The centrepiece of this season, entitled ‘Vaughan Williams: The Pioneering
Pilgrim’ were two semi-staged performances of the composer’s Bunyan opera
‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’ at London’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre, dedicated to the
memory of the composer’s wife Ursula who died last year. Conductor Richard
Hickox has a real passion for English music, particularly opera, and it was
heartening to see him championing such a rarely-performed stage work.
Devised as a depiction of a generic spiritual journey towards
enlightenment rather than a specifically Christian one (the composer was an
agnostic), the opera (or rather, as it’s labelled, the ‘morality’) is
nonetheless rooted in Biblical texts and Christian hymn-tunes. In fact it is
reminiscent of Elgar’s ‘Dream of Gerontius’ in its tableaux of the
progression of a soul through trials and tests to its ultimate goal, and thus
seems closer to oratorio or cantata than opera, with elements of the pageant
and the mystery-play thrown in. In David Edwards’ simple semi-staging,
movement was kept to a minimum, with most of the more abstract characters
moving in a slow, flowing manner as if the motion could be stopped at any
moment to create a freeze-frame of an ‘event’ in the Pilgrim’s travels. On
the one hand, it is a shame that a full staging was not on offer; on the
other, it is a naturally static piece and thus well-suited to this kind of
half-and-half incarnation.
The ostensible narrator is John Bunyan, sung here by baritone Neal Davies:
though he only in fact appears to frame the piece with a Prologue and
Epilogue, it gives the impression that we are seeing everything through his
own eyes and imagination. The staging had him discovered onstage as if
asleep, ready for his opening line, ‘So I awoke, and behold it was a
dream’.
The cast was made up of a distinguished inventory of mainly British vocal
talent, including most of Hickox’s regular collaborators, led by Roderick
Williams as the eponymous Pilgrim, and even extending to Hickox’s son Adam as
the (poorly amplified) Woodcutter’s Boy. There were some welcome additions
from guest artists in multiple roles, especially the menacing Gidon Saks as
Lord Hate-Good (a disembodied voice over a speaker system from offstage). The
single scene of sardonic comic relief was delivered with aplomb by Richard
Coxon and Andrea Baker as Mr and Madam By-Ends.
Williams’s central performance was remarkable; something about his stage
persona is both innocent and timeless, and his singing was always assured
– despite all the obstacles in his path, the Pilgrim never outwardly
falters. His unfailingly beautiful singing was especially impressive in the
role’s emotional heart – the monologue based around a passage from
Psalm 22, when the Pilgrim is in prison expecting death. Part-soliloquy,
part-prayer, it is the only time we ever see the turmoil within the Pilgrim’s
soul before he realises that his means of escape has been within reach all
along.
Hickox’s conducting had a majesty and beauty which made as persuasive a
case for the score as it is ever likely to get, while Philharmonia Voices
– the orchestra’s ad-hoc professional choral outfit – managed to
go from being properly lively and vociferous (in the Vanity Fair scene) to
radiantly angelic (in the heavenly passages).
Ruth Elleson © 2008
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Pilgrim%27s_Progress_first_ed.png
image_description=Pilgrim’s Progress first edition 1678
product=yes
product_title=Ralph Vaughan Williams: The Pilgrim’s Progess
product_by=Roderick Williams (The Pilgrim), Neal Davies (John Bunyan), Matthew Rose, Richard Coxon, Matthew Brook, Timothy Robinson, Sarah Fox, Sarah Tynan, Pamela Helen Stephen, James Gilchrist, Robert Hayward, Graeme Danby and Philharmonia Voices. Richard Hickox (cond.)