Letter from Charles
Re: Grandiose performance of Handel's Partenope
On Thursday 16 October 2008, I visited the English National Opera's production of Partenope by George Frederic Handel, and was entranced by this lesser-known Handelian comic masterpiece. This is not Opera seria, or the stodgy oratorio of Queen Anne's day, but a highly stylized Opera Buffa well before its time. Confusing, in that its plot is a comedy of manners, more involved than Mozart's Marriage of Figaro and more subversive than Leclos' Liaisons Dangereux, it, nevertheless, leaves us pleasantly stunned by its array of musical bonbons and merry wit and humour.
What stylistically astute pacing by Baroque Scot, Christian Curnyn! His attention to the balance and inner voicing, particularly the Italianate Botticellian colouring of Handel's light-hearted but intricately florid score of Partenope brings highlight after highlight to Christopher Alden's fast-moving and staggeringly ebullient stage production. Especial mention should be made of the lithe and languorous bowings by the Leader of the ENO Orchestra, Janice Graham, but the charmingly pointed secco recitives led by theorbist, David Miller adding a true-to-life sei-cento flavour to the sung dialogue with such, to put it mildly yet humorously, "highfalutin luting" makes the orchestration truly authentic.
Christopher Alden's Partenope concept is full of both light and light-heartedness, brimming over with Roaring Twenties' gaiety and joie de vivre. What a stroke of artistic insight to combine typical motives of the tongue-in-cheek Dadaistic photo-fanatic, Emanuel Rabinovitch (1890-1976) - known to us as "Man Ray". Attitudes and attributes favoured by another New Yorker, Dorothy Parker, plus scenic effects like the bar-stool antics of Marlene Dietrich, extracted from the "Blue Angel" film, or the shaow grotesques from Murnau's "Nosferatu" slung in for good measure, yet the curious mystique of Marcel Duchamp and André Breton combined with "ready mades" like Tristan Zara'a mummifying toilet paper and the radiant Man Ray "Rayographs" constantly pervade the atmosphere.
The costumes in all possible sexual spheres - from the femme fatale virago to the flashy spiv-style man-about-town of (not Paris but) New York of the roaring twenties, to the transvestite or erudite, from George Sands-like masculinity to the dour scots' kilt, down to the unisex asceticism of the self-centred poor little rich (Napoletan) princess, Partenope, designed by John Morrel, give the performance an added zest; and, along with the unabashed lighting liquidity - sometimes slightly affected by flashy "solarization" imaging - by Adam Silverman, and the fluently converse yet highly lyrical and neatly rhythmicized neo-baroque movement - under the skilled aegis of Claire Gaskin, all make Alden's anachronistic but anatomically palatable Partenope seem to thrive so healthily.
It is also a boon to have such a witty and up-dated Bronx-Cockney version of the patched up original of Stampiglia's libretto: if Metastasio or Da Ponte were able to hear this daringly globalized translation by Amanda Holden, they would probably turn in their graves - yet a-chuckling all the while!
The set, being a whitish refurbished mansard of no significance - hardly in Paris, somewhere Off-Broadway, I would say - renders concentration on the 6 protagonists all the more consistent, and the gleaming enameled purity of this all-purpose downtown NY (not Parisian or Neapolitan) apartment unwittingly zooms one's eyes onto other odd stage properties like the centralised comfort zones of the lavatory and the ornate Russian stove, or the ladder for the experimental, collage-like Peggy-Guggenheim-collector's item - where a manic Man Ray-ic tenor plaseters body fragments on the wall, as if unwanted graffiti on an aching blank wall. These modest exercises in superficial Dadistic humour conceived by Andrew Lieberman exaggerate the facile absurdity of Alden's production.
A joy for all opera buffs and Handel connoisseurs, is the casting 6 such superlatively talented singers. Handel's pre-requisite: vocal artistes who can master a series of fiercely florid "da capo" arias without turning a hair, Farinelli like stars who can rattle off dazzling fioritura and embellish endless long phrases with gusto - as countless castrati (usually big breasted male altos) could do in the 1730s - make casting for opera producers, nowadays, a nightmare. Where does one find, not one or two, but a six pack of baroque virtuoso soloists in 2008? Why, at the Coliseum in London, of course! The busy bumbling Baroque-befuddled bees all buzzing around the proud Queen bee Partenope are all as accomplished wooing lovers as they are masters of Italianate coloratura. The title figure, herself, sung and acted by Rosemary Joshua reveals a vocal technique and extended range of competence and ability. Ms Joshua's clear-cut stridency of tone is ideal for this icy stand-offish figure, and her portrayal of the lackadaysical high-society snob is a lovely cabinet piece, and through finely reiterating insistence she tells us of this flighty creature through ornately frilled roulades and leaps which, especially in her opening aria, but also in her butterfly-minus-the-madam doleful self-realisation ditty, she depicts a character ashamed of her shallowness, yet equally amused at her own incorrigable mock heroism and barbed antagonism.
