Touched inappropriately by an angel

What makes seemingly sane people devote their lives to opera? Well tonight we found out again. The opening night of Fanciulla del West is here!

With the culmination of weeks of hard work and dedication to a worthy cause, everyone brought their personal best to the stage tonight.

New sounds emerged from principals – I was thrilled to hear Alwyn give an exciting vocal performance and her high notes shot off the rafters tonight after some minor concerns earlier in the week regarding her vocal condition. Voice management in roles like this is always a bit of a tightrope act.

Our other principals brought even more character detail and nuance to their performances. In particular our Jack Rance delivered on all the promise of his rehearsals and more, creating an in-depth psychological portrayal of the living hell of unrequited love.

Some of the reviews accused that Alwyn looked matronly onstage in her costumes – this is yet another example of the ageism that sadly permeates operatic culture. I want to mention Bonaventura Bottone as Nick, an example of a little part made big by a great character tenor. Bonaventura is your absolute textbook definition of a character tenor. He has had a huge career inhabiting these roles, working his whole life alongside the likes of Placido Domingo. He’s not a “second fiddle,” he’s a first violin.  

I had the chance to enjoy the wonderful covers run of Fanciulla about a week or so later and had to say goodbye to all my lovely friends as covers run always means things are wrapping up. I find covers runs to be really exposing of both the strengths and weaknesses in the original production – the little things that go differently or askew which show if the way the principal did it originally was necessary or not, the palpable discomfort when something doesn’t work vocally, the romantic tension (or lack thereof) between the leads, and the subtle shift in the little cosmic universe of What the Director Intended. You are holding your breath in a cover’s run, in a way, and there is a real buzz in the audience. The scene with Wowkie and her soon to be beau, for instance, was played completely differently in covers run (she’s happy to be forced out into the snow by Minnie? OK, whatever…) and the mannerisms of the character of Jack Rance I noticed in particular were pretty different, though the shaking hand which had been so integrated into the performance of Rob Haywood, representing his internalisation of Minnie’s rejection, remained a fixture. 

With their limited stagetime all the underlings coped admirably. I was willing them to succeed and not go belly up.The one thing made really clear in cover runs is what a supportive environment all the singers here at Opera North inhabit – the men encourage each other constantly in the chorus and are waiting with held breath to give their colleagues a pat on the back –  and how artists do still have a modicum of creative decision-making control.

This can cause some consternation in a rehearsal setting – am I doing this incorrectly because it’s different to how the director staged it with the leads? How far can I take this and get away with it? It’s fascinating that two people can work with the same director and come out with two such vastly different interpretations.

Our lead tenor warmed beautifully into his high notes, and our Jack Rance cover has a very different tonal gradient to his voice – and he really inhabits its warm enveloping world, never revving up to the high notes or resorting to shock tactics. This is just good, lyric singing. And of course, Laura Parfitt nails it to the floor with those big, bright, gleaming high notes.

Opening night Mabeth

I have but a few things to say about this production. I never warmed to the challenges of updating the action to the in my mind uninspired location of 1950s Scotland. After observing quite a bit of Macbeth in rehearsal I kept waiting to be inspired and have my mind changed. 

This setting made space for Spartan costumes, sets, dark colours. If you’re going to update to a modern era which does not have a specific look, then why not go the whole hog and settle on modern day Scotland? Now is primetime with all the exciting developments afoot to make a worthwhile political statement. Or maybe it’s just the fact the Verdi never quite got it – Simon commented this week how different the opera would have been had it been composed by Strauss. It does not have the raw immediacy or richness of the score of Rigoletto, one of my favourite operas.

I am sure this production had something worthwhile to say but unfortunately it never said it. Or if it did I never heard it.

Bela finally reached a certain level of professional polish within the cast but by the time he got there it was too late for his characterisation of Macbeth to be anything other than pedestrian. It’s a solid vocal interpretation but Macbeth is all about the psychology. The heady blend was missing here. I never really learned who Macbeth was and there was no character development or progression. I had been concerned at the last orchestral that Bela wouldn’t even end up onstage as he had been close to coming to blows with our esteemed conductor during the run several times over tempi. It took consummate professional Kelly Cae to reel him back in, which she did, and also carried the show on her shoulders til opening night. The rest of the cast finally got to her levels in rehearsal at curtain up, when she proceeded to outdo them again by producing a performance of great vocal and emotional complexity.

Despite the best efforts of Tim Albury to work with the material he had been given there was no sense of the cohesion of Fanciulla in this production due to internal and external factors. Nothing wrong with most of the cast here, but you do need two very strong lynchpins in Lady and Mr M. I can't be sure until I see another production of Macbeth whether it’s the inherent problems with the score, or simply this production, that left me underwhelmed.