Opera
Overwhelming
Rodney Milnes
Halka, Don Pasquale, II matrimonio segreto (Warsaw Chamber Opera, Brighton Festival)
T tried desperately hard to admire and I appreciate this company, as one would any organisation purveying opera under siege, as it were, but against pretty over- whelming odds. Overall standards were decidedly below those of our regional com- panies, but then so were the ticket prices. Still, what were they doing at a rather classy festival? Casting at times looked as if it were by seniority rather than suitability, production style was dowdy, and the number of wrong entries, both vocal and instrumental, suggested that the company had taken on too much in presenting four operas in their week's visit to Brighton maybe they have settled down on their
current tour elsewhere in Britain.
Worst of all was the cavalier attitude 1° texts. I was unable to see Cosi fan tutte, but gather from reading the Sunday Times that the cuts in the second act were swingeing; perhaps I may return the compliment by in forming their reviewer that Pasquale Was similarly massacred. So was the Cimarnsa — the programme synopsis and what ha' pened on stage in the second act harelY coincided — but the performance was 50 dreary that I was segretamente relieved. In the case of Halka the cuts were the point. Although the programme was disap- pointingly hazy on the subject, I gather that this was the premiere of a new production of Moniuszko's original two-act version (Vilnius 1848). He expanded the work in t° four acts for performance in warsais
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(1858), but apparently always preferred Ilhe first thoughts, since unperformed. An ALn was probably right: there is little enough plot to sustain even the 90-minute verst on display here. In the first act the eponymous rustic heroine, who has hair': her aristocratic lover an illegitimate ad' gloomily witnesses his betrothal t° a suitably well-born gel. In the second act .,s1Le even more gloomily witnesses their wedfr.j, from the village square, with her fait"h-, peasant swain somewhat tactlessly descrim ing the ceremony to her in great detail fr°0,, the church porch. She then throws hers in the river. As the first real Polish opera, Halkai;st of
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enormous historical significance, but 'he no use pretending that Moniuszko is inait ly same league as his younger, nationalistie,rhe analogous, contemporary Smetana• of score is musically pleasing, with a da'",-,en Weber here, a dash of Auber there, „ alla polacca; the setting of conversal within formal number is unobtrusive,,i skilful; there are some delightful orchestri; effects (an expressive 6/8 with harp and Pher zicato strings for the heroine just before _he suicide) and one really good chorus. But the static nature of the work — matched he breymianndeudnobneelietvhaabtlyat sthtaitsicearpiryosdtuacgto? his career Moniuszko was mostly occuptednf his writing cantatas. Halka is not a patch Oro amiable, equally nationalistic cornea are Haunted Manor, and both, I ano put in the shade by The Countess, w" might be a candidate for revival at WtoY11 .e_g: ford. Wexford has for years been wfoirtthhwthiethiclea of Halka, and should desist forthwith. The programme for the Donizett1,.rae the threatening rubric 'and the 1%1ot Theatre of Warsaw Opera' and one's worst fears were soon realised: four &calling creatures mopping and mowing arid Pill, in- ghastly faces throughout — airrIP'were tolerable. In Matrimonio segreto they e of replaced by liveried servants in ehar.gooat- moving props and scenery, either codt1,1 or ly bumping into the unfortunate singe' the blocking their panic-struck glances at " pit. No, not festival performances. _ex But there were compensations: tw°sely cellent conductors in Ruben Silva, Well musical in his handling of Halka, and To. masz Bugaj, briskly stylish in the
horribly wooden); a fine buffo bass, Ed- ward Kmiciewicz, admirable as Pasquale and Geronimo (he would have been even more admirable in proper productions); a i useful, hard-worked lyric tenor in hazanierz Myriak, who sang three leads in e week; an enormously experienced soprano with brittle tone and efficient technique Alicja Slowakiewicz (Norma, Carolina and the aristo in Halka); and a good baritone, Jerzy Mahler, extremely funny as Count Robinson but defeated in ika by the sort of wig that must surely be locked in a cage at night. The odds really were overwhelming.
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