This Cowboy Song...Girl of the Golden West, ENO 18th October 2014

Photo copyright Robert Workman

Although I have a soft spot for Puccini's 'horse opera' I booked my ticket with slight feelings of trepidation  - but once again only because of the English language issues.  Given my recent experience of ENO's Otello, where the translation let the production down I felt, I wasn't really expecting The Girl of the Golden West to be much better.    But bolstered by positive first night reaction from Twitter friends, loins were girded and off I went.

La Fanciulla del West (as this opera is better known) is a strange beast among the Puccini canon of works. Puccini was drawn towards the unusual and exotic for his plots and to an Italian I suppose you don't get much more exotic that the wild, wild West of the US goldrush period.  The libretto is based on David Belasco's play and as usual Puccini has consigned huge chunks to the dustbin, including Minnie and Dick Johnson/Rammerez first meeting.  Its worth a read if you like digging into the background of this opera.

The musical structure too is advanced with very few standalone set pieces (a couple of tenor arias apart) and even those are skillfully woven into the fabric of the opera.  The whole opera moves at a brisk pace with scene after scene flowing quite naturally without disruptive breaks for applause.

As with quite a lot of my experiences, my first encounter with Fanciulla was via a video recording featuring Placido Domingo in the monumental ultra-traditional Pierro Faggioni production at the Royal Opera House.  I finally managed to catch up with this production live in 2005 with Jose Cura - and that was the last time I saw Fanciulla live on stage....until now.

This new production by Richard Jones is very clear and uncluttered and does the job of telling the story well.  Slightly updated - The Polka now has electric lighting - but it still highlights a group men mining for gold, with Minnie as the only (good) girl in town.  I liked this production although I had a couple of issues with some of the directorial decisions - especially in the second act.  I thought the slap/coffee throwing incident between Minnie and Johnson could have been staged better - or perhaps it was just the view from my seat.  Nothing worse than a fake slap that doesn't quite come off!  The second act set didn't really leave Johnson many places to hide so he ended up under the bed!  Now really, hiding under the bed - isn't that the first place anyone would look?  And rather then letting the poor wounded tenor faint and have a lie down, he seemed to be propped up against the wall while Minne and Rance gambled for his life.  But honestly, these are minor quibbles and certainly didn't spoil my enjoyment.  I found the final scene especially touching - and where Minnie & Johnson normally ride off into the sunset, here the miners are standing on the set start which receded slowly away. Very effective.

Vocally things were competent rather than outstanding although again that is probably just me being picky. I do like Susan Bullock a lot and as Minnie she certainly convinced with her acting.  Her singing was fine and its a tricky part but I did miss a more typical Puccini voice in the role.  These days the casting tends towards Wagnarian sopranos but I did miss a bit of warmth and plushness in the voice. The same could probably be said for Peter Auty who was a sympathetic Dick Johnson but whose voice I found slightly constricted in the upper reaches - and there are plenty of upper reaches in this role.  Craig Colclough as Jack Rance grew on me - again more because of his overall portrayal than having a stunning voice.  He was more than a one-dimensional villain and that greatly added to the drama.

All of the other parts were taken well and the cast made their roles into real individual characters - always a plus when so many of them are on stage at once.  It's hard to know what to do with the Native American Indian characters of Wowkle and Billy.  As written they can come across as horrible stereotypes with lots of "Ugh's" and other nonsense.  On the other hand turning them into dramatic ciphers with no character as here didn't really work either.

Ah and what about the English translation I hear you say?  Well, to my great surprise it actually worked in English.  Somewhere a decision was made down the line to incorporate American accents. I thought this would be distracting but actually I think it helped with the text and translation and the translator Kelley Rourke was very skilled in producing a very singable and yet understandable translation.

If you haven't had a chance to see this opera, do go!  I heartily recommend it and you will leave the theatre will a smile on your face.  I'll leave you with this clip from the Met production of Fanciulla with Placido Domingo and Barbara Daniels.  This is the scene were Dick Johnson has been revealed as the bandit Ramerrez and Minnie confronts him.  It has Spanish subtitles but its very clear I think.  And a particularly good example of a stage slap!

"But yet the pity of it..." Otello, English National Opera 11 October 2014

No, not a 'Night at the Garden' this time but a 'Night at the Coliseum'.  Not that it's my first venture to ENO but it's rare enough to warrant mention.  One of the main reasons I don't venture to ENO more often is their blanket  'opera in English' language policy.  I was lucky enough to grow up listening to opera in the original language as background music in my home as my Mum loved opera.  So that by the time I came to re-discover opera in the early 90's the foreign language issue didn't bother me - especially as the Royal Opera thoughtfully provided surtitles.  So opera in English isn't a great pull for me - especially in the standard Italian repertory as frankly in English just sounds odd!

