Michael Tanner

Così fan tutte Royal Opera Phaedra Barbican When Jonathan Miller’s production of Così fan tutte was first mounted at the Royal Opera in 1995, it was the Armani clothes which received the most attention. Over the years there have been many modifications, and it now bears little relationship, certainly in the direction of the singers, to its original conception.

La Bohème Cock Tavern The Enchanted Pig Linbury Studio Puccini’s La Bohème has oddly become the Christmas opera of choice, broadcast on BBC TV on Christmas afternoon (an especially ludicrous affair), and major opera houses dusting down their elderly versions. I doubt whether any of them will be as involving, indeed thrilling and upsetting, as OperaUpClose’s production at the Cock Tavern Kilburn, originally scheduled to run from early December to 20 January, but now extended by two full months, it is proving so popular. The Cock has seating for only 40, so that is not quite as amazing as it sounds, but given the comparative obscurity of the venue it is still impressive.

Otello Barbican Die Zauberflöte Royal College of Music Verdi’s Otello has almost become a rarity since Domingo gave up singing the title role, so its inclusion in the LSO series of concert performances under Sir Colin Davis was most welcome, and all the more so when it was announced that, at extremely short notice, the young New Zealand tenor Simon O’Neill had taken over from the ailing Torsten Kerl. My first exposure to O’Neill was as Florestan at the Proms this year, where he electrified the proceedings with his intense and accurate singing and vocal acting. Otello demands even more than Fidelio, and he rose to all the challenges, from a quite magnificently authoritative ‘Esultate!’ onwards.

Cecilia Bartoli Barbican Messiah Coliseum After a brief but inspissatedly tedious overture by Porpora, played by Il Giardino Armonico, the curtains at the Barbican were pulled aside and Cecilia Bartoli, dressed like a highwayperson from a 1940s escapist movie, sprang on to the stage, flung off her feathered hat, rocked with superabundant energy as the orchestra played the introduction to her first aria, from another opera of Porpora’s, and launched into the first of many elaborate analogies between love and other conditions which might give an excuse for lots of drooping and even more giddy coloratura. She was on amazing form, and was greeted and received with almost hysterical rapture.

Cherevichki Royal Opera Tolomeo English Touring Opera, Cambridge Semele Royal Academy of Music The week’s operatic rarity was Tchaikovsky’s Cherevichki, inaccu-rately translated as The Tsarina’s Slippers. It is an adaptation of the Gogol story ‘Christmas Eve’, and is slightly more familiar in Rimsky-Korsakov’s version, which was mounted in a spirited production at ENO in 1988. Though I never thought I’d say so, the Rimsky score turns out to be considerably more engaging, certainly more suited to his temperament, and his flair for orchestral colour. Tchaikovsky was devoted to his own opera, which had a mild success as Vakula the Smith, and which he subjected to extensive revision.

Duke Bluebeard’s Castle English National Opera Swanhunter Opera North Bartok’s only opera, Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, shouldn’t be a difficult work to stage, to sing and to play, yet most of my worthwhile experiences of it have been listening to recordings — where it has done notably well. Though the plotline is as simple as can be, and the music matches it in urgency and directness, or rather because of these facts, it is a piece that invites and certainly receives the attentions of meddling producers who ignore what it is about and invent more or less elaborate dramatic situations which it could have been about.

L’assedio di Calais Guildhall School of Music and Drama This is the time of year, before the long hibernation of opera companies sets in, when there is sometimes a choice of several operas per night, many of them performed by the schools of music, which often seem to adopt the unintelligent course of having their performances on in the same week. This year, however, it is possible to go to the Guildhall School this week, the Royal Academy next week, with Semele conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras, and the Royal College the week after that to see The Magic Flute.

Porgy and Bess Royal Festival Hall Artaxerxes Linbury Studio Cape Town Opera has been on tour in the last ten days, taking its production of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess to Cardiff, the Southbank Centre and Edinburgh. I went to the first of the two London performances, staged but without scenery. The action took place behind some of the orchestral players, with the rest either side. That is not an ideal situation, but nevertheless Gershwin’s finest score came across with enormous impact — in fact, I was freshly astonished at how much finer this work is than anything else he wrote. Whereas, I gather, the production is set in Soweto, at the Festival Hall it wasn’t set anywhere at all.

Werther; The Adventures of Mr Broucek Opera North The Truth about Love Linbury Studio Massenet’s Werther is a tricky opera, in fact may well not be susceptible of more than a production which leaves you feeling that you could easily live with its not very numerous highlights. One of its chief problems is highlighted in Gerald Larner’s incisive notes to the new Opera North production: ‘The problem with a Werther opera is that no libretto, unless it completely traduces Goethe’s original, can compensate for the obvious disadvantage that, because Charlotte is either engaged or married to Albert and is determined to give Werther no encouragement, there can be no mutual declaration of love, no full-scale duet for the two protagonists.

Letters of a Love Betrayed Linbury Studio Carmen Royal Opera House Wozzeck Royal Festival Hall A hectic operatic week, three down and two (to be reviewed next week) to go, began lamentably with what I’m in danger of coming to think of as the archetypical Linbury experience. That hideous place, a kind of operatic Nibelheim under the Valhalla of the Royal Opera, has seats so cramped and uncomfortable that I can only think that their point is to ensure one stays awake, as one witnesses another première which seems destined to be also a dernière.

Tristan und Isolde Royal Opera House Tristan und Isolde is a masterpiece that can be given widely different interpretations, since even by Wagner’s standards it is permeated by ambiguities. He may have intended, as he wrote in that famous letter to Liszt, to write ‘a monument to that most beautiful of dreams’, that is, completely fulfilled love, but is that what he achieved? Whatever the answer, a performance that fails, in the first place, to leave you shattered, and in the second to make you think very hard about what you think passionate love is and whether you really want it, is a failure. Glyndebourne’s recent production left one in a kind of purple daze, mesmerised by its anodyne beauty. No one could accuse the new production at the Royal Opera of that.