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OPERA HOUSE BUDAPEST

SEMPEROPER DRESDEN.

.

A Tale of Two Cities

Janacek: Jenufa; Verdi:: Falstaff, Operhaz, Budapest, 1,3 April 2004
Die Lustige Witwe, Wiener Volksoper, 7 May; Falstaff, Wiener Staatsoper, 8 May 2004 

At any time these days the airways over Europe and further afield are filled with group travellers indulging their own particular passions. Whether it is hedonists seeking bacchanalia in the sun, sports fanatics following a favourite team or culture junkies in search of new thrills in music, art, architecture or archaeology, all take advantage of package tours which take the hassle out of planning and getting around. Although this reduces the freedom of action of the independent-minded traveller, there are compensations. When one reaches the stage in life when sight-seeing requires two pairs of spectacles - one to read the guide book, the other to study the monuments - then is the time to consider abandoning individual exploratory travel and enrolling on an organised tour with the services of a guide. In our case, the passion is opera and it has led us recently to short excursions to the twin capitals of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, at the beginning of April to the Budapest Spring Festival and in early May to Vienna.

One's first impression of Budapest, on arrival, is one of cleanliness. From the shiny clean airport, with newly designed passport controls, now labelled 'EU', one receives a warm and friendly welcome. What a contrast to the squalid shopping mall, known as the Terminal 1 Departure Lounge at Heathrow! The impression is a lasting one; streets, public buildings, public transport and shops are the same. We were informed, with refreshing frankness, of the reciprocal Hungarian first impression of the state of cleanliness of London! The drive into the city and subsequent tour of the principal monuments (all beautifully presented) gave the flavour of both the broad boulevards of Pest and of the Castle District and Gellert Hill in Buda. The former is dominated by buildings of the nineteenth century European style which extends northward to the Nordic cities, with the occasional Art Deco façade, Soviet-style apartment blocks and low- rise 'temporary' structures. A brilliant resumé of Hungary's history, delivered by our local guide around the statues in Heroes' Square, revealed the proud claim that Hungary stopped burning witches in the twelfth century, long before the rest of Europe.

The Opera House, dating from 1884 is a miniature version of the Palais Garnier in Paris, with red-carpeted, elegantly curved marble staircases leading to the various levels of the auditorium and to the salons (where our solicitous guide helped us order interval refreshments). It has a distinguished history, with both Gustav Mahler and Otto Klemperer as Music Directors. The auditorium, seating 1261 (little more than half Covent Garden) is magnificent with a very high proscenium and large stage. The seats are wide but unpadded!

Two operas were seen in Budapest, Jenöfa, and Falstaff, both forming part of the Budapest Spring Festival. In our innocence, an attraction was the possibility to see an Eastern European opera in an Eastern European production. With more European sensitivity we would have realised that for the Hungarians, a Czech opera is as foreign as it is to us! Indeed, we learnt there had been some local controversy about its inclusion in the Festival! Nevertheless, it had been given a genuine Czech production, sung in Czech with Hungarian surtitles. (Tactful enquiry established that the peasant costumes were, indeed, also genuine!)

The production was reassuringly familiar, the musical standard high. Janá¹ek's tight coupling of the music to the action gives producers little room for manoeuvre! (I have yet to encounter a bad production of Janá¹ek - maybe for this reason!) The opening scene had two mill wheels and a large chorus, with many children. The singing was good, with a particularly sensitive performance by Wendler Attila as Laca. (I adopt the Hungarian convention of giving the patronymic first.) žteva (Guljás Dénes), to my mind, lacked the appropriate degree of boorishness. The female roles were all well sung but the star was the Kostelni¹ka (Sekrestyésné) of Temesi Mária, who dramatised the part with appropriate anguish. Alas, one must report a strange aberration at the end! During the wedding preparations, someone piles blocks of ice on the stage. The last of these appears to contain a miniature angel bearing a candle, I suppose symbolising the dead baby!

