Special affair

Thursday, 14th September 2006

Holl’s two-dimensionality shifted some emphasis on to the other roles: that was above all the case with the gloriously resonant and intelligent Pogner of Matthew Rose, a great bass in the making; and spectacularly with the Walther of Jonas Kaufmann, who brought such deep understanding to his first performance of this role that for once Walther became the cynosure he should be: he built the Prize Song with surpassing skill, truly as a remembered dream. Andrew Shore was a brilliantly subtle, firm-voiced Beckmesser, and the lesser masters were played by singers from, in some cases, the distant past. And Toby Spence was an ideal David, fussy and mellifluous. Only the Eva of Hillevi Martinpelto was a disappointment — but every Meistersinger has one.

About Gadaffi, with which ENO opened its season, it is kindest to write as briefly as possible. It is a complete, unmitigated flop, though some of the back-projections are quite appealing. As a study of a bewildering character it doesn’t begin, and as a contribution to any kind of theatre it is contemptible. There is very little singing: mostly there are nerdy pseudo-rhymed couplets, both shouted and amplified, with the odd brief chorus. That is supported by a deafening electronic beat, pervasive and pointless. In the programme it’s stated that that the latter is provided by the Asian Dub Foundation, ‘a distinctive sound combin[ing] hard raga-jungle rhythms, indo-dub bass lines, searing sitar-inspired guitars and traditional sounds, shot through with fast-chat conscious lyrics’. Hard to credit that such a combination could come up with so little. Some of the performers look fairly like the historical figures they are playing, but there is no probing of character, and the chronology of the scenes is too confusing to enable the audience to construct what it is not presented with. I found the first half of the evening, 70 minutes, as much as I could take, and had the impression that many others felt the same way.