Last night I was at the Cineplex to enjoy the satellite telecast of the comic farce The Magistrate by Sir Arthur Wing Pinero, a popular dramatist of the Victorian era.
The play was originally staged in London in 1885, and took audiences and critics by surprise as Pinero was mainly known up till then for his dramas of social problems. His most famous piece, then as now, was probably The Second Mrs. Tanqueray which showed the unpleasant consequences that followed when a man in good society dared to marry a "lady" from the demi-monde.
The Magistrate, on the other hand, is a full-throttle comic farce in the French tradition, and a very fine example of the genre indeed. So although many theatre-goers today may not be familiar with it, the play has in fact been revived in London at fairly regular intervals ever since its premiere, and always with great success.
The plot structure of The Magistrate immediately reminded me of Feydeau's classic French farce L'Hotel du Libre Echange ("The Free-Trade Hotel") which premiered in 1894 -- and later became the basis of the Hollywood comedy Hotel Paradiso. Although I can't prove a thing here, I strongly suspect that Feydeau might have gotten the germ of his rather different idea after seeing or reading The Magistrate.
The play concerns the misadventures in the family of magistrate Posket. His wife, Agatha, falsified her age by 5 years when she married him, which forced her to pretend that her son from her earlier marriage, Cis, was five years younger than his actual age. This makes him, at the time of the play, only 14 rather than his true age of 19 -- although his behaviour from smoking and drinking to romancing his music teacher and renting a private dining room, is all too clearly not that of a 14-year old boy! This little white lie sets off a whole chain of delicious circumstances running right through the entire evening, and culminating in the moment where Agatha and their friends actually have to appear in Posket's courtroom -- and get sentenced to 7 days in jail!
Now, anybody familiar with the law would know right away that this was an impossibility -- the magistrate in such a case must recuse himself from trying the case and pass it to another. But that's the beauty of farce, you can certainly get away with such silliness as this, provided that all the characters are completely in earnest about their idiotic conduct!
As John Mortimer once wrote in his Penguin translation of three of Feydeau's farces, it's the fear of losing their precious reputations that drives his characters into their ridiculous behaviour, and the same is exactly true of this play. It was an age where reputation was everything and the loss of it would ruin you socially. The net result, again quoting Mortimer, is a classic example of farce really being "...tragedy played at 130 revolutions per minute." (By the way, I'm quoting from memory because I can't find the book in question, so please forgive me if I got it wrong!).
So, how did the National Theatre fare with this play? For my money, very well indeed. This play definitely requires team effort, and this team was universally strong. The three key members were Joshua McGuire as Cis Farringdon, Nancy Carroll as Agatha Posket, and John Lithgow (yes, that is the John Lithgow) as Posket. Each of these three did a sterling job of playing their characters with complete truthfulness, even in their most idiotic moments. As good as all of them were, I found Nancy Carroll to be the strongest of the three, with a wonderful habit of raising her volume and dropping the pitch of her voice to a throaty growl (at the same time) when she really needed to stop somebody in their tracks.
All the other performers, and there are many (total cast of 22) fitted in with similar skill and the kind of physical dexterity that is an absolute requirement of this sort of theatre. Director Timothy Sheader, in his first National Theatre production, harnessed the team at exactly the right level at all times so that the proceedings never became too pedestrian on the one hand, nor too frenetic on the other.
Not to say that the show lacked energy -- anything but that! The comic complications at the end of Act II where no less than six people hide behind or under furniture while a police inspector searches the room were hilarious fast-paced indeed!
Scene changes were very effectively bridged by comical songs in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan, definitely period-appropriate, which were composed especially for the show (one of them two nights before the opening) and delivered with precision and a great sense of style by a parallel cast of costumed "Singing Dandies".
In many ways, the real star of the show was the design behind the sets. While all the costumes and props were conventionally Victorian, the sets all reflected an impish, cartoonish distortion of the Victorian social world. Doors slanted at odd angles, walls rose higher here and lower there. The whole design was inspired by the pop-up childrens' books so popular in those days, and on the huge open stage of the Olivier Theatre it became fascinating to watch the new set rise up out of the floor as the old one folded away behind it (or vice versa) while we were enjoying the strutting and singing of the Dandies.
In sum: a first-rate production, with virtually none of the hysterical over-acting that has marred some of the other National Theatre farces I've seen. Well worth the hair-raising drive home in the snowsqualls afterwards!
Friday 18 January 2013
Saturday 12 January 2013
A Monumental Achievement
Sorry, I am a bit late posting this one (like, exactly a week late -- bad, bad, BAD!)
In the world of opera there are a handful of monumental works which are performed relatively rarely and only in very well-equipped theatres. Facing this idea, my mind automatically shouts "Wagner"! But there are others. A few years back, the Canadian Opera Company staged Prokofiev's astounding operatic version of War and Peace, and I still treasure memories of that powerful performance.
