This was something no one present is
likely to forget: a masterpiece, whose absence from opera houses, not just in
this country but across the world, stands as a devastating indictment to all
concerned, was given a ‘concert staging’ to match the finest efforts of any
established house. Last
year’s Salzburg staging — incredibly, the only one since Covent
Garden’s premiere and revivals — performed a signal service in bringing
Birtwistle’s opera to an international audience, but a questionable
production detracted somewhat from the impact of an excellent musical
performance. Here, John Lloyd Davies’s unfussy direction did all that was
necessary — or at least seemed to be necessary — with the support of
excellent lighting. Quite whether the projections were necessary, I have my
doubts, but they did no especial harm either.
A happy surprise was the reinstatement of the full version of the Turning of
the Seasons, which I had never heard before. What utterly magnificent music
this is — and, equally to the point, musical drama which strongly reinforces
the power of ritual in this opera. Gawain’s year-long journey reminds us of
the crucial importance of the passing of time; actions are not here merely
repeated, revisited, viewed from different standpoints. There is surely a
strong comparison to be drawn here with Siegfried’s going out into the world,
‘zu neuen Taten’, and of course both Wagner and Birtwistle question, indeed
deconstruct the notion of heroism. As the disillusioned Gawain insists, he is
not, almost certainly never was, that hero the court, the world had imagined
him to be. That unnerving experience of returning to a place, to people, and
it, they having carried on without one registered all the more powerfully, even
chillingly. A stronger sense of the passing of time was gained, then, but so
was a stronger sense of the sheer power of ritual, in this case of the calendar
and of man’s relationship to it, ambivalently positioned as it is in this
case between Church and something closer to paganism. Speaking to other
audience members during the interval, some, though by no means all, seemed to
have struggled with the consequent greater length of the first act. I did not
feel that at the time, but admit to noting thereafter a certain imbalance with
respect to the first and second. That need not necessarily be a bad thing, but
I could not help but wonder whether a second revision might be in order.
Perhaps the Turning of the Seasons could become a second act tableau in itself;
perhaps it might be split between the two acts, for, as Birtwistle has noted,
many of his works have a tendency to ‘stop’ rather than to ‘end’. (I am
not sure that that is really the case with this work, which is in many ways
more conventionally operatic than many give it credit for, but the point may
still stand in general.) At any rate, experiencing this additional music for
the first time was an overwhelming experience in itself; moreover, it permits
more to be heard from Guinevere, Bishop Baldwin, and the chorus. I understand
— I think — the case for the revised version, but I should now never wish
the cuts to be reinstated. In practice, though, I shall have to take what, if
anything, I am given.
Martyn Brabbins led a superlative performance from the BBC Symphony
Orchestra, the splendid BBC Singers (conducted offstage with equal excellence
by Andrew Griffiths) and what I suspect may be the finest cast the work has yet
received. The BBC SO’s contribution was almost beyond praise, every inch the
equal of its Vienna counterpart last summer. It is perhaps all too tempting to
resort to ‘national’ stereotypes, and maybe this was as much a matter of
staging and venue, but I think I perceived a more generally internationally
modernist Klang from the ORF Vienna Radio SO, and a more deeply
English — but certainly not remotely nationalist — melancholy from the BBC
orchestra. That is not to say that the violence of Birtwistle’s score did not
register; it most certainly did, to searing effect. Nor that the powerful
Stravinskian antecedents did not register. One may hear a fascinating struggle
between a world born of Symphonies of Wind Instruments and one born of
The Rite of Spring: doubtless an over-simplification, but perhaps not
entirely gratuitous. The welding together of primitivism, mediÊvalism, and
(Northern) English landscape was perhaps achieved still more idiomatically by
Brabbins than by Ingo Metzmacher, matching the distinguished contribution by
Elgar Howarth on the CD recording from the Royal Opera House. (Alas, that was
made at a revival, so has the revised version of the score, but it remains an
absolute ‘must’ for anyone who remotely cares about twentieth-century
opera.) The brass — including three tubas and a euphonium — proved as
powerful as any more celebrated section, but with none of the brashness one
sometimes encounters from American orchestras in particular. A battery of
percussion unleashed its fire at times, yet also offered true delicacy, not
least in the guise of that unforgettable cimbalom part. Uneasy magic was
conjured up — the observed and observing malevolence of Morgan le Fay? —
from the woodwind, whilst the strings worked over-over-time throughout:
incisive and, yes, at times beguiling. Courtly love and eroticism were given
their due; one cannot deconstruct without in some sense having constructed.
