Glyndebourne on Tour at Sadler’s Wells

5th December 2007

Hairy McMungo had a feeling, as he always does, that Glyndebourne on Tour’s production of Macbeth was going to be excellent. As always, Hairy got it right. His prediction that the great Scottish singer Leon Jackson would win The X Factor was also right, but unfortunately Hairy was unable to persuade anyone to place a bet for him and therefore caused him to lose quite a lot of Money that really should have been his. Hairy McMungo has a great admiration for Leon who needed only a year to reach such a high standard of singing which must have saved him so much Money. And now he has a £1 million singing contract. He might be a bit of a jessie but Hairy McMungo is proud to claim Leon as a countryman.

The one small criticism Hairy would like to make about Glyndebourne on Tour’s production of Macbeth is that the cast included only one genuine Scot, the great tenor Thomas Walker, who Hairy thought was wasted rather in the small role of Malcolm but that is Verdi’s fault and Hairy McMungo was very glad to see his country in such safe hands at the end of the opera.

The opera opened beautifully with a whole hoarde of Scotsmen running across the stage in their brightly-coloured kilts. Clearly it was set in modern times as the Macbeths and Macduffs were in modern Macbeth/Macduff tartan although Duncan, Hairy believes, was in more traditional colours. Banquo and Fleance were in one of the many different tartans of the Stewart family. There were no McMungos as far as Hairy could see but his ancestors were involved in the moving of Birnam Wood so they would have been there somewhere.

There was then a pause while a technical hitch was dealt with. Hairy thinks there might have been a few throughout the evening as there were many changes of scene which were often preceded by a few crashes but these did not make the opera any less riveting as it is one of the greatest ever written with Roy Laughlin conducting like a true Scotsman, a great achievement indeed for one born in Belfast.

The scene switched to the witches, not three as in the great Scottish play but three groups taken from the Glyndebourne Chorus which has begun the careers of many great Scottish singers. Hairy McMungo found their clothes amusing if not properly Scottish, They were typically dressed for their voice types. The sopranos were attractive (if in a tarty way), the mezzos appeared to be dressed as boys and the contraltos were old ladies in headscarves. Hairy thought they all sang very well and some of them could dance as well.

Hairy McMungo doesn’t understand why there were so few Scots in the cast but he can only assume they wanted more Money than Glyndebourne was prepared to pay. Stephen Gadd did very well as Macbeth probably the best Englishman Hairy has seen as Macbeth both in the opera and in the play. Macbeth is a jessie so he probably does have quite a bit of English blood in him, poor man.

Svetlana Sozdateleva was extremely good as Lady Macbeth and really quite disturbing in her sleepwalking scene but Hairy McMungo couldn’t help but be a little bit disappointed because he knew that Miriam Murphy who has sung Lady Macbeth at the ROH but was only her Lady-in-Waiting here could do it even better. Hairy wasn’t completely sure she was just a Lady-in-Waiting though. She was wearing Macduff tartan and appeared to double as Lady Macduff. Hairy McMungo really liked this idea. It gave the Lady-in-Waiting a bit of extra importance and Lady Macduff’s death is sadder if we’ve seen her.

Ilya Bannik sang very well as Banquo and only let his acting go over the top in his death scene. Actor Luke Owen managed to turn Fleance into an important character who fights alongside Macduff and Malcolm at the end.

Understudy and Chorus member Adriano Graziani got the biggest cheers of the night as Macduff although Hairy McMungo thinks at least some people cheered him because he was a tenor rather than because he was really good. Opera audiences sometimes have very strange ideas but as Hairy McMungo is a tenor himself and hopes to sing both Malcolm and Macduff one day he won’t say any more about it. Another Chorus member, Sion Goronwy (yes he is Welsh but Hairy, like all Scotsmen is always honest and unprejudiced) sang the roles of the Doctor, the Sergeant and the Herald. He probably would have been a strong presence even if he’d just been a member of the Chorus because he’s half a foot taller than everyone else but it’s his voice and his silent involvement in the action that really made him stand out for Hairy McMungo.

Some critics haven’t liked the performance and Hairy McMungo could understand if anyone thought it insulted Scotland as this production was probably a bit more amusing than it should have been. The washing machine annoyed Hairy McMungo a bit but the white gloves were very spooky and while Birnam Wood was a bit pathetic the rest of the opera had a real Scottish feel. It really put Hairy McMungo in the mood for a spot of haggis hunting and was the perfect start to the lead-up to Burns Night.

HAIRY McMUNGO

primi-divi at hotmail.co.uk