West Side Story

Sadler's Wells theatre

12 September 2013

The trailer, which gives some idea of the drama's vitality, and wetness. From here.

Authentic, youthful production captures the impact of the astonishing original, but 55 years on, there is room for improvement.

The first thing to note about this revival is that it is taking place at Sadler’s Wells rather than say English National Opera. And that is appropriate, because although composer Leonard Bernstein and lyricist Stephen Sondheim contribute significantly to the effect of this work, the words and music are rather less important than Jerome Robbin’s choreography.

Which isn’t to say that the words and music aren’t effective – some of the finest songs in the Broadway canon, and Bernstein produced a masterpiece in his dance music, which captures youthful energy and brashness as no other music does.

But this drama is weaker than its parts, and relies more on the dancing to maintain interest than the music, the lyrics or the text itself. The first part feels overlong, and is required to cover too much ground, right up to two murders, which feels at least as tragic as Tony’s death at the end of the second part.

In the second part, the marvellous comic number Gee, Officer Krupke does not operate in the Shakespearean manner of diffusing tension but rather seems crassly inappropriate, especially as these are not ‘low characters’ irrelevant to the main plot but the Jets, who have been involved in a murder earlier that night. Sophisticated rhymes seem wildly inappropriate.

Some of the most serious dramatic weaknesses could be salvaged in a less reverential production: the dated slang, or the painfully chic Somewhere dream sequence. The final procession, hinting at reconciliation, should be ditched. In Romeo and Juliet hope is spoken, not shown, thus leaving it open to justified doubt after so many deaths.

The visuals are the absolute highlight of this near-masterpiece, and have dated the least, except in the trivial sense that Robbins’ moves have been widely imitated. Overall, the work is part of the US invention of the teenager throughout the 1950s, and strikes me as the greatest description of teenage energy and futility we have.

Someday, somewhere, somebody will update the setting, remove the sogginess and produce a version that properly respects what is great about the piece. Until then, if we must have dusty museum performances that undermine the original freshness, let them be as good as this one.

As usual with music theatre, there is one vital caveat: the unnecessary amplification. It seemed to me that even the energetic dancers could probably project clearly without it, so good were they, and so the amplification does harm by effectively generalising their voices and preventing an unmediated understanding of who on stage in singing.

But the singing was fine, the accents authentic (so vital, I think, in US music theatre) and there was the pep so vital in the key numbers such as America, while A Boy Like That was as urgent and distressing as it ought to be.

It is rare to experience Broadway music theatre in London rather than an anglicised approximation. The difference is important, and this is the real thing.

Much ado about nothing

Old Vic theatre

7 September - 30 November 2013

James Earl Jones and Vanessa Redgrave an untypically  elderly Benedick and Beatrice.

When only Dogberry sparkles, a production of this comedy must be a failure, despite some interesting ideas. 

In the one brilliant idea in Mark Rylance’s production, the moment when Claudio accuses Hero of being a whore – on their wedding day, to maximise the pain, as Beatrice points out – the association with Othello is visually reinforced. Claudio, and his friends, are played entirely by black actors. Hero’s circle is white.

In both Othello and Much Ado, catastrophe results from sexual jealousy on absurdly weak grounds. If sense is restored in this comedy, in some ways that is actually less justifiable than in the tragedy.

What motivates Leonato’s horrifying response when he believes his daughter has deceived him? After she has witnessed these rages from her father and future husband, can Hero genuinely forgive and forget?

So “much ado”, even if it were about something, rather than nothing. This other great exploration of sexual jealousy is just as shocking as Othello, though the author stabilises us by adding the wonderful Dogberry and company at the key moment.

The catastrophe is almost impossible to ruin in the theatre, and this production conveys its power, thanks principally to a marvellous performance of Michael Elwyn as Leonato.

That Claudio is subsequently willing to marry practically anyone, so long as he can reduce his guilt over this catastrophe, provides the Shakespearean uneasiness over endings in marriage.

This is ingeniously signposted by the parallel betrothal of Beatrice and Benedick, and the boisterous expectation of infidelity. Given prior events and with Othello in our mind, theirs is a healthy attitude, though nihilistic, raising the question of quite why they decide to give in to each other.

New light is shone on this question by the production’s major innovation: having the bickering lovers played by James Earl Jones and Vanessa Redgrave, 82 and 76 respectively.

“The world must be peopled” is Benedick’s rejection of his sempiternal batchelorhood, but it can be peopled without marriage. Perhaps he is thinking of the effect being a bastard has on the villainous Don John. Here, given their considerable ages, Benedick’s argument is especially unconvincing.