The Falstaff was an impressive staging with a rotating set facilitating the scene changes. Indeed the production recalled the quasi-definitive staging of Peter Stein for Welsh National Opera in 1988, though it lacked the tight balletic movement of that memorable production. The ensemble singing and the action were exemplary. Unfortunately the Falstaff of Sólyom Nagy Sándor was the weak link; he did not have the voice nor the personality to dominate the action. This was particularly noticeable in the fugue finale, which, as a result, totally lacked balance.

The trip to Vienna was with a party of Friends of Welsh National Opera groupies off to hear our President, Bryn Terfel, sing Falstaff. The city has changed since the last visit, over twenty years ago; the increase in motor traffic gives it less of a complacent air of living in the past. Monuments, such as SchØnbrunn and the Hofburg have been 'heritaged' and gift-shopped, with an inordinate emphasis on the life and times of the Empress Elizabeth. Several rooms in the Hofburg have recently been 'Sissified'. Carol Reed and 'The Third Man' are still extensively referenced. (But, to be fair, so is Beethoven, at Heiligenstadt, and by Klimt in the Secession building.) All this was at the expense of giving a real feel for the broader impact of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Nevertheless the great collections of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the Albertina and the Belvedere remain unchanged, as awe-inspiring as ever.

One evening was spent at the Volksoper for Die Lustige Witwe. This was totally delightful, in spite of the lack of surtitles (not even for the mobile telephone warning). The plot is so ephemeral as not to matter! Seen from the back row of the upper circle, it appeared very much as a Busby Berkeley musical. The playing and singing were full of joy, the last act being 'padded out' by a splendid can-can imported from another operetta. (The line between musical and operetta does not exist at the Volksoper - last time I was there a spectacular production of Zigeunerbaron, employing half the Viennese youth of military age, together with their horses, was followed the next day by Kòss mich K¬tchen.)

The production of Falstaff was one of those which almost blows aside one's critical faculties. Both musically and in dramatic judgement, it was a tour de force, in a different league to that in Budapest. Although having both an Italian director (Fabio Luisi) and Italian designer (Marco Arturo Marelli), the production had almost a Wagnerian character. (One should tread carefully here - better say Germanic!)

Admittedly, the opening gave cause for concern: the curtain rose on a bare wooden platform but this rose up forming the roof of the Garter Inn, which was revealed as a sort of subterranean squat piled with oil drums. Falstaff reclined on a tattered sofa, receiving geisha-like attention from an androgynous page. Fortunately, Verdi soon took control as the drama unfolded, led by Terfel in magnificent appearance and voice. The roof descended again to form the stage for the second scene. In this, there was an unusual balance between the four ladies. Alice (Krassimira Stoyanova) and Meg (Nadia Krasteva) looked elegant and sang enchantingly but the personality and presence came from Bori Keszei as Nannetta and Jane Henschel as Mistress Quickly. The former, with Cosmin Ifrim as Fenton, formed an attractive pair of young lovers, the altered balance pointing a striking contrast to the worldy-wise wives and the lecherous Falstaff. In their dialogues with Falstaff, Mistress Quickly and particularly Carlos Alvarez as Fontana/Ford were perfect foils both vocally and dramatically.

The performance was given with just one interval, after Act II, which worked very well, since most of Act III was played as pure fantasy. The tormenting of Falstaff was set as an expressionist nightmare with a wide semi-circle of moonlit white-clad ghouls entangling him in a phosphorescent white rope. The tension broke, with perfect musical timing, with the unveiling of the united young lovers and a return to reality for the final fugue, this time perfectly balanced. The performance ended with a well-deserved extended ovation, which just fell short of drawing everyone to their feet (a nice judgement).

Incidentally, I asked our Viennese guide when the Austrians stopped burning witches. 'Oh, we never had witches in Austria' was her reply - a pre-echo of a more recent state of denial, perhaps?


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