STAGE AND SCREEN
THE production of The Valkyrie at Sadler's Wells last week was the crowning achievement of Lilian Baylis's operatic direction. It told the world that there is practically nothing that the company she had formed and guided cannot do sufficiently well to arouse the justified enthusiasm of the public and to give genuine pleasure to musicians for whom the work is no novelty. Whether the policy, of which this production was the climax, was a wise one is another matter ; for the moment let us examine the performance itself.
On the credit side there was a production by Mr. Sumner Austin and Mr. Charles Reading, the scenic artist, which was better, in the sense of being more intelligent and clearer in its presentation of the drama, than any other I have seen in this country and quite as good as even festival productions in Germany in all but elaboration and costliness. The small size of the stage mattered less than one expected, far less than the small size of the orchestra-pit. Then there were five definitely first-rate performances on the stage—if we count the ensemble of Valkyries in Act III as one. Miss Cross's Sieglinde, beautifully sung and, though hampered in her first scene by a too voluminous robe, beautifully acted, is the finest thing she has done, and Miss Coates's Fricka was as noble in tone and gesture as any but Mine. Thorborg's or Mine. Olszchewska's at their finest. Mr. Lloyd's Hunding was a remarkably fine study of brutish cunning, assisted by an admirable costume and embodied in a resonant voice. But the surprise of the evening was Mr. Matters's Wotan. His voice is not heavy enough, nor his stature tall enough for the part, btit he surmounted these physical handicaps by sheer good singing—though it was a near thing at the end, when his voice began to tire under the strain.
These four singers have all mastered the art of uniting music, words and gestures so that they make sense. Miss Cecilia Wessels (Brunnhilde) and Mr. John Wright (Siegmund) are less expert. Miss Wessels has a splendid voice, and when she can give the same conviction to her rapid phrases and her mezza voce that she gives to the war-cries of her first scene and the full sustained phrases of her last, she will be a good Briinnhilde, for all that she seems temperamentally too phleg- matic ever to become a lively one. Mr. Wright is at present too stiff in his phrasing and his gestureS, and on the first night was uncertain of his music. But, he has a fine figure, and his voice, which has the makings of a real Heldentenor, gave far more pleasure than do most singers in the part.
The only real weakness of the performance was in the orchestra. Despite the difference in the size of the theatres, it is as true at Sadler's Wells as at Covent Garden that six first violins cannot produce the tone of sixteen. The absence of the Wagner-tubas mattered less ; indeed the score had been very cleverly reduced to the dimensions practic- able in this theatre. The cuts, which were necessarily large, did not always follow the practice established elsewhere—I regretted not hearing that superb piece of English " Irks me my weapons' weight," from Briinnhilde—and the new joins were often too obviouS. But at least Wotan was allowed to tell a reasonable amount of his story. Mr. Collingwood secured what was, in the circumstances, an admirable perfor- mance, but it is no use pretending that it did more than faint justice to Wagner's score.
Although this was a genuine triumph for the company, I hope that it is not one which the new management will attempt to emulate. As I have said, Mr. Matters barely lasted the course, and there were moments when Miss Cross's voice showed signs of strain. It will be a thousand pities if these singers are encouraged to ruin their voices just when, thanks to their consistent work over a period of years under intelligent direction, they have attained a standard that has been rare in English opera. And, even at the risk of seeming unkind, I must protest against the suggestion that these singers would make adequate substitutes for casualties at Covent Garden. We have just had an example of what happens when Sadler's Wells-sized voices sing on that larger stage, and I can imagine nothing more detrimental to the reputation and voices of these singers than their transfer to a " grand "
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