So there has to be a compelling reason for a visit to ENO; a great singer, a great non-standard opera or a particular production I want to see.  While Otello can hardly be called non-standard, I haven't seen so many live performances that I could afford to let one slip by!  Especially with Stuart Skelton taking on the herculean title role.  With bargain Secret Seat ticket in hand and not without a little trepidation I settled into my seat.

Strangely enough, Otello was one of the very first opera's I came to know and love, rather than one of any number of 'easier' works such as La Boheme, Rigoletto or Tosca.  Falling in love with opera in the early 90's I used to raid the local library for CD recordings and snapped this up.  Readers, it was love at first listen! I haven't looked back since!

But what about this production?

Let's get the somewhat controversial element out of the way first.  Generally speaking (and certainly in all of the productions I've seen) Otello is portrayed as a black man and this usually means the white tenor 'blacking up' to a greater or lesser degree.  Quite rightly, this is no longer an option but given the dearth of tenors who can actually sing this highly dramatic role, what is the solution?  ENO doesn't really come up with one to be honest and simply ignores the issue.  Which I think was wrong. Don't get me wrong, I was quite happy to see Stuart Skelton sans blackface, but I do think that the production has to compensate for this somehow, otherwise Otello ends up just being like everyone else.  Where is the sense of isolation, inferiority, 'different-ness' that is implied in both Shakespeare's play and in Verdi's opera.  Where is Desdemona's daring in marrying someone not of her kind, her rank or her age?  If Otello is reduced to just being another stock jealous 'Italian tenor' figure then the production has failed.

It can be done.  In another Verdi opera, La Forza del Destino, the tenor character is also a foreigner, an outsider or as the libretto has it , half-breed or 'mulatto'. Yes, the racial insults fly just as much in this opera as in Otello!  And yes, in the past, the tenor has nearly always had a suspiciously deep tan to mark him as 'foreign' and not worthy of his lady-love.  However, the times they are a-changing and in the recent Munich production the tenor was outfitted and bewigged in such a way as to mark him out as 'different' without resorting to a change of skin colour.

The production itself was a one-set fits all affair, dark, spare and minimalist with little furniture cluttering the stage.  What furniture did appear was subject to some violent abuse by various characters, chairs being thrown around the stage at moments of high tension.  Unfortunately this has become something of a cliche so perhaps didn't have the dramatic effect it might have done.  At this particular performance Stuart Skelton also (unintentionally) threw himself off a tower of chairs, but luckily was uninjured and carried on as though this was all part of the stage business!

While the set more or less worked for the first three acts, the lack of a separate bedchamber, or even a bed, for the vital last act murder, made it all a bit silly and the murder of Desdemona a bit anti-climactic.  Could the budget not stretch to a bed?  This all sounds very caviling and I did quite like the overall design and look of the set but it somehow needed more.

Now to the good bits.

Otello is a chorus heavy opera and ENO's chorus were in fantastic form.  The sound they produced was awesome in its power and use of  dynamics. However I do like to see my chorus have defined characters and here they didn't.  I'm sure this was the intention of the director but they just looked like an anonymous amorphous lump.  The less said about the flower strewing episode the better!

In the title role Stuart Skelton was anguished, brutal and heartrending in places.  While not having a typical Italianate sound, there was glorious compensation in the secure focused tone and the knowledge that there would be no cracking under pressure.  This is an interpretation that will grow with time and I look forward to seeing and hearing him in another production - preferably in Italian.

Leah Crocetto was a voice new to me and she has a lovely dark spinto tone, gloriously lyrical and yet able to meet the demands of Otello's anguished spouse.  Dignified in approach, she nevertheless conveyed strength of character in a role that can all to easily come over as somewhat wimpy.

Allan Clayton as Cassio is another superb tenor voice, his lighter but still ringing tenor contrasting nicely with Skelton's more hefty anguished tones.  While he plays a convincing drunkard, I do think that it was a mistake to play him drunk from start to finish.

As all good Iago's do, Jonathan Summers almost stole the show.  Verdi was tempted  to name this opera 'Iago' and you can understand why why you have as good an actor as Summers.  He was truly convincing as a two-faced manipulator who directs events with the skill of a master. His English diction was also exemplary.

So all in all a bit of a mixed bag.  Whilst I enjoyed the singing and music-making very much, the lack of defined direction in the production was a disappointment and my emotions were not engaged - somewhat of a first for me with this opera.

Also disappointing were the swathes of empty seats in the dress circle.  If ENO cannot shift tickets with great singers and a well reviewed classic Verdi opera, then I'm not sure I know what the solution is!  Certainly I cannot see how they can go on with the constant discounting of tickets especially not that their Arts Council grant has been severely curtailed!