Last Saturday, thanks to the Met Live in HD at the Cineplex, I got a first opportunity to see a live performance of Les Troyens by Hector Berlioz. This is an even rarer bird than the great Wagner music dramas, and certainly not for lack of musical or dramatic worthiness. When the entire opera was staged complete in Glasgow in the 1930s, the English musicologist Sir Donald Tovey acclaimed it as "a gigantic and convincing masterpiece of music drama." I see no reason to disagree.
So why is a live performance of Les Troyens such a rare event? Well, think of any of the Wagner Ring Cycle. Here you have a comparably-sized orchestra (although not identical), and comparably strong singers are required. But Berlioz has no less than seventeen named singing roles, plus two silent acting roles, and requires in addition a huge chorus (capable of dividing into sub-groups) and a corps de ballet. This is an epic opera in the French tradition, so the role of the ballet is sizable, as they appear in at least four different scenes. The work is also traditionally French in its adoption of a subject from classical literature. And not least of its challenges is the requirements for multiple settings, requiring frequent scene changes.
Berlioz adapted his own libretto from Books II and IV of The Aeneid, Virgil's epic poem about the life and adventures of Aeneas and his mission. The opera is split into 5 acts, with the first two subtitled La prise de Troie ("The Fall of Troy") and the last three known as Les Troyens à Carthage ("The Trojans at Carthage"). The division is also suitable as the first part contains the scenes of war, while the second part unfolds the doomed love of Dido, Tyrian Queen of Carthage, for Aeneas.
So, how did the Metropolitan Opera fare in tackling this massive challenge? For a certainty, they are one of the few theatres in the world which could successfully do so on their own in-house resources. Not least of those resources is conductor Fabio Luisi, who confirmed his gifts by holding the entire massive structure together from start to finish with scarcely any apparent difficulties. Both the Metropolitan Opera Chorus and the Met Ballet acquitted themselves well in their many numbers. The set designs of Maria Bjørnson sensibly used simplified scenic elements rather than attempt any sort of literal depiction. Some worked better than others -- I found the fussy uneven flooring of Dido's royal dais distracting, on the one hand, but the massive riveted metal floor of the first two acts created a clear feel of a fortress of war even if it was anachronistic.
The heroine of the first two acts is Cassandra, portrayed with great depth and perception by Deborah Voigt. Cassandra refused the advances of Apollo, and he cursed her by giving her an infallible gift of prophecy but ensuring that nobody would ever believe what she said. Voigt formed a fine partnership with Dwayne Croft as her fiance, Coroebus. Their duet of love and farewell was one of the energetic highlights of the first act. The first of Voigt's two great solo moments came at the end of the first act when the clashing of arms prompts the people to stop hauling the wooden horse into Troy. How quickly hope swells in Cassandra's heart, only to be as quickly dashed when the people resume their procession towards their own doom. At the end of the second scene, with what power Voigt summons all the women of Troy to join her in mass suicide rather than submit to the Greeks -- and with what scorn she dismisses the handful of women who fear to follow her.
The heroine of the second part is, most unusually, a mezzo-soprano, although the part is written dauntingly high for such a voice. Perhaps Berlioz, like Wagner, was composing for a voice type that only existed in his ideal imagination. At any rate, Susan Graham acted the role of Dido very convincingly for the most part, although her mood swings at the end of her final scene with Aeneas were perhaps a little too epic in size -- and became bathetic as a result. On the other hand, her death scene was nobility personified, just as it needs to be. Her voice for the most part coped well with the demands made, but by the end began to sound a bit tired.
The hero of the entire opera is Aeneas, and this tenor role ranks right along with Siegfried as one of the mightiest summits of music for the tenor. Indeed, it is often sung by Wagnerian heldentenors, and with good reason. Canadian Jon Vickers counted this as one of his signature roles, alongside Tristan, and Ben Heppner is another Canadian known for the part. So Bryan Hymel was moving in exalted company indeed. He acquitted himself nobly. His very first solo, the narration of the horrifying death of the priest Laocoön, is delivered at full throttle the instant he runs onto the stage, and he goes on to major solos and ensembles in almost every scene thereafter. I felt his finest moment was in his lyrical love duet with Dido in Act IV, O nuit d'ivresse ("O night of ecstasy"), where his high notes floated out effortlessly and lightly.
Most of the staging choices in this involved and complex drama were effective -- but there were a couple of moments that only aggravated. One was the decision to have the dancers lie on the stage in embracing pairs during O nuit d'ivresse. This was totally unnecessary -- Graham and Hymel told us everything we needed to know about their love by their acting. It was also distracting, as one or another of the dancers would shift position -- apparently deliberately -- each time there was a break in the singing. Each such movement yanked focus right away from the singers. On the other hand, the use of lamps carried in glass bowls to illuminate the faces of the Trojan ghosts from below added a very convincingly supernatural look to their faces.
There were many other excellences in this production, and on the whole they far outweighed the faults I found. Yes, the opera lasted five and a half hours with two extended intermissions, but it was well worth every minute of the time for me.
In the world of opera there are a handful of monumental works which are performed relatively rarely and only in very well-equipped theatres. Facing this idea, my mind automatically shouts "Wagner"! But there are others. A few years back, the Canadian Opera Company staged Prokofiev's astounding operatic version of War and Peace, and I still treasure memories of that powerful performance.
