OPERA Singular voices


Semiramide FLEMISH OPERA, ANTWERP/GHENT


our-and-a-half hours of Rossini opera seria: heaven for many, but their worst nightmare for a surprising number even of operamanes. One wonders why. This is the most extreme form of opera, a lesson in what makes it different from everything else; no concession to any modern idea of theatre, a statement of faith in the power of the human voice and of pure music that nobody ever dared repeat. How can you not love it? Even in 1823, this melodramma tragico was old-fashioned: a stately neoclassical drama, Rossini’s final Italian work, a homage to Mozart and Gluck. It is based on Voltaire’s play about the mythical Assyrian queen, builder of Babylon, conqueror of Asia, the gorgeous and multi-talented Semiramis. In this version she has, 15 years previously, con- spired to kill her husband Ninus; the crime comes back to haunt her when she decides to appoint a new ruler (and husband) and plumps for the general Arsace, who, alas, is her lost son whom everyone thought dead. We usually think of Rossini as the genial


F


juggler of The Barber of Seville, but he set himself great psychological challenges in his serious works: in its themes of incest, regicide and matricide (Arsace finally kills Semiramis, albeit accidentally), this opera comes with echoes of Macbeth and the Oresteia, and strong resonances from Idomeneo and Don Giovanni. And as musical dramaturge Rossini invents and perfects a method – the elastic multi-part scene following a common pattern


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struck. Later, he unilaterally moved the con- cert back a week so that Bruce Springsteen could make an appearance. Then he interfered in the negotiations over the American tele- vision rights, and sold a sponsorship package to Coca-Cola when Goldsmith’s team had already signed a deal with Pepsi. Goldsmith, meanwhile, set about making the thing happen. “If we’re going to work together,” he told Geldof, “you’re going to have to learn to be a realist.” “No, I don’t,” came the reply, and he never did. In this account, Geldof was constantly stretching the truth in the promises he made, to Goldsmith’s annoyance. In a powerful scene, the pair almost came to blows over the “lies” Geldof had told in negotiations with the BBC, including a pledge that Paul McCartney would be on the show. Goldsmith was a “word is my bond” business- man; Geldof was a chancer, but his risky strategy paid off. This was an excellent drama, with the look and sound of the 1980s expertly and econom- ically evoked. We saw the relationship come


30 | THE TABLET | 1 January 2011


– in which music and action egg each other on in a way that raises questions about free will. The high priest, bent on provoking Arsace to kill his mother, is surely aided by the know - ledge that the final part of the scene, Arsace’s cabaletta, is musically bound to be a vivacious expression of blood lust and revenge; again, duet cabalettas in which characters hurl insults at each other become real-time contests in which the quality of an individual singer’s voice is the deciding factor. The Flemish Opera does this work proud. It is staged by Englishman Nigel Lowery, a designer-director who for some mysterious reason is never asked to work here in the UK, but whose playful intelligence and stage flair would brighten up English National Opera no end. His highly stylised staging – modern, roughly set in the bombed-out ruins of Saddam’s palace – works brilliantly with Rossini’s pacing, a two-and-a-half hour first act that builds to a stunning climax (the appearance of Ninus’ ghost) and whose effect is entirely a function of its length and tempo. The Rossini director has to be midwife to an entirely vocal characterisation: there’s no point doing this opera without wonderful


near to fracture as the setbacks piled up, but in the end, everything came good, as we knew it would: even McCartney turned up, sitting at the piano and performing a one-man version of Let It Be. Geldof was a hero to the last: on the day of the concert he was poleaxed with back pain, and had to be virtually carried up the stairs to the television studio where he would make his famously foul-mouthed pleas for donations. Until then, we were told, the British had not quite got into the habit of dialling in with their credit-card details. In the end, the television audience proved generous. A caption at the end detailed what Live Aid achieved, and continues to achieve. It was impossible to come away from this film without huge admiration for the men who made it happen. Later in the week, BBC1 brought us Toast (30 December), a delicious adaptation by Lee Hall of Nigel Slater’s acclaimed memoir. It started in 1967, with nine-year-old Nigel (Oscar Kennedy) lamenting his mother’s inability to cook or even make a decent sand- wich. His attempt to introduce the family to spaghetti bolognese was not a success. “It


singers. Ann Hallenberg’s Arsace, a cultured, velvet mezzo, shows what it’s all about, a voice of extraordinary expressiveness that brings transport, turmoil or tragedy to Rossini’s lines with the subtlest of inflections; her ini- tial aria is a love song of easeful joy over the simplest accompaniment. Later she duets with Semiramis, the voices vaulting in parallel thirds of familial harmony once their true relationship (however vexed) has become clear. Rossini introduces orchestral effects with utter economy, a solo oboe or cluster of horns, and manages the fluctuating sympathies – Semiramis herself is a layered and far from unattractive character – with similar sleight of hand and no trace of sentimentality. The heroine is the willowy and beautiful


Myrtò Papatanasiu, flexible, troubled and sung with strength and lovely tone, one of the highlights her rhapsodic roulades over a chorus of servant girls that is one of her few moments of peace. More terrific singing from tenor Robert McPherson and basses Josef Wagner, as a conspirator nonetheless suscep- tible to a sort of moral reform in the form of a mad scene, and Igor Bakan. Alberto Zedda, nonpareil Rossinian, controls the music with exactly the right touch of elegance and bite. This is exemplary bel canto opera: no gim- micks, total honesty to music and drama, the thing is allowed to speak for itself. Even some of the Rossini-doubters were convinced. Robert Thicknesse


smells like sick,” said his father (Ken Stott), sniffing the dried Parmesan. They ended up eating toast, as they usually did. Then, shockingly, his mother (played by


Victoria Hamilton) died, leaving Nigel at the culinary mercy of his father – half-cooked Fray Bentos steak and kidney pudding, any- one? – until the arrival of Mrs Potter (Helena Bonham Carter), a blowsy cleaning lady des- tined to become his stepmother. She was a fine cook, but rather than bonding over their shared interest in food, the pair became deadly rivals: when the teenage Nigel (Freddie Highmore) stole her recipe for lemon meringue pie, the knives were out. This was a wonderfully evocative drama,


funny and touching, that told the story of the making of Slater as both a cook and a man. The whole cast was excellent, especially both Nigels, but Bonham Carter stole the show as a rumpled domestic goddess with an ency- clopaedic knowledge of cleaning products. The ending, with Dad dead, stepmum bereft and Nigel leaving home in a hurry, left a sour taste; but that’s the way it seems to have been. John Morrish


Incest, regicide, matricide and an exemplary bel canto opera: Myrtò Papatanasiu and the chorus in Semiramide


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