Unfortunately neither actor is especially convincing in these roles, which are the glory of the drama. Redgrave has the stronger part, as usual with this author, and does more with it, but the prose is especially hard to bring off in the theatre, and much of their bickering was lost on me.

When actors fear Shakespeare’s now-archaic jokes are going to fall flat, they are tempted to broad physical comedy, and Rylance should have reined this in. There is a difference between two elderly actors rejecting the dignity we assume they must want, and actors of any age whatsoever behaving like buffoons to get a  laugh.

The setting is 1940s England, with Don Pedro and his team being African-American airmen stationed in a cosy English village. In fact, cosy is the word for at least the whole first half, which was so enervated I struggled to maintain any interest at all.

If after the interval things picked up, at no point did they fizz as needed in a witty comedy.

Othello

National Theatre

23 April – 5 October 2013

Rory Kinnear (Iago), Adrian Lester (Othello). Photo by Johan Persson.

In failing to make sense of the key characters, this contemporary Othello is a relative failure, though that doesn’t significantly reduce the powerful impact of this tragedy in the theatre.

Since FR Leavis argued that Othello is clearly supposed to be a villain, the older view, which rather took the hero’s own position that he loved not wisely, but too well, has been harder to maintain, at least in the theatre.

I think this is partly due to our mistrust of heroism. In Nicolas Hytner’s updated production, the Venetian general is in the British army, in either Iraq or Afghanistan, and consequently wears combat fatigues. This pretty much guarantees he will be seen as ambiguous, if not downright villainous, as soon as he wears them.

Luckily this isn’t how we first see him, after he has successfully wed Desdemona. He wears a smart suit, looks attractive and seductive, although not necessarily heroic.

I don’t think the creative team intended to confirm Leavis’ interpretation, but that only reveals the pitfalls of modern productions of this drama. The central conceit, that a supposedly great man kills his wife in a rage of sexual jealousy over a handkerchief, might be thought almost too absurd, though it is clear to me that the author was fully serious, including stressing Othello’s genuine greatness.

I take the drama as an attempt to illustrate the degradation of a great man and the sickening reality of murder. Iago, who tends to dominate the drama with his multiple soliloquies, is too quick-witted a creation if we assume Othello is credulous. A malevolent buffoon does not need an honest Iago to lead him by the nose.

Undoubtedly Shakespeare did not help a modern producer or actor in trying to convey his central character’s positive qualities. At the beginning, and then pathetically at the end, Othello reaches great poetic heights, but otherwise he is perhaps undercharacterised.

Gravitas, charisma; these are the essentials in playing Othello, and sadly these are not parts of Adrian Lester’s performance. There are many fine details, but these tend towards the Leavis view, as when he essentially bullies his men after striking Desdemona in public. Conversely, he makes too little of some of the greatest lines, such as ‘the pity of it Iago’.

Rory Kinnear’s Iago is better, but this is very often the case. A very blokey performance, which makes sense in context, though as usual, it is not easy to see why he is willing to risk so much to destroy Othello, given that he is cunning enough to exploit people like Roderigo with no-one the wiser.

Ideally, an Iago would somehow make his absolute loathing of the moor obvious in almost every scene, and Kinnear doesn’t do that – in fact, he doesn’t convey convincing hatred at any point. This seems a mistake.

As if to compound criticism of Shakespeare’s characterisation in this drama, Desdemona is also a fairly passive thing, which makes her on stage murder all the more shocking, even now.

But the actress can grant her greater presence than does Olivia Vinall, who creates a convincingly flirtatious teenager, but one who is merely petulant in response to her husband’s mistreatment, thereby avoiding the possibilities of being either noble or pitiable.

After all this, Emilia’s characterisation would surely be unimportant, except she somehow connives with Iago over the without handkerchief connecting this to later events. I didn’t see this explained through Lyndsey Marshal’s portrayal, though Hytner highlights the fateful handkerchief theft appropriately.

The production has many good touches, such as Othello’s epilepsy taking place in a lavatory. And the final scene is indestructibly powerful and affecting. Finding fault in a performance of Shakespeare is something to do upon reflection, for in the theatre I am simply grateful for the overwhelming experience.

Bach, Bruckner: concert

Royal Albert Hall

6 September 2013

Looking suitably excited, Maazel conducting the finale of Bruckner's eighth, with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. 

From here.

Resounding night-before-the Last-Night Prom.

