A Tale of Januarie: Operatic irrelevance

 

Julian Philips’s new opera, The Tale of Januarie, which I saw at the Guildhall on 1^st March is undoubtedly the first opera with a libretto allegedly in Middle English.  Before getting into the merits of the piece and the performance, I think it’s worth asking some questions about that.

Let me quote from the programme: the opera constitutes the Guildhall School’s contribution to the [Arts & Humanities Research Council funded…] programme’s translingual strand which seeks to promote Opera in a contemporary cultural context, generating dialogue and debate around the form within the school’s existing and well-established audience community.  With its Middle English libretto, the project hopes to heighten audience sensitivity to language in opera, whilst also allowing for a sharing of aesthetic practice both within the context of Guildhall composition programmes but also in its strategic partnership with the Royal Opera House…”  This is the sort of mixture of pretentious pseudo-academic speak and corporate jargon that instantly raises my hackles.  Is that really what opera has descended to these days: a vehicle for academic discussion?

Earlier on, the authors talk as if comprehending the words in opera has always been a problem.  I think that needs to be debunked.  There are some operas which were written for audiences who would not understand the language (Handel’s and some of Mozart’s spring to mind) but most composers wrote operas where the words were meant to be heard and understood.  And listening to recordings, combined with recollection and, indeed, the experience of The Winter’s Tale two days ago, suggests that it is very possible to do so.  While undoubtedly some people think that opera “sounds better” in a language they don’t understand, what are you hoping to achieve, if you think that the story is at all important, by setting the piece explicitly in a language that makes it less comprehensible?

I know that surtitles are universal but doesn’t it admit defeat from the start to write something which is intended to be witty, where the laughs depend on an audience reading the surtitles?

In any case, the experience here was strange.  The Middle English certainly wasn’t pronounced the way I was taught to pronounce it: it sounded like an uneasy mixture of 21^st century vowels, with some unfamiliar words and formations.  Middle English-lite, I’d say.  What sort of contribution to the debate do you make if you write in a language and then encourage people to mispronounce it?

Oh dear, maybe I’ve just been contributing to an academic debate.  Better get on with the opera itself.

The plot is a good one about an elderly knight who marries a much younger woman and is cuckolded by his servant: good scope for comic scenes and, as happened, a rather touching ending.   Philips and his librettist Stephen Plaice add bits of local colour, choruses about the seasons and gods (Pluto and Proserpine) commenting on and providing something of a counter-point to the story.  It reminds me slightly of the part played by the chorus in Gloriana or the ballets in an opera by Rameau and it feels consciously archaic.  The episodes also go on far too long: one in particular where Proserpine’s nymphs tease Priapus (a sort of bawdy narrator figure) made me lose the will to live.  It’s not an especially long opera, but I felt that the local colour elements held things up and took time away from greater elaboration on the characters themselves.  The presentation felt about relevant and interesting as Merrie England.

And opportunities seemed to be missed.  Couldn’t you broaden out the opportunities for exploring the Damyan/May relationship?  For saying more about the Damyan/May relationship.  And there’s an episode where Damyan has problems with a key where the poor guy has nothing to sing at all and the mugging has to come entirely from the direction with no musical or verbal assistance at all.

Philips’s music adds to the archaisms by including medieval bagpipes, recorders and nods towards Machaut and other sort-of contemporary composers. Juxtaposed with an orchestra of sixty and a gently late 20^th century easy idiom.  It’s all inoffensive and pleasant enough to listen to but with anything that stops you in your tracks or makes you come out with music lodged in your mind.

There are some effective moments: the love making of Januarie and May is quite amusing in a vulgar, carry-on sort of way.  The last scene with the dead Januarie is quite touching and there’s some grateful music to sing.  Philips’s music is confident and accomplished with nothing to stop you in the tracks or lodge in your mind.

It was done outstandingly.  Dominic Wheeler conducted clearly and the orchestra played superbly.  The chorus were excellent and the singing uniformly good.  Everyone has pointed out John Findon’s commanding performance as Januarie – and he’s very good indeed and makes a convincing old man.  His tenor is strong – ideal for Britten, I would say.  There is some lovely singing from Joanna Marie Skillet as May, Elizabeth Skinner as Proserpine (both displaying gorgeous creamy voices), Dominic Sedgwick (a bit wasted) as Damyan, the love interest and Martin Haessler as Pluto.  These were superbly committed performances.

Martin Lloyd Evans’s production was set firmly in a medieval never, never land while Dick Bird’s sets and costumes created a Breughel-ish picture that had been very firmly dry-cleaned.  The direction was sound enough without ever making the work feel exciting or interesting.

So it made a pleasant enough, unchallenging, unmemorable evening.  I don’t think I’ve ever though opera so irrelevant.  This is what happens when academics get hold of it.

Scottish Mikado

Following the rather good Pirates of Penzance a couple of years ago, Scottish Opera have moved on to The Mikado – the first time they’ve produced it – and, again toured to it to some English venues.  I caught the performance at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle on 18th June.  The reviews had been rather discouraging but it was nice and reassuring to have a full house.

It actually wasn’t half bad.  Martin Lloyd-Evans uses Japanese images – lacquer boxes, sliding doors, the great wave for his sets.  The costumes are Victorian English with Japanese elements.  It looks good.  He has some lovely ideas – the overture includes Ko-Ko doing a failed sawing the a body in half trick; Nanki-Poo has a bank of instruments around his person; Katisha is a Miss Havisham figure, the Mikado in full military uniform.  He treats Tit-Willow as a comedy number with a puppet bird, which nicely avoids it being over- sentimental and he catches the engaging silliness of the piece.  He uses the words and the music – I don’t think I’ve seen a better directed Madrigal, again turning it into a comic number rather than a slightly tedious piece of Victoriana.  Characterisation was strong and I found myself happily smiling throughout.