John Mark Ainsley not only has a lyrical tenor voice of amazing agility and pleasant melifluousness, he is also a comic actor of subtle and supple stature. Ainsley curves and cuts his coloraturas as cutely as the quizzical Man Ray cuts his artistic capers on canvas or screen. One of the more imaginative of nice-singing tenors, he is able to convince us that all this frilly, fussy fioritura stuff is absolutely necessary, and as Emilio, he depicts the distanced hologram of a figure who seems to hold all the strings together - the individuals of the sextet being guided by him to enact one whole entity, as though he were a film director - a sort of Max Sennet of Alden's Man-Rayic production.
Hovering in the background like a faithful supporting actor, James Gower supplies us with the ideal straggly-bearded eccentric, as though struggling to break out of the celluloid of a Chaplin, or a Marx Brothers' tabloid, Gower, as one of the cast-aside suitors, Ormonte, has a lovely and syrupy, gentle-toned bass-barritone voice which he uses well, and his less exposed solo passages are always clear and succinct. Iestyn Davies, on the other hand, aches to be in the foreground - being the only genuine Handelian attribute in that he is a male alto or counter-tenor, as Alfred Deller and others would have it. One of the few falsettists who can pride himself in being masculine in sound, or feature, on stage, and while surrounded by several travesty roles, he is able to persuade us that, indeed, falsetto singing is not at all false-o but right-o. Iestyn Davies is the link for us between the Handelian Baroque and the somewhat trite, but fitting Aldenesque Times Square antics of the Twenties, and belies an understanding of the Caffarelli substance favoured by Handel at the time Partenope was written: incisive coloratura and accurate phrasing throughout a well-balanced and full-voiced range.
It is probably a good thing that not all the cast were as overwhelming in theatrical stature and vocal eminence as the two Mezzo-Assolutas, Christine Rice and Patricia Bardon, because then, their extraordinary artistry would not have dazzled us so fiercely as two blazing suns - yes, both of them are stupendous! Rarely does one have the lyrical intensity but finely honed agility and vocal stamina with such indescribable depth of tone and quality as in Christine Rice's singing. Like her mezzo-soprano colleague, Patricia Bardon, is equally astute and gifted in her singing, and also musically and acting-wise, both show a talent and ability which is undoubtedly world-class - not only in Handel but probably to be tested in time to come in all spheres of operatic music.
Ms Rice not only knows how to mould a phrase, or chisel a fioritura to a fine-edged tool, she also knows how to send out that so-called legendary "vibrazzione" of the Bel Canto Era in her sinuous interpretation of Arsace's arias. There is nobility and tenderness in her singing which immediately touches our hearts. After having bathed in her delectable sound, one gets easily maudlin and mal-content that she is no-longer singing, and longs to hear more of her. In this trouser-role she gives us the impression she could be the ideal Cherubino, or Octavian - but knowing how voluptuously feminine she can be, after having heard her Ariadne interpretation at Covent Garden in Birtwistle's new opera The Minotaur, one can only admire her flexibility, and say: "cherchez la femme!"
Ms Bardon is unbelievable, in that she can steal the show unabashedly over and over again during the evening without unduly overshadowing the rest of the cast. With her confusing yet entrancing transvestite role of Rosmina disguised as Eurimene she cajoles us into believing in her desperate love for Armindo; she simmers with Vesuvian explosivity, yet despite her vocal artistry and acting prowess, she is hardly able to subdue many of the pyrotechniques still brooding there. Capable of acting most of the cast off the stage, she knows she is not doing Ulrica or Eboli, and withholds a great deal, refusing to overflow into too much pathos. The art of little is more makes the switch back and forth from masculine centurion to feckless female so winning: her histrionic talent is easily outdone by her vocal brilliance, and this makes one catch one's breath a lot. At time, Ms Bardon baffles us with her cut-diamond roulades and scintillating vocal bravura, then she suprises us with a deep and hollow Erda-like earthiness which is in such contrast to her bright upper range - this wistful vocal emblem goads us like a spectre from a myriad of past legendary singers - so much so, that one has to imagine that some day she, too, may become one of those mythical creatures. Ms Bardon possesses a stage personality which can break down all barriers, musically and histrionically. Not only is she convincing with her accomplished Italianità: both her florid and cantilena vocalising is tender, yet clear as a bell - and, as she tries to combat her dual-personality (Rosmina/Euremine) and begins tentatively unwrapping her surprise package of sexual deception, with suspense teetering tenderly on the edge of banality, she is still able to reassure us that all is well. Wow! better than any nightclub show. Never have I seen such tasteful strip-teasing on stage! Some of Bardon's sequences staged with Dadaist fervour by Christopher Alden make you forget things like the "Dance of the Seven Veils" and other trivia. This is vocal-acting-artistry par excellence!
The fine vocal ensembles and orchestral accompaniments of the ENO orchestra under Christian Curnyn remain intense and fulfilling right up to the dazzling finale. This English National Opera production has an international flair and much is owed to the many sponsors who make such enthralling operatic events in London possible.
Charles Robin Broad - London/Saarbrücken, 22 October 2008
