Musical treat

Così fan tutte
English National Opera

The best thing was Stefan Klingele’s conducting, which evidently inspired the orchestra. Even the overture, which can often seem all too realistic a portrayal of vapid social patter, was incident-packed, and the pacing was ideal throughout. Klingele probed beneath the surface, as the singers rarely did. Yet they managed to register the pain of the two duets in which the sisters capitulate to the ‘Albanians’, though the ending of the opera was so underacted that the most depressing feature of the piece — that their experience has taught none of them a thing (there was a pretentious and fatuous article in last week’s Guardian Review in which the lovers were said to emerge ‘purified, sadder and wiser’ after their ordeal, when the whole point is that all they have learnt is to mouth nonsense about how guiding your life by reason will make you happy) — quite failed to bring home the point.

It will, nonetheless, be interesting to see what Kiarostami, supposed he is ever permitted to come to the UK, will add to this sketch of a production. And it would be nice if a different translation could be used, one which was closer to the original and less banal in diction.

Opera lovers will want to see Ronald Harwood’s play Collaboration, done at the Duchess Theatre in tandem with his 1995 play about Furtwängler, and centring on the relationship between Richard Strauss and Stefan Zweig. Superbly acted, especially by Michael Pennington as Strauss, it presents as convincing a portrayal of this puzzling figure as we are likely to have, and also of the strengths and weaknesses of his music. He was the homme moyen sensual par excellence, happy to write his music, be bullied by his wife, and play skat, but pitched into a political situation he quite failed to grasp, acting at first with outraged decency, then with terrified obedience. Admirers of his later works in particular should make a point of seeing it. See review on page 44.