I spent the majority of the Bruckner 8 in a state of rapt attention, in what I imagine would be a suggestible hypnotic state. It is an effect peculiar to Bruckner, and different from the state that, say Gorecki or Glass can induce with their slow or fast repetitions respectively.

Unlike our contemporary long-spanned composers, Bruckner is not exploring a single emotional state at great length. His symphonies are intensely dramatic, in the line of Beethoven, and actually the older school of Brucknerians, archetypally Furtwängler, created a much less rhapsodic effect with extreme tempo fluctuations.

The current tradition in playing these masterpieces is a steady, broad pulse with emphasis on projecting their astonishing grandeur. As happens here, this risks downplaying the significance of the final climax of the first movement, a moment of terrible crisis which haunts the following two movements and is only resolved after a struggle in the finale.

In other Proms concerts, some members of the audience applaud particular movements, and this is understandable. Here, I doubt anyone imagined applauding until the end of this enormous work, and this could either reflect the exhaustion we feel after each movement, or our awareness that the symphony must obviously continue, to resolve in some way.

The Royal Albert Hall felt saturated with sound, a wondrous experience, and I assume that conductor Lorin Maazel must take some credit for this, as the ‘sound’ of a work is one of the areas in which he is highly regarded. I imagine the Vienna Philharmonic could play this music in their sleep, and so deserve even more of the credit.

The finale is a great challenge, and part of this is because Bruckner must have found it formidably difficult to compose, much as he later did with sketches of a finale for his ninth. What can properly relieve the previous three movements, most especially the intensity of the preceding slow movement?

I didn’t notice any great difficulties in the tricky transitions in the finale, though I did wonder if Maazel had really plumbed the depths and heights in the slow movement. But the only serious blemish was the trio in the second movement, driven too hard and fast.

The first part of the concert was almost inevitably obliterated in comparison, but was a thoughtful example of programming: Bach organ works and transcriptions, played by Bruckner’s current successor as organist in St Florian.

Klaus Sonnleitner grappled with the unwieldy brute of an organ, hardly optimised for Bach, and produced excellent results. His encore was much better suited to the instrument, but that didn’t matter. The sense that Bruckner was at the organ, as indeed he was in 1871, was a magical prelude to what I believe is the greatest of orchestral works.

Schubert piano recital

Royal Albert Hall

5 September 2013

Schubert's sonata played by Sviatoslav Richter, a more forceful interpretation than Cooper's. 

From here.

70 minutes of sustained and profound lyricism, courtesy of Schubert.

Programming Schubert’s piano sonata in C minor (D958) followed by his ‘Grand’ piano duo in C major (D812) worked sublimely, for the reason given by pianist Imogen Cooper in the programme guide: the sonata creates a dark impression, which is then dispelled by the fairly upbeat, bright duo.

This composer must be almost synonymous with musicianship, a word that can otherwise be difficult to articulate. It is distinguished from technical skill, though usually is required alongside that skill, such as in the piano works of say, Beethoven or Chopin. This isn't really the case with Schubert.

The sonata, under Cooper’s hands, is projected lyrically, and I was forcefully struck with a sense of unending melody, not an unfolding in the way that for example, a Bellini aria unfolds, nor the working out of an argument as in Beethoven, but maybe closer to Wagner in the way that attention is maintained, though surely to a very different end result.

A beautiful and moving experience. Perhaps Cooper’s approach doesn’t bring out all of the dramatic potential of the work, as Richter does above. Her flowing approach also made her sound quite fast, and it is possible to make the sonata sound considerably slower and more intense. But this masterpiece benefits from multiple interpretive styles.

Cooper’s particular style made especially good sense given her programme. Had the sonata been a shattering experience, the duo would have seemed impertinent. Instead, the mood gradually lifted to one of celebration.

In Paul Lewis, Cooper must have found an ideal partner. Certainly they seemed of one mind, not to mention gesture. If the duo is a symphony in fancy dress, as some believe, I would think this performance was inadequate, for I couldn’t imagine it orchestrated. It seemed entirely suitable to the sound of the piano, right down to the chiming at the end of the piece.

Verdi, Tchaikovsky: concert

Royal Albert Hall

5 September 2013

Joseph Calleja singing Verdi's imperishable La donna è mobile, this time in context. 

From here.

A great composer filleted, but the concert redeemed through championing an interesting Tchaikovsky work.

