It's been a weekend with an extra hour and a lot of 16th Century history.
Friday night brought Mary Stuart at ENO. This was a B- sort of an evening - not dire, you understand, that would have been an E - but not up to the standard of some of the A+, best productions of last season notably Falstaff, Tales of Hoffmann, Il Trittico and Manon. In other words, I wouldn't rush to see it again but, with the right, interesting cast, I could be tempted to attend for the work's sake.
The last time I attended (in fact the only other time I have attended) a performance of Mary Stuart was in April 1974. English National Opera was still called Sadler's Wells Opera at the time. They were on tour in Liverpool. And I saw the performance with Kath, who was a friend of my first ever girlfriend Sarah, and with whom I was walking out (and staying in) at the time. Kath was a music student, played the clarinet and dismissed Donizetti with the usual phrase that he makes his orchestra sound like a huge guitar being strummed.
Jean-Yves Ossonce, our conductor, did not escape this trap. And it is a trap as the many Donizetti performances I have attended over the years have attested. There is more colour in those woodwind and more rhythmic flexibility in those strings than we were given. By the way, I may have been a tad unfair in my summing up of Otello a few weeks back. I have moved a few rows back in the Upper Circle to save money and the sound is more constrained there than further forward. However, this performance did have more Ooomph and volume and vitality and audibility than the Otello so it wasn't all about seat positioning.
The production is a bit iffy but could mostly be overlooked. I didn't like the revolving, stage-width, grand, high table. It really got in the way and kept starting up at significant moments ie just when the music was trying to get interesting. The costumes were mostly splendid. So, the evening rose or fell by the quality of the voices.
On the whole the men had it. John Hudson took the role of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and was splendid. I can't imagine why he doesn't get more attention. The voice is pure and clear, has plenty of ping at the top. He's tall and bluff without being a naturally gifted actor. But he's certainly no worse than many and a good deal better than most. Gwynne Howell, the bass, was Talbot. I first heard him sing in September 1975 as King Philip in Don Carlos and I don't think I've ever heard him sing a duff role in all that time and I must have heard him sing at least once or twice a year in those 23 years. Ashley Holland had a fine, resonant voice as Cecil. It's a bit of a small sound at present but he's young and the voice should grow.
The women were less good. Mary Stuart herself was Ann Murray and she is wearing her years less well these days. She has all the vocal flexibility for the role but not really enough heft to ride both orchestra and chorus in the final scenes so they lost both some of their grandeur and pathos. Susan Parry's Elizabeth was both under-powered and squally. I can't say that I really enjoyed her performance. Sandra Ford as Hannah was the companion fill in to bring up the numbers for the sextet at the end of the first half. She did her bits well but there was not enough for her to really shine unlike her contribution to The Tales of Hoffmann in April. We look forward to her and John Hudson in La Traviata at the beginning of December.
Saturday afternoon brought a trip to see the film Elizabeth - a Channel Four film - God where would this country be in terms of film production over the last fifteen years without Channel Four's input. It's fabulous, go. In a sense, I saw the two works the wrong way round as Elizabeth sets out the precarious political situation at the beginning of Elizabeth Tudor's reign which in its turn explains why Mary Stuart was such a problem and why the dynastic issue of Elizabeth's legitimacy (both natal and regal) was so fraught.
The film cracks along like a modern day political thriller and, if you didn't know that she was going to survive and reign for 45 years, you'd be on the edge of your seat waiting to see if the next assassination attempt would actually succeed. And in fact she only survives by taking Wallsingham's advice and Godfather-like organising a massive blood-letting to clear the realm of her major (Catholic) opponents. The acting's fine. The script is modern without being overly anachronistic but also avoids the Gadzooks school of historical recreation. The costumes again are splendid. I was more than held for two hours.
Then it was off through the wind and the rain to collect Ross. Actually that drive saw the best weather of the day with clouds parting and golden evening sunshine and we had a quiet and cuddly evening together.
Both my video and my computer correctly re-set themselves to Greenwich Mean Time
overnight. This contrasts with my own efforts which involved first of all adding an
hour to all the clocks in the house and then realising that I'd got it wrong so that
I had to repeat the procedure but this time subtracting two hours.
Sunday 17:06 and the street lights come on.
