An operatic medley: Wagner, Stravinsky, Handel and Tippett

Have had a wonderful variety of operatic experiences recently and, while I’m always interested in the insights that different productions can bring to a work, I can’t help but reflect chiefly on the quality of the music-making and, even more, on how the composer problem-solved, setting text and underlining a drama by means of the singing voice. While not denying the cast and creatives their credit, nothing can redeem a bad score - whereas a good score can suffer if justice isn’t done.

So first up last month was Longborough’s Götterdämmerung dress rehearsal; clearly, an intense labour of love from the whole team and a lucid, unfussy production. It was well-sung too, but the orchestra was boss, hogging the limelight not just in terms of volume but in what it has to say, which is a lot. Why do singers like performing this music so much? I suppose to be up on the stage with those sounds swirling underneath must give one a sense of exhilaration, like conquering a mountain, arriving on a dangerous ridge while gazing at the wonderful view all around.  And it is wonderful, what goes on in the pit. But I find it difficult to enter Wagner’s world and empathise with the characters. There was a time, also, when the ending, and hence the point of the story, seemed absolutely cataclysmic and it was thrilling to experience the final denouement. Nowadays, the metaphorical Rhine seems to flood somewhere every year and even wetlands, not to mention forests, burn remorselessly. To envision “das Ende” when the planet appears already in its death throes feels almost a little out-dated. And is it moral that Brünnhilde must immolate herself in order to right the wrongs of men?

Next, thanks to a free, relaxed performance for locals, Grange Festival’s The Rake’s Progress. I’m very fond of this work having been involved on the original production at the Royal Opera House by Elijah Moshinsky in the late 1970s. The text shines brightly and Stravinsky’s music doesn’t eclipse it but is gently complementary. It’s a perfect score. The excellent Grange production took the whole thing very seriously. But, I wonder…  Hogarth’s cartoons are outrageously satirical. Could not the characters in the opera be more grotesque as in the original? Only Baba the Turk was allowed to clown it in this production, everyone else was literal and subdued. I’d love to see this opera with its hair down. The Madhouse scene In Hogarth’s last painting, for example, forms an entertaining spectacle for fashionable folk to become voyeurs to Tom’s demise. Did Auden and Stravinsky miss the point or is it all dead-pan on purpose? I can see why some people find the opera a little underwhelming. Perhaps Grayson Perry, he of The Vanity of Small Differences tapestries, a reenactment of the same tale, should design a production. That reminds me, Hogarth also made a series called An Election. Now that would be topical.

Then to Glyndebourne for Giulio Cesare. We only saw half of this production since we had cheap seats - but the music made up for it. Handel knew how to write an opera! His vocal lines come with many challenges, to be sure, yet they allow the singer to communicate with the audience and that direct connection between artist and spectator is something that not all composers have thought about. My theory is then, that since Wagner, opera became too orchestral. I heard college students recently describe writing operas in terms of scale: they were referring to the chance to write for a large band, as if all their energies and the substance of their work had been in the scoring to which the vocal lines were appended. (Indeed, that was the result, I thought). It’s well-known that Handel’s operas - not known for being short - were written on only 3 or 4 staves. There’s surely much sophistication in the art of keeping things simple. Things have moved on, maybe, but lessons are still to be learned from these past masters. Directors nowadays are so inventive that Handel’s longeurs fade away. Helped, of course, by a superb international-quality cast and period instrument band, Glyndebourne’s Giulio Cesare was a joy from first to last. 

Finally to Birmingham for Tippett’s New Year. What a thing! In a way, the above achievements pale into insignificance compared to what was accomplished by Birmingham Opera Company. The community spirit was exhilarating and the results astounding. I wanted to get our new Culture Secretary over there pronto. A modern opera in a gigantic tent on a brownfield city-centre site, with community performers, chorus and dancers, volunteer staff, the CBSO, and a superb cast of principals, an immersive production superbly performed… there was nothing not to marvel at. But, besides the contrived plot, the music itself was a let-down: too complex and lacking characterisation much of the time, some exceptions proving the rule, it felt as though the notes were spun rather than chosen, while contemporary styles seemed superimposed on the music, perhaps in an attempt to keep up with fashion. And why is it with Tippett’s operas, even if one knows the plot and follows the text, (and even enjoys the experience), one comes away not grasping what on earth it was all about? And I’m generally a Tippett fan.

Three out of these four experiences were courtesy of country house opera (and all four were seasonal). This is what English operatic life has been reduced to these days: largely inaccessible, both in terms of money and location. And it shouldn’t be forgotten there’s a large time commitment too: travelling to one of those venues with supper intervals and the like takes up the best part of a day (and night), impossible if you don’t have the leisure. But it’s these companies that much of our talent relies on for employment and exposure. In spite of their excellence - or indeed, because of it - It’s a sad state of affairs.