The Verdi bicentenary has hardly been noticed at the BBC Proms: it has received less attention than the anniversaries of Wagner and Britten, and less attention than Tchaikovsky, whose complete symphony cycle was finished in the second half of this concert, as if to add to the insult. Verdi maybe rates a little higher than Granville Bantock, but I’m not even sure of that.

A selection of orchestral excerpts and five tenor arias is a highly misleading way to represent this great musical dramatist, even if the arias, from his early and middle period, give the impression they can stand alone. But this is utterly untrue of La Traviata’s wonderful prelude, and as it died away I felt cheated that the ball scene didn’t immediately follow.

The overture to La Forza del Destino is more of a showpiece, but it was again jarring to hear Aida’s Triumphal March out of context, even if Verdi’s special trumpets are always worth hearing.

With one exception, the arias were from lesser-known Verdi operas, and oddly covered the same sentiment, a hero remembering past love. None showed the composer at his best, apart from the exception, La donna è mobile from Rigoletto. Tenor Joseph Calleja must be one of the finer Verdi tenors today, with an ardent, appealing tone that nonetheless pings as needed.

Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony is also poorly known, despite being composed between his mature fourth and fifth symphonies. It ought to be better known, if this performance by Xian Zhang and the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi is any indication.

As the composer recognised, the first movement is the strongest, a powerful depiction of crushing melancholy or depression, which eventually overcomes any pleasant memories. The remaining movements are less inspired, culminating in a clattering finale that is supposed to represent a demonic orgy but is completely sexless, and too reserved in this performance to truly sound demonic.

If that doesn’t sound like the strongest recommendation, there is still much to enjoy, in Tchaikovsky’s tuneful, colourful manner. In this performance, it seemed longer than its inspiration warrants, and it isn’t a masterpiece on the level of his sixth, but the handling of the obsessive idée fixe seems to me better than in most of Berlioz and perhaps this is the best representation of that concept in music.

Gorecki, Vaughan Williams, Tchaikovsky: concert

Royal Albert Hall

4 September 2013

A plug for this excellent genuinely Polish recording (unlike the more famous interpretation with Dawn Upshaw). 

From here.

Three melancholy, mildly sentimental works in an interesting programme.

Gorecki’s third symphony may be almost as popular as Tchaikovsky’s sixth, though I suspect it works better for home listening than in a concert hall, whereas the opposite is true for the sixth.

The world of intense, ritualistic solemnity in the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs is far removed from the manic depressive mood swings in the Pathétique. There is scarcely any drama in the former, while the latter is one of the most dramatic pieces of music in the repertoire, significantly moreso than all but a few dozen operas, in fact.

We might fault the state of hypnosis that Gorecki induces in his audience in order to maximise the impact of his first, and key, song, a pieta prayer spoken by Mary over her dying son, Jesus. But that would be to dismiss the entire style of the work. I think a greater problem is the basic sentimentality of each of the song settings, relating to women and loss.

I don’t complain of the effects used to make us sympathise with the horrors faced by each woman, but rather with the small touches that imply without justification that there may be hope for them, and a world where this can happen. Any attempt at consolation cheapens these desperately sad poems, regardless of whether such touches are necessary musically to prevent monotony.

It’s a bind that the highly religious Gorecki could ignore. Musically, some form of consolation is required, otherwise there would be even less drama than there is. Even for Gorecki, this is unwarranted without a textual reference to God's mysterious justice.  But given the overall bleak impression, I don’t find this a devastating problem with the work, which deserves its place in the repertoire.

Tchaikovsky cheapens his music in the opposite way. So desperate to avoid boredom he lurches from one extreme to another. It’s a little like watching a great weeping and wailing, and remaining external to it. As with Gorecki, the sentiment doesn’t seriously mar the work, for the listener is surely fully committed by the great finale.

Conductor Osmo Vänskä produced a magnificent account of the symphony, somehow managing the orchestral balance so that many details could be heard without loss of weight in the strings. It wasn’t a hard-driven account, and was generally measured, but this can produce a shattering effect, and did here.

The makeweight in the programme was Vaughan Williams’ Four Last Songs, bloodlessly orchestrated by Anthony Payne. He couldn’t have been inspired by these slight pieces, which are nonetheless interesting for any fan of the composer (and everyone ought to be a fan).

It is hard to believe these repressed verses about love and death could have been set by the composer who much earlier in his life produced settings of Walt Whitman.  Their unassertiveness is a moving response to death’s approach, and if their intimacy precludes close involvement and so makes them sentimental, once again, it seems the composer recognised this in his doubts that they were suitable for public performance.