The experience marked me for life. I have
never doubted since that Wozzeck is one of the greatest operas ever
written, nor have I doubted that opera, whatever the disappointments one may
experience in practice, can at its best prove at least as potent a form of
drama as any other. It is many years now since I heard a performance from the
company, though I have received very good reports from those who have, often
comparing its offerings favourably with those on offer from the two principal
London houses. I was therefore delighted to have opportunity to see and to hear
for myself in Opera North’s first visit to the Barbican Theatre. (More are
planned.) The timing was interesting too, affording comparison with Eugene
Onegin across town at the Coliseum. Claire Seymour, writing
for this site, enjoyed Deborah Warner’s staging much more than I did
(click here).
First impressions of Neil Bartlett’s production were preferable to those
of Warner’s Met-bound anodyne crowd-pleaser. There is, at least to begin
with, no evident point of view expressed; straightforward storytelling seems
the order of the day. By the same token, however, that does not come across as
a deliberate policy to play safe, even to condescend. The setting is where it
‘should’ be; costumes are of the period; there is neither jarring nor
particular elucidation. It would have been bizarre and not just unwelcome if
the audience had followed the practice of a segment of that for Onegin
and had drowned out the music by applauding Kandis Cook’s serviceable sets;
they simply did their job without ostentation and without sentimental emphasis
upon petit bourgeois conceptions of the ‘beautiful’. However, I
said ‘first impressions’ above, because there is one aspect of Bartlett’s
staging that might distress the literal-minded. It seemed interesting to me,
yet arguably out of place in a production that offered nothing more of the
same, rather as if the concept had wandered in from elsewhere. I speak of
Bartlett’s treatment of the Countess, who emerges a sex-crazed vamp: she
certainly would have captured attention in her scarlet gown even if she had not
been played by Dame Josephine Barstow. Fitting or not, it was at least an idea,
which was more than could be said for anything Warner mustered. The
Personenregie, however, was considerably less skilled, or at least its
execution was. And If Catherine the Great made her appearance, I am afraid I
missed it.
The real problems, though, lay in the musical performances, and above all
with Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts’s Hermann. It did not sound as though this were an
off-day, more a matter of having taken on a task that lay far beyond what the
voice was incapable of delivering. It would be a matter of taste rather than
judgement whether the shouting or tuning proved more painful. This, I am sad to
say, constituted some of the most troubling professional singing I have heard;
indeed, most student or other amateur performances are executed at a much
higher level. He improved slightly during the third act, though he continued to
croon in a manner that might have been thought excessive for a West End
musical. Some smaller roles were no less approximate and crude, though, by the
same token, some proved much better. William Dazeley’s Yeletsky impressed, as
did the Tomsky of Jonathan Summers. Perhaps best of all was Alexandra
Sherman’s Pauline. Hers was that rare thing: a true contralto. Moreover, she
could use it to properly dramatic ends, the song, ‘Podrugi milÔye,’
musically shaped and genuinely moving. Orla Boylan’s Lisa had its moments,
but sometimes found herself all over the place in terms both of (melo-)drama
and of intonation.
The chorus had clearly been well trained by Timothy Burke, and generally
acquitted itself well, most of all in the third act, when, despite the
translation, choral sound came across as more plausibly Russian than elsewhere.
(The translation itself veered between embarrassing couplets and the merely
prosaic; in that respect, Martin Pickard’s work recalled what we heard from
him for Onegin.) Barstow, as the reader may have guessed, stole the
show. Though her tuning was a little awry upon her entrance, and some might
have queried the preponderance of quasi-spoken, parlando style, she
can still hold a stage. One longed for more, wishing that her palpable
commitment had rubbed off on others.
Richard Farnes proved intermittently impressive. There was certainly
dramatic drive, sensitivity too, to his conducting. Yet, whilst there were
moments in which the orchestra sounded to have just the right Tchaikovsky sound
– the opening of the third act, for instance – there were other passages in
which the score veered awkwardly between dark, would-be Wagnerism and
soft-centred Puccini. A greater body of strings would have assisted: though
what was mustered played well, the lack of heft was apparent throughout.
Characterful woodwind was offset by variable brass, sometimes blaring,
sometimes surprisingly tentative. (Placing outside the pit, at the edge of the
stage, doubtless did not help.)
It was just about worth it for the Countess, then, but Opera North’s
outing to London proved for the most part a damp squib. And it is surely a
little too easy to say that the problem may have lain in staging so ambitious a
work. After all, it was Wozzeck, no less, that made such an impression
upon me in Sheffield. The stage director of that searing, life-changing
Wozzeck? Ironically, one Deborah Warner…
Mark Berry
Click here for a photo gallery and other production information.
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Tchaikovsky_portrait.png
image_description=Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky by Nikolay Kuznetsov [Source: Wikipedia]
product=yes
product_title=Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: The Queen of Spades, op.68
product_by=Lisa: Orla Boylan; Countess: Dame Josephine Barstow; Hermann: Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts; Count Tomsky, Pluto: Jonathan Summers; Prince Yeletsky: William Dazeley; Pauline, Daphnis: Alexandra Sherman; Governess: Fiona Kimm; Chekalinsky: Daniel Norman; Sourin: Julian Tovey; Masha: Gillene Herbert; Chaplitsky: David Llewellyn; Narumov: Dean Robinson; Master of Ceremonies: Paul Rendall; ChloÎ: Miranda Bevin. Director: Neil Bartlett (director). Designs: Kandis Cook. Lighting: Chris Davey. Choreography: Leah Hausman. Chorus of Opera North (chorus master: Timothy Burke). Orchestra of Opera North. Richard Farnes (conductor). Barbican Theatre, London, Tuesday, 22 November 2011.
product_id=Above: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky by Nikolay Kuznetsov [Source: Wikipedia]