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G Verdi: Macbeth, Glyndebourne, 15 June 2005.

The annual Glyndebourne programme is a lavishly produced book filled with prestigious advertisements, costing the earth (though free to members) and containing learned essays on the operas by distinguished commentators. What is almost completely absent is any commentary on the productions by those concerned with them – particularly the conductor or the director. A production such as this year’s Macbeth, directed by Richard Jones, is sadly in need of excuse or explanation such as is provided in the programme notes of most opera companies.

Verdi’s opera follows Shakespeare’s plot closely with the same set piece scenes: instead of just three weird sisters, we open with a chorus of witches foretelling Macbeth’s accession to Duncan’s throne – Lady Macbeth reads the letter with this news and incites Duncan’s murder – the murders of Banquo, followed by his ghostly appearance at the feast, and, after a revisit to the witches, of Macduff’s family – Lady Macbeth’s sleep-walking – Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane, with the final duel between Macbeth and Macduff. (One only misses the Porter.)

So what does Richard Jones make of this? Forewarned but with an open mind, we saw the curtain rise on three modern caravan trailers which disgorged three generations of witches. King Duncan (as are his successors) is distinguished by wearing an outsize red crown; he is murdered in a lean-to annex, not by a dagger but by a long handled axe (such axes appear whenever there is mayhem in the air). Banquo’s murder takes place in what appears to be the changing rooms of a public bathhouse, his great aria of foreboding in undimmed lighting, while he sings of increasing darkness. And so on. The witches’ brew is prepared on a calor-gas stove; Macduff identifies his slain offspring on covered hospital trolleys, Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking ablutions become the ritual casting of white gloves into a large washing machine. Whatever is to be made of this interpretation – some saw it as an ingenious comic book representation of the story – it is totally damned by one’s reaction as the curtain comes down on the first Act: there was no drama. There is no shortage of random, ‘clever’ ideas but there is little coherence between them

Admittedly, there is a somewhat inappropriate jauntiness about the music of this opera, with the witches’ chorus reminiscent of The Teddy Bears’ Picnic, which suggests such an approach might succeed; a 1973 Glyndebourne production (seen in Oxford on tour) had costumes resembling characters in Noggin the Nog (children’s books popular at the time). However, a definitive dramatic version was seen against the background of St Olaf’s mediaeval castle at the Savonlinna Festival in Finland in 1996 – a production that continues to haunt. (This is probably the only opera house where the ticket price insures against tripping over the cobblestones.)

The musical performance throughout was of an adequate standard, the orchestra played with appropriate Verdian bounce under Damian Iorio, the witches sang with a certain feminist exuberance. Only rarely did the soloists rise above the distractions of the staging. Macbeth, sung by Andrzej Dobber improved as the evening progressed, his Lady, Sylvie Valayre, was not outstanding, Banquo, Stanislav Shvets, was particularly badly served by the director. The only performance with a tingle factor was Peter Auty’s Macduff whose lament over the murders of his family and call for revenge was the highpoint of the evening.

It was the realisation that it was only on the rare occasions when the director had temporarily run out of ideas that the performance really came alive which finally condemned the production as an aberration. Some directors should be obliged to take a curtain call after each performance to face a frank response from the audience.

To compound their error of judgement, Glyndebourne followed Macbeth with a mis-conceived and wholly inappropriate operatic staging of Bach’s St Matthew Passion, prompting several mail-shots in an attempt to sell tickets

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