Carlos no jackal
Sir: I cannot understand why almost every- one — Harewood, Milnes, et al. and now Michael Tanner (Arts, 29 August) — is so dismissive of the auto-da-fe scene in Verdi's opera Don Carlos.
Do they never listen to the poignant and beautiful entreaty of the six Flemish deputies (`Sire, no, l'ora estrema') and the ensemble singing that follows — Philip, Elizabeth, Carlos, Rodrigo, together with deputies, monks and 'the people' — which encapsu- lates much of what Don Carlos is about?
Rather more percipiently, one of the greatest of all Verdi critics, Francis Toye, writing in 1931, called the auto-da-fe scene
an undoubted masterpiece . . . the differ- entiation from the crowd of the fanatical monks and the homely Flemish suppliants with their distinctive theme that plays so important a part in the musical structure, is beyond praise.
Incidentally, in describing the Carlos/ Rodrigo friendship duet as 'that miserable tune', Toye also goes against received criti- cal opinion. That may be going a bit too far, but few would surely dispute that the duets between Carlos and Elizabeth, Rodrigo and Philip, and Philip and the Grand Inquisitor are greatly superior.
Simon Courtauld
The Close, Pewsey, Wiltshire
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