Such was also the tale of the vocal performances. Leigh Melrose summoned up
memories of his fine
ENO Wozzeck as Gawain, and yet went further still. Very human choices,
fears, and disappointments made the descent — or should that actually be
ascent? — from his initial swagger all the more affecting. Sir John Tomlinson
was his inimitable self, a true force of nature, if the more or less
unforgivable clichÈ may be forgiven, as the Green Knight. An ‘objective’
review would have to mention the indulgence that needs to be offered to his
higher range, here not so often employed, but frankly such cavils seem
irrelevant in the face of so all-encompassing a dramatic assumption. The day
will come — at least, we hope it will, if our opera houses will listen —
when another bass will have to take on the role, but for the moment, the
archetypal, apparent timelessness of this performance makes it impossible to
imagine. For Tomlinson, moreover, there was no need for a score. Jennifer
Johnston made a glorious impression as Lady de Hautdesert the wife of his alter
ego: rich, even voluptuous, of tone, nicely ambiguous of purpose, and yet
imparting something very important concerning the human and perhaps especially
the female condition as constructed here. Laura Aikin was equally magnificent
as Morgan le Fay. The cruel demands of the role clearly hold no fears for her;
far more than ever before, I had the sense of her as a real character, as the
moving force of events. Perhaps the longer version played a role in that; her
manipulative appearance onstage — unseen to the hero — when Gawain arrived
at the Hautdeserts certainly did. It was, however, an interpretative
consequence too, born of vocal strength and palpable musical intelligence.
Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts and Rachel Nicholls made for an excellent royal
couple, as attentive to words as to vocal line. William Towers made more of the
role of Bishop Baldwin — again, doubtless partly a matter of the version, but
not only that — than I had previously heard. His is a virile counter-tenor,
put to piercing, perhaps sanctimonious use here. I certainly found myself
asking more about the character, his role, his motivations, than I had done so
before. John Graham-Hall fully inhabited the role of the Fool; there was an
entirely appropriate correspondence with King Lear to be made in this
case. Ivan Ludlow and Robert Anthony Gardiner offered finely sung portrayals of
Agravain and Ywain. There was not a weak link in the cast, just as there was
not in the evening as a whole. A resounding triumph! Now which company will do
its duty and give us a properly thought-through new staging?
Mark Berry
Cast and production information:
Gawain: Leigh Melrose; The Green Knight, Sir Bertiak de Hautdesert:
Sir John Tomlinson; Morgan Le Fay: Laura Aikin; Lady de Hautdesert: Jennifer
Johnston; King Arthur: Jeffrey Lloyd Roberts; A Fool: John Graham Hall;
Guinevere: Rachel Nicholls; Bishop Baldwin: William Towers; Agravain: Ivan
Ludlow; Ywain: Robert Anthony Gardiner. Sound Intermedia (sound design)/Aqamera
(projections)/John Lloyd Davies (director). BBC Singers (conductor: Andrew
Griffiths)/BBC Symphony Orchestra/Martyn Brabbins (conductor). Barbican Hall,
London, Friday 16 May 2014.
Click here for the complete text of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Birtwistle_-_2_HanyaChlalaA.gif
image_description=Harrison Birtwistle [Photo by Hanya Chlala]
product=yes
product_title=Birtwistle at 80 — Gawain (concert hall staging)
product_by=A review by Mark Berry
product_id=Above: Harrison Birtwistle [Photo by Hanya Chlala]