid impressions: this is without doubt one of the 20th century's great operas. And the more one hears Tippett's works in different stagings, the more mainstream and less recherché they seem: the man's genius emerges as univer- sal rather than particular. We urgentlY need a fresh look at The Ice Break, at present considered by most to be the uglY duckling of the four, but meanwhile next week's Midsummer Marriage at the ENO Is awaited with considerable impatience. That the Half Moon Theatre, which I understand to be a determinedly progres-
sive organisation, should have opened Its new premises with an opera is one of the odder facts of life. (I can think of no other description for Sondheim's Sweeney, which contains less spoken dialogue than either Fidelio or Carmen, and believe him to he one of the most brilliant composers writing
for the theatre – but different, oh how different, from Tippett.) Odd, and wel- come: repeated visits to Hal Prince's pro- duction at Drury Lane five years ago led me to believe that this was a chamber work, not a spectacular, and so it proves to be: closeness to the hard-working, multi- doubling cast of ten and band of five (effective arrangements by Rick Juckes) is all gain.
The many-layered motivation alone grants the work operatic status, since for all the surface horror and 0-level social criticism Sweeney is above all a love story, or, as the composer puts it, about people obsessed (c'est la mew chose). Mrs Lovett sacrifices her humanity to her barely ack- nowledged love for Todd — to confess it Openly would be to lose him — and surrogate-son Toby's touching love for his rum adopted parents is horribly betrayed. Todd singing of his love for his daughter While absentmindedly slitting throats in the magnificent second-act quartet remains one of the most haunting images of modern music-theatre.
The cast is good, with Leon Greene (ex-Sadler's Wells) vocally the strongest Todd I have heard — though he misses Denis QuiIley's terrifying snap into mad- ness after 'Pretty women' — and Gillian Hanna copes confidently with Mrs Lovett's gallows humour and tricksy cross rhythms. Good though John Aron is as Pirelli, the cut in his scene that Prince made at Drury Lane (opened here) is a sensible one — the first act does go on a bit. But this is a Marvellous show, and when the Half Moon turns to more progressive things in due Course, I hope it will transfer to another suitably intimate theatre.
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