My one doubt was that, at times, it looked just a little too traditional and didn’t quite have the panache that it needs.  There were times, particularly with the chorus, where you felt that it needed a touch more energy, a touch more imagination to really catch light – it looked a bit cramped, routines not quite together.  That may have been due to the slightly cramped Theatre Royal stage, but the colourful, never-never-land costumes and archness of the material couldn’t stop me feeling at times that the whole thing looked a bit archaic.  And then you get Gilbert’s jokes about chopping off heads, burying alive and I was reassured – it’s a clever text, the music is wonderful and, in the end the absurdity won out.

It was helped by expert performances.  Richard Suart must have played Ko-Ko more times than anyone else living.  He understands the style but here presented a cockney, wily, rather pathetic figure, completely the star of the show.  His voice is more ragged than it was but it’s fine for this and reminded you that he’s ideally cast in these roles.  He had a splendid double act going with Andrew Shore’s Pooh Bah – catching exactly the right pomposity and singing well.  Ben McAteer was an extraordinarily costume Pish Tush and was rather funny, singing strongly.

As Katisha, Rebecca du Pont Davis doesn’t have the traditional fruity contralto but she made a hilarious and touching figure, singing really well and intelligently.  Stephen Richardson’s Mikado was keenly observed, catching just the right detachment and was probably the funniest Mikado that I’ve seen.

As the love interest, Nicholas Sharratt as Nanki Poo and Rebecca Bottone as Yum Yum were alert, catching the ridiculousness of the situation – that unique mixture of ideals tempered by acute self-interest that Gilbert gets – while reminding you that the original singers of the roles must have been rather good singers: neither managed all the challenges of the role with complete success.

Derek Clark conducted really well: the speeds were spot-on, the orchestral textures clear – you heard the details and kept things together.  The chorus sang nicely even if you wondered whether just a bit of routine might have crept in.  Diction was excellent.  I know the piece more or less by heart, so I didn’t need surtitles – I’m not sure that the audience really did either, but you tended to get laughs at the surtitles and then again with the singers.

I’ve used a few superlatives here. They’re deserved.  This was a lavish, serious, imaginative and hugely enjoyable show and it would be nice if Scottish Opera G&S could become a regular tradition.

Scottish Opera’ Pirates

If I had to introduce anyone to all the things that make me love Gilbert and Sullivan, playing them the second half of the first act of The Pirates of Penzance would probably be where I’d start.  From the moment when the daughters enter – that excited little string figure leading to one of their most delightful choruses, through to Frederic’s Oh is there not one maiden breast, Poor wand’ring one, the chorus of girls doubling with the Mabel/Frederic duet, the entrance of the Pirates and then the Major General’s patter number.  This seems to me to contain, the innocence, wit, sophistication, parody and sheer pleasure of these works and, if you don’t surrender to them, then probably Gilbert and Sullivan is not for you.  Sullivan manages to parody operatic style, but also catches a seriousness that gives an ambiguity and joy that I love.  Of course, there’s other wonderful stuff in Pirates, particularly in the second act, where the policemen are among their greatest comic creations and the Mabel/Frederic duet is among their most beguilingly lovely, but the earlier section, for me, has the confidence and certainty that sums up their art.

This thought seemed to me to be affirmed by the performance of the opera that I saw at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle on 28th June.  It’s a joint production by Scottish Opera and the D’Oyly Carte  and is now on an extended tour.   It’s often a problem with G&S that they take time to warm up (though the most successful productions that I’ve seen manage to make it work from the start).  And this performance was no exception.  It began slightly uneasily as if worried that it might seem a bit dull and outdated for modern audiences, trying a bit hard and then, as the girls arrived, it relaxed and we realised that it was good.

Martin Lloyd-Evans’s production was fresh and alert.  It didn’t do anything particularly startling but, within the basically Victorian setting, had fun.  It recognised that dance was a central element and Steve Elias’s routines looked good and were carried out slickly.  The police routine owed a little bit to the West End production in the early 1980s and was all the better for that.  The dialogue was spoken with point, directly, clearly and without the archness that is a temptation here.  And there were some lovely jokes – a chapel that is clearly too small for all the cast to fit into and a nice sense of the ridiculous.  It could have been a bit broader without losing anything but it remained an amiable, happy show.

The cast was very good indeed – a nice mixture of youth and experience.  Rebecca Bottone made a lovely Mabel, singing with real wit, great coloratura and turning Poor Wand’ring one into a real comic hit – I loved Lloyd-Evans’s idea, from Ruddigore, that she and Frederic hadn’t a clue how to deal with each other.  This was probably the best reading of the role that I’ve seen.  Sam Furness, still in the earliest stages of his career, showed bags of charm and a nice, light tenor as Frederic.  He’d be a smashing Albert Herring.  Rosie Aldridge was a beautifully judged Ruth – very funny indeed.

We had experience in the form of Richard Suart’s matchless Major-General.  I first saw him do it in the late 1980s and, while the details have changed, he presented a beautifully understated, very funny and skilful.  There may have been flashier performances but I can’t think of anyone I’d rather see do it.  Stephen Page makes a dashing, funny, ideal Pirate King, while Graeme Broadbent has a high old time as the Sergeant of Police who wants to be a star.

Derek Clark’s conducting was good.  It’s probably too much to ask for the finesse and sheer certainty of Sir Charles Mackerras in this repertory, but he brought out the instrumental details well.  The orchestra played gamely (they must be able to do it in their sleep by now) and the chorus sang similarly even if ensemble wasn’t perfect.

They were performing the show for the whole week and, perhaps surprisingly, the theatre was pretty full and, even better, the audience was really enthusiastic at the end.  Justly so.   Can we please have some more G&S of this calibre?