Last Saturday, thanks to the Met Live in HD at the Cineplex, I got a first opportunity to see a live performance of Les Troyens by Hector Berlioz. This is an even rarer bird than the great Wagner music dramas, and certainly not for lack of musical or dramatic worthiness. When the entire opera was staged complete in Glasgow in the 1930s, the English musicologist Sir Donald Tovey acclaimed it as "a gigantic and convincing masterpiece of music drama." I see no reason to disagree.
So why is a live performance of Les Troyens such a rare event? Well, think of any of the Wagner Ring Cycle. Here you have a comparably-sized orchestra (although not identical), and comparably strong singers are required. But Berlioz has no less than seventeen named singing roles, plus two silent acting roles, and requires in addition a huge chorus (capable of dividing into sub-groups) and a corps de ballet. This is an epic opera in the French tradition, so the role of the ballet is sizable, as they appear in at least four different scenes. The work is also traditionally French in its adoption of a subject from classical literature. And not least of its challenges is the requirements for multiple settings, requiring frequent scene changes.
Berlioz adapted his own libretto from Books II and IV of The Aeneid, Virgil's epic poem about the life and adventures of Aeneas and his mission. The opera is split into 5 acts, with the first two subtitled La prise de Troie ("The Fall of Troy") and the last three known as Les Troyens à Carthage ("The Trojans at Carthage"). The division is also suitable as the first part contains the scenes of war, while the second part unfolds the doomed love of Dido, Tyrian Queen of Carthage, for Aeneas.
So, how did the Metropolitan Opera fare in tackling this massive challenge? For a certainty, they are one of the few theatres in the world which could successfully do so on their own in-house resources. Not least of those resources is conductor Fabio Luisi, who confirmed his gifts by holding the entire massive structure together from start to finish with scarcely any apparent difficulties. Both the Metropolitan Opera Chorus and the Met Ballet acquitted themselves well in their many numbers. The set designs of Maria Bjørnson sensibly used simplified scenic elements rather than attempt any sort of literal depiction. Some worked better than others -- I found the fussy uneven flooring of Dido's royal dais distracting, on the one hand, but the massive riveted metal floor of the first two acts created a clear feel of a fortress of war even if it was anachronistic.
The heroine of the first two acts is Cassandra, portrayed with great depth and perception by Deborah Voigt. Cassandra refused the advances of Apollo, and he cursed her by giving her an infallible gift of prophecy but ensuring that nobody would ever believe what she said. Voigt formed a fine partnership with Dwayne Croft as her fiance, Coroebus. Their duet of love and farewell was one of the energetic highlights of the first act. The first of Voigt's two great solo moments came at the end of the first act when the clashing of arms prompts the people to stop hauling the wooden horse into Troy. How quickly hope swells in Cassandra's heart, only to be as quickly dashed when the people resume their procession towards their own doom. At the end of the second scene, with what power Voigt summons all the women of Troy to join her in mass suicide rather than submit to the Greeks -- and with what scorn she dismisses the handful of women who fear to follow her.
The heroine of the second part is, most unusually, a mezzo-soprano, although the part is written dauntingly high for such a voice. Perhaps Berlioz, like Wagner, was composing for a voice type that only existed in his ideal imagination. At any rate, Susan Graham acted the role of Dido very convincingly for the most part, although her mood swings at the end of her final scene with Aeneas were perhaps a little too epic in size -- and became bathetic as a result. On the other hand, her death scene was nobility personified, just as it needs to be. Her voice for the most part coped well with the demands made, but by the end began to sound a bit tired.
The hero of the entire opera is Aeneas, and this tenor role ranks right along with Siegfried as one of the mightiest summits of music for the tenor. Indeed, it is often sung by Wagnerian heldentenors, and with good reason. Canadian Jon Vickers counted this as one of his signature roles, alongside Tristan, and Ben Heppner is another Canadian known for the part. So Bryan Hymel was moving in exalted company indeed. He acquitted himself nobly. His very first solo, the narration of the horrifying death of the priest Laocoön, is delivered at full throttle the instant he runs onto the stage, and he goes on to major solos and ensembles in almost every scene thereafter. I felt his finest moment was in his lyrical love duet with Dido in Act IV, O nuit d'ivresse ("O night of ecstasy"), where his high notes floated out effortlessly and lightly.
Most of the staging choices in this involved and complex drama were effective -- but there were a couple of moments that only aggravated. One was the decision to have the dancers lie on the stage in embracing pairs during O nuit d'ivresse. This was totally unnecessary -- Graham and Hymel told us everything we needed to know about their love by their acting. It was also distracting, as one or another of the dancers would shift position -- apparently deliberately -- each time there was a break in the singing. Each such movement yanked focus right away from the singers. On the other hand, the use of lamps carried in glass bowls to illuminate the faces of the Trojan ghosts from below added a very convincingly supernatural look to their faces.
There were many other excellences in this production, and on the whole they far outweighed the faults I found. Yes, the opera lasted five and a half hours with two extended intermissions, but it was well worth every minute of the time for me.
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