The Beggar’s Opera
Linbury Studio
The Magic Flute
Coliseum
Is there any good reason for reviving The Beggar’s Opera now? None of the mercifully few productions I have seen has given any reason for answering yes (I don’t count The Threepenny Opera). The new production at the Royal Opera’s Linbury Studio emphatically doesn’t. Originally to have been conducted by Richard Hickox, the City of London Sinfonia was in the hands of Christian Curnyn, and on the musical side things went smoothly. It was done in Britten’s realisation, which has points in its favour, but several against, too. While his touch as an arranger was always sure, though more so in the wonderful folk songs than here, he didn’t get the measure of the work’s satirical content: the 12-piece orchestra makes delightful but genteel contributions to the proceedings. Raunchiness wasn’t in Britten’s make-up, and to give Beggar’s Opera the punch it needs if it’s to count as an effective piece now, that’s what it has got to have.
The staging is clever, if unnecessarily complicated. As one clambers down the Linbury’s staircases, one sees, on the left, parts of three tiers from the main house, with the performers in the lower two, dummies (of one kind and another) in the top one. They give way to the acting area, which has a row of chilled-drink dispensing machines, which easily convert into the red lights of Soho. The setting and the costumes are updated, but the text isn’t: and while we may have got used to that in the Ring, it proves to be harder to swallow with this earthy lot of tarts and tricksters. What makes it worse is that the performers are as bad at speaking as operatic singers almost always are. I think I’ve asked before, but just in case: why don’t opera schools train their students in plausible ways of saying their lines, since the chances are that in the course of their careers they will take part in several works, operettas or maybe musicals, probably Fidelio and so on, in which there are large spoken stretches? This set put on a variety of pseudo-Cockney voices, apart from the apparently Eton-educated Macheath of Tom Randle. He has a fine singing voice, but he didn’t convince me for a moment of his lechery or villainy. All told it seems a miscalculation on the part of the director Justin Way of exceptional proportions.
At the Coliseum ENO revived Nicholas Hytner’s 1988 production of The Magic Flute for the 13th time, and some of the same trouble was apparent there, though not nearly as acutely. I’m not sure how many times I have seen this production, but it proves accommodating to a wide range of performers and of interpretations. This one bifurcated into impressive, sustained solemnity for the heroic aspiring pair and for Sarastro and his priests, and knockabout clowning from Roderick Williams as Papageno. He is a marvellous singer, as he demonstrated generously; and he can be a fine actor. But he chose to ignore any elements of pathos in his role, and that was damaging to the integrity of the work. He was given far too much leeway, too, so that some of his solo scenes — including a perhaps unintentionally prolonged one with his doves at his first appearance — went on for ages. By contrast, the serious characters had their dialogue cut down to size, which I don’t mind though it leaves the action in a more bewildering state than ever. The weak link was the Queen of Night of Emily Hindrichs, shrill both when speaking and singing, and not a commanding presence. Her Three Ladies were marvellous, though, witty — this is Jeremy Sams’s best translation — and singing beautifully. Robert Lloyd’s Sarastro now is rather short of breath, so both his arias were hurried: but the relationship with his followers, an argumentative lot, was original and convincing. They too sang wonderfully, making the sublime chorus ‘Oh Isis and Osiris’ the high point of the work. Odd casting for the evil — and of course not black — Monostatos, merely a grumpy middle-aged lecher, of whom Papageno had no reason to be scared.
The central pair are excellent singers: Sarah-Jane Davies makes a great deal of her music, but her acting is languid, almost off-hand. Robert Murray is a lusty tenor, also disinclined to throw himself into his role, but their meetings in the two supreme finales, and in the stupendous trio in Act II, were as moving as they need to be. But it seems that no thought has been given to the progression these characters undergo, which is after all the point of the opera. They would have been more moving still in a concert performance. The stars of the show, however, are the Three Boys, the best I have ever seen or heard. Not only do they sing their music with radiant purity of tone, without sounding like refugees from a cathedral choir, but they act with more intelligence and a greater sense of what is demanded by their crucial role than anyone else onstage. Erik Nielsen from Frankfurt, making his debut at ENO, had problems with balance — the sound was top-heavy — but he judged tempi admirably, beginning the Overture with a breadth that I had thought Colin Davis alone still commanded.
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