The public’s attitude to opera hasn’t changed much in 20 years. It is still considered an elite art (intellectual or monetary), despite the much hyped popularisation of opera by pop music marketing, ‘easy listening’ snippets or winning a talent contest. Another misconception of opera amongst those who have never seen one is that of The Fat Lady Singing. I don’t mean this literally. The Fat Lady Singing is opera that is poorly acted, badly directed, entirely subservient to the singers’ egos and utterly unengaging.
It should be acknowledged from the outset that some opera newbies (and some old-hands) actually enjoy their misconceptions. They believe elitism to be part of the experience. They want to see The Fat Lady Singing: perhaps at Verona, where Cavaradossi will sing ‘E Lucevan Le Stelle’ again if you ask him to, or Amneris will stop mourning the loss of Radames in order to pick up her flowers.
Unfortunately, most theatre goers are more sophisticated than this. They see good stagecraft in other theatre productions. The novelty factor of The Fat Lady Singing and feeling ‘posh’ will quickly wear off and they won’t bother again with what they see as an archaic and irrelevant art form. Many opera plots are, after all, ludicrous enough to modern audiences without senseless directing and terrible acting making them risible.
One company claiming to break down through the elitism is Ellen Kent Productions (EKP), the very successful company that tours London and the opera-starved provinces with singers and musicians from ex-Soviet States, promising traditional opera, international standard singers and stunning stage effects – even, in the case of the Nabucco this writer saw at The Cliffs Pavilion near Southend-on-Sea, ‘exotic dancers’! As audiences for the art form age and decline, bringing opera to new people is to be encouraged; and getting them in with promises of exciting productions may work (however irritating we may find it). But is EKP really serving the interests of UK opera and opera audiences, or is it merely just more of the Fat Lady?
We’ll deal first with ‘stunning stage effects’ and ‘exotic dancers’. The Lord of the Rings advertising boasts of its stage effects, and by all accounts, they are impressive. The early 1990s ROH staging of Birtwistle’s Gawain, received a lot of press, and justly so as anyone who remembers the singing severed head will testify; there is nothing wrong with promoting a production in this way – but you do have to deliver.
The ‘stunning stage effects’ boasted of by EKP consisted of: two smoke machines, a bit of projected lightning and a red light. Even more embarrassing were the ‘exotic dancers’ – four people performing grade 3 ballet during the opening chorus of Act III. It was exotic only in that the rather podgy men were dressed in loin-cloths and had flower garlands in their hair. These Bacchi were spotted by a member of the public outside the theatre during the performance, smoking a fag in full costume. In terms of professionalism, production standards and special effects, the good people of Southend would be better off going to see their local amateur society; there was nothing to draw in the punters here, and plenty to disappoint those who believed the hype.
So, to ‘traditional Opera’. I have nothing against opera staged traditionally. True, in the case of Nabucco any director worth his salt has a wealth of genocides in the 20th Century with which to ‘update’ his production, but the traditional story is strong, the psychological interplay interesting – and popular myth has it that the Italians at its premiere drew parallels with their own political situation – so why fix what ain’t broke?
It was traditional – it was the Fat Lady Singing. The singers’ lack of stage presence meant that they were totally swamped by the enormous sets. The acting was uniformly terrible. After betraying his people for her, Ismaele ignored Fenena for the rest of the opera. Nabucco ambled into the temple as if he was walking his dog and the chorus expressed mild concern at the imminent destruction of the Holy of Holies. Abigaille commanded no strength, hatred or sibling rivalry (any one of those would have been nice) – and that was only Act I. Instead of being left breathless at the ferocity of the Babylonians and fearful for the Israelites, I left for the bar, stuffing my fist in my mouth to stop myself laughing. Boredom seemed to be the prevailing expression on the faces of the rest of the audience; there was no animated discussion as I have seen at other local performances, amateur or professional.
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All right then. Opera is about singing. These are International Standard Singers – so perhaps they would convert the newcomers with the beauty and power of the human voice to express and elicit emotion.
To be fair, there were some excellent voices; Nabucco and Ismaele were splendid, the former deep, rich and rolling, the latter a ringing Italianate tenor. Zaccaria, strong and beautiful in the lower register, found the top notes beyond his reach and I was never convinced that anyone understood what he was singing (the audience couldn’t have understood much either; the translation seemed to have been written by someone for whom English wasn’t so much a mother tongue as a wicked uncle. ‘Stay, it’s awful’ was my favourite surtitle; which I think was a direction to the audience).
Fenena was simply dull. A pleasant enough mezzo, but without legato or expression, but with Abigaille the evening crossed from darkly amusing into deeply disturbing. This was a voice in trouble from the start; insufficiently supported with cracked and missing top notes. She had a gold-toned lyric, and lacked the dramatic’s power and coloratura for the runs and trills. It is possible that she was having a bad night, but that the company allowed her to sing in that performance when she was so clearly having so many problems, was bordering on negligence. I felt I was listening to a voice being worked into an early grave. Not a lot here to impress.
So did EKP attract a young, new audience? Of the 1500 seats available, probably only half were occupied for Nabucco and the majority of the audience were well over 60 years old. Southend has a thriving amateur theatrical and musical scene and its three theatres are usually well attended, but this was the emptiest I’d seen any of them. Even with all the advertising the theatre could not be filled – or perhaps the punters knew what they would get and didn’t bother? I can’t blame them. On the basis of this performance, I cannot imagine that anyone would want to see another opera.
As opera lovers we want to see opera thrive, and as singers it is a matter of personal survival. I would love to see more opera in the provinces, as it is only if we capture audiences here they will dare to spend money on going to the London houses. At the moment, EKP is pretty much the only company doing this - and provincial audiences are not getting a good deal.
The national companies do tour, but they do not come to the East Anglian region (except Norwich). I suspect the reason is two-fold: proximity to London and lack of appropriate theatres. Many provincial theatres are not purpose built and have poor acoustics and no pit (at the Cliffs several rows of seating were removed to accommodate the orchestra; I’m not sure how much of the singers those in the stalls would have heard). Despite these difficulties, is it too much to ask for one or two small touring companies to visit the provinces with well sung, well acted, well directed operas?
It is not as if we are lacking in talent. Every year the Conservatoires disgorge yet more accomplished post-graduates, who have little or no chance of finding enough work to sustain a living; yet the singers and musicians most likely to have been seen by UK audiences have been imported wholesale from ex-Soviet states. If the productions were models of excellence I would have no problem with this, but they are manifestly not. There must be money in opera for these tours to continue – so why does EKP go to the trouble and expense of importing when musicians, singers and directors could be found here? I suspect the answer is the obvious one.
Jenny Haxell
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