Glyndebourne Touring Opera at Milton Keynes
18th November 2005
Glyndebourne, having re-christened its Touring company Glyndebourne on Tour (it was previously the not remarkably dissimilar Glyndebourne Touring Opera), made the decision that, rather than using their Tour as a vehicle for displaying the talents of their current and recent Chorus members, it would be an extension of their Festival season, featuring artists of a similar standard and experience.
However, while some of the performers in this year’s leading roles are, indeed, neither members of the Chorus or recent graduates, it is unlikely that any of them would be asked to sing the same roles in the Festival. Not that they fail to sing to a sufficiently high standard: the Tour’s Cenerentola was vastly superior, in my opinion, to her Festival counterpart. But she is significantly less well-known. In additon, it has to be said that if the Chorus are featuring less in the Tours than previously, it is not to the extent that it is noticeable. The Figaro and Susanna in this production have never, to my knowledge, sung with the Glyndebourne Chorus, but the Count and Countess were both recent members. At the moment, it seems that Glyndebourne on Tour is taking a halfway position. If the recent graduates, like tonight’s Cherubino, are of the same high standard as the more experienced cast members, I have no objection to hearing both together. But if they are of a less high standard, like the Count and Countess, it is all the more noticeable if they’re surrounded with great performers, with the result that the production is not a good showcase for them, after all.
Glyndebourne’s Le nozze di Figaro has a mostly excellent young cast, but all were hampered by the direction of Graham Vick and his revival director, Jacopo Spira. To begin with, he asked characters to move when stillness would have been more effective (the Countess was forced to wander the stage aimlessly during both her arias), and trapped them into small spaces when they would be likely to feel the motivation for movement (Figaro, on discovering the identity of his parents, is trapped in a chair with his back to Marcellina, and Bartolo is on the other side of the stage). This contrariness also affected the humour at times, so Figaro seemed more of an angry character than a comic one in the first act, while the fourth act, which is full of emotion for both main couples, was reduced to being nothing but a farce. It is a farce on the surface, but there is more to the Act than clumsy groping in the dark, and same-sex kisses between the Count and Cherubino.
Another problem was the set. The stage was divided into a series of rooms by some very strange white devices with doors in. There were gaps between the “walls”, but sometimes these existed as possible entry points, and sometimes they didn’t. Although I knew very well what was going on, I became confused when the Count walked through a room that interconnected with the Countess’ dressing room in order to break open the door and remove the person in hiding. Similarly, Cherubino had more than one escape route. Both he and Susanna appeared to be visible when in hiding, but neither the Count or the Countess saw them, even though the Countess looked directly at Susanna – the only time she really looked at anyone. I can’t help but wonder how helpful this kind of confused staging is for those new audiences Glyndebourne hopes to encourage.
Conductor Thomas Rosner mostly seems to have a good understanding of Mozart, but he made one or two surprising decisions regarding tempi. The most serious was in Susanna’s duet with the Countess, which was so fast, the two ladies were unable to keep up. There is no dramatic advantage in taking the music faster. It is not exactly what one would call a dull piece of music, and it would be impractical for the Countess to dictate a letter, and for Susanna to write it, at so great a speed. However, if Susanna were writing at such a speed as to make her writing illegible, perhaps this explains why the final act appeared to take place indoors, rather than under the pine trees.
However, the cast, for the most part, did not let these many difficulties defeat them. Iain Paterson is an excellent Figaro, of great vocal strength (and physical strength, as was shown to distracting effect). Although he was not given the opportunity to take advantage of all the potentially comedic moments the role offers, the few opportunities he was allowed showed that a more humerous interpretation would come to him easily. Thie Figaro seemed rather more violent than most, but Mr Paterson ensured that he did not lack charm. His Susanna, Anna Maria Panzarella, has a lovely, warm soprano which is more suggestive of the Countess than her maid, and she certainly seemed most at ease with Susanna’s gentler moments, such as “Deh viene, non tardar”.
Part of the reason why the Susanna was heavier of voice than usual could be because the Cherubino was a soprano who seems ideally suited to soubrette roles. Usually, I would object to a Cherubino who sounds as though he should be singing Susanna, but I found Amy Freston’s performance to be one of the most captivating I have ever seen in this role. I was not in the least surprised to read that the supple Miss Freston trained as a classical dancer, although I am very glad she chose to be a singer instead. I do not usually like to predict future stardom for any young singer, but I do find it quite difficult to imagine that Miss Freston might not find great success, at the very least.
For the Count and Countess, I predict that they might sing their roles very well at some point in the future - but they are not at that stage yet. Jeremy Carpenter needs to grow as both a singer and more particularly an actor, but he is going in the right direction. Kate Royal has the voice, and her few rough vocal moments could have been the result of a bad night, or of being too preoccupied with manoeuvering herself around that obstacle course of a stage. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt in this. However, Miss Royal has a lot to work on in terms of her dramatic skills. Her Countess was repellantly cold, and it was difficult to believe that she loved the Count, or indeed anyone but her disdainfully superior self. I don’t doubt that it’s an extremely difficult role to perform – in some ways, more difficult dramatically than vocally - so perhaps it is impossible for such a young singer to portray the Countess’ complicated emotions convincingly without very detailed direction
The smaller roles were of an extremely high standard. Anne Mason, like many Marcellinas, does not look old enough to have a son of Figaro’s age, but she gave an unusually well-characterised and likeable interpretation of a role that is usually no more than a caricature. The only shame was that she was not allowed to sing her aria. She sings beautifully, unlike most Marcellinas, although I expect a number of them are encouraged to increase their comic value by singing badly. ( I should mention that this does not work.) Lynton Black (Bartolo) and Harry Nicoll (Don Basilio) also gave memorable performances. Malin Christensson took the role of Barbarina, and seemed a different singer from the vocally and physically unconfident young lady who performed with British Youth Opera and the Royal College of Music this time last year. The aria is always pretty, but it doesn’t always remind one why Schubert wrote variations on it. This performance shows one exactly why.
Barry Tone
primi-divi at hotmail.co.uk