I haven't gone to many of these cinema showings of operas, for all sorts of reasons. Perhaps I should go more often. The ones from New York show here on Saturday nights. Generally, Jimmy works Saturdays, so I might as well go to the pictures as sit at home alone. And there are two cinemas very close to me that show them, so I'm short of excuses.
So, yesterday evening found me in a slightly snowy Brixton and settling down for Der Rosenkavalier. I don't know the opera in intimate detail, but I seem to remember there are lots of longeurs, so I was a bit anxious in case I got bored and fidgety. Actually, as it turns out, I know it a lot better than I thought I did -which still isn't enough to pass intelligent comment on the intricate details and subtle nuances.
I was trying to work out whether I have seen this exact precise staging before or whether there are several staid and unimaginative productions of the same opera available on DVD.
I will fully confess that I found the scenery beautiful and the costumes exquisite, but prettiness doesn't an opera production make. I suppose I came away with a very strong sense of a linear narrative and two dimensional characters. I am at a loss as to how to make the characters more rounded and sympathetic, but that's the director's role, not mine.
I have seen several versions on TV or DVD, and even though none was especially memorable together they have left sufficient of an impression for me to have some basis for comparison.
I thought Susan Graham was far -and- away the star. I've only actually heard her live in one part, in two locations! (Iphigenie) and I don't have much of her on CD or DVD, but what I know of her I like, and I thought she was very convincing as Octavian and mugged and hammed well. I suppose ultimately, her voice doesn't move me, but I find it unerringly pleasing. I did read someone mentioning her struggle with a few of the notes and I did notice this, but I'll prefer a singer, like her, who does these sotto voce rather than the screamers and shriekers.
I'm afraid I just don't get Renée Fleming and I am startled at descriptions about her epitomising the role. I tweeted frivolously about her resembling Mrs Robinson, startled at how well cast Renée would be (physically) as Iris (I am certain that Renée doesn't share the same hateful views). One of my Tweeps from outside the UK assumed, not unsurprisingly, I was referring to Mrs Robinson from The Graduate and commented that Renée has none of the class he would expect from the Marschallin. I'm not saying she was bad, and there was a welcome absence of her characteristic scoops and swoops and jazz style. And she is rather delicious looking.But she isn't quite the Marschallin one would desire.
I rather took to Kristinn Sigmundsson as Baron Ochs. I rarely make a point of commenting on the vocal qualities of basses but I think he was marvellously obnoxious, playing the role straight for the maximum of laughs.
Christine Schäfer was okay in places but I can't say she did much for me - which is a shame considering I have booked to see her six times in March! I am sure I would have preferred Miah Persson who appeared earlier in the run. Unfortunately, Christine resembles Celia Imrie in a bad Victoria Wood* sketch, and I have to say I found most of Acts II and III to be pure provincial pantomime. To a certain extent Act III is meant to be, whereas I'm not sure Act II is.
That having been said, I think that the point of the opera is a satire on certain society mores and perhaps an innovative modern production would bring this out more. The pantomime mugging and hamming of Act II and the vague hints of grotesquery in Act III, all hinted at the work's potential, but I think probably just about everybody went away with a strong sense of this being about a love triangle in gorgeously pretty frocks. I didn't see the ENO production of this work but I would expect a director of the calibre of David McVicar to pick up the undercurrent.
With ultra-traditional, ultra-conservative and very pretty productions, the devil is in the detail. For example, the Marschallin's breakfast is brought and she is poured a drink (turns out to be hot chocolate) from a china pot into a china cup with matching saucer. The pot was decorated with pink flowers, the cup and saucer were predominantly green.
I told myself not to be nit-picking, but I detected a fidgeting in the cinema, and one almost totally audible stage whisper from two rows in front of me "Teapot doesn't...tea-cup"
Another time, minor character Valzacchi was supposed to be opening the big heavy doors of Faninal Palace, only to reveal that they were light insubstantial things.
Overall I enjoyed the performance. I'm not sufficiently familiar to be able to say how the conducting and orchestra playing compared against the field. I didn't notice any bad moments, either flubs or strange tempi. But I also didn't find anything that revealed anything about the orchestra colours, layers and textures, which, ultimately, is the joy of Richard Strauss, and nothing that moved me to rapture. So, given my caveats of ignorance, I would award it a good not great!
And I shall devote a separate blog post to other aspects of the transmission!
* I'm not suggesting Victoria Wood is bad, but she does parody the farcical, so imagine a bad version of a VW parody of farce
