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Friday 9 January 2009

Thrilled by Strauss

Salome
Bridgewater Hall

Peter Grimes
Nottingham

Die Zauberflöte
Royal Opera House

Regular readers may feel they have had enough of me on Opera North’s Peter Grimes, but I was dissatisfied with how I reacted to it three weeks ago, so went to it again in Nottingham. The performance was electrifying in all respects, the audience evidently spellbound and almost unwilling to applaud at the end. Its most remarkable feature was the Grimes of Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts, which has grown from impressiveness to greatness. He is now confident enough to take huge risks with his voice and his acting. He achieves the quietest threads of sound on high notes, he abandons all inhibitions and acts with that directness which, in a role as strong as this, leads to a response from spectators united in amazement at how moved they are. This, one feels, is what opera can do and nothing else, almost, can: the immediacy of the impact, in a medium where we aren’t used to being exposed to such dreadful intensities, leads you to become, in Wagner’s phrase, ‘knowers through feeling’. The production will be at Sadler’s Wells again. This is the most unmissable of contemporary operatic productions.

The next evening I revisited the Royal Opera’s Die Zauberflöte, with the second, still distinguished cast, but the same deadly baton of Roland Böer. So far as one could judge in such a demoralising context, the Tamino of Pavol Breslik is a distinct improvement. What I went for was Kate Royal’s Pamina, and alas was not quite so moved as I hoped. Her lovely singing is still marred by vague diction, and she communicates dignity without much warmth. That surprised me, because as the Countess in Figaro with Glyndebourne on Tour she had everything — but that included a superb conductor. Christopher Maltman had the impossible task of taking over Papageno from Simon Keenlyside, and unwisely tried an imitation of the inimitable. Only Robert Lloyd, singing with Hotter-like nobility and richness of tone as the Speaker, managed to lift proceedings for a tantalising few minutes to a level of inspired grandeur, with which this opera should be imbued.

More articles from: Michael Tanner | this section

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