The greatest Grimeses

There was Pears, of course - it was a surprise to me to find how fine an actor he was, as well as a singer, in the 1969 film of Peter Grimes conducted by Britten. But in my opera-going experience no-one can possibly be greater than the late Philip Langridge.

I saw him three times, twice in Tim Albery's very fine English National Opera production, and once in a Barbican concert performance conducted by Richard Hickox, where his pacing around at the foot of the stage before the final scene seemed horribly real. In fact his madness came across as not acted at all, which is why when we watched the scene in Grimes's hut in the fourth of my Opera in Depth Zoom classes on the work a few weeks ago, the students expressed concern for the (surely too young) boy he roughs up.

That of course wasn't a problem in Deborah Warner's production, now running at the Royal Opera, where the character of Grimes is softened to the point of sentimentality and he never manhandles his apprentice; the boy can touch him tenderly but it doesn't work (as far as I remember) the other way around. Cruz Fitz and Allan Clayton pictured below by Yasuko Kageyama.

Surely we're all in agreement that Allan Clayton manages every vocal aspect of the role superbly, but for me this fisherman wasn't a credible character. Note to director: you don't have to love the protagonist to feel pity for him.

The libretto does present difficulties, of course - how to tie up the visionary with the rough, abusive outsider? But not to have him strike Ellen in Act 2 Scene One - he knocks her to the ground in a scuffle as he makes off with the boy - is a step too far. I didn't like the keening over the corpse to the 'relief' of the Moonlight Interlude, either. This isn't the first time there's been a shying-away from the uncomfortable: I was astonished to discover that Jon Vickers changed two of the lines in the hut scene to avoid the physical assault on the boy (thus avoiding the con violenza written into the score)

Anyone coming to Grimes for the first time, or even after a long time of not seeing it in action, is bound to think 'this is the greatest' - that's partly because of the nature of Britten's inspiration, which as Mark Wigglesworth, recording a Zoom chat with me for one of the other classes after we'd listened to his Glyndebourne/LPO performance of the Passacaglia - the most electrifying I know - is 'bulletproof'.

Our first guest was the ever-generous and articulate Sue Bullock, who spoke with shocking frankness about playing Ellen Orford in the first run of the Albery ENO production - she alternated with Josephine Bartstow - to Langridge's Grimes. They both felt that the tension of the scene outside the church had built to such a pitch that to fake the slap diffused it. So SB gave PL the licence to hit her (that's me being astonished as she tells me below). And she remembers standing in the wings crying while Langridge himself wept real tears in the 'mad scene', then going home - still in tears - fretting that she hadn't done enough to save him. 

Talk about the role taking over (but I also remember Simon Keenlyside telling me how he paced the streets of London in the small hours after singing the finest Prince Andrey I think I'll witness in Prokofiev's War and Peace).

I was saving the equal generosity of Richard Jones, another regular visitor, for Samson et Dalila next term, which he convinced me was worth spending four or five Monday afternoons on (as did Nicky Spence, but alas, he's had to withdraw because of the steady convalescence needed to restore his two broken legs to full health). But we were so stunned by RJ's Milan production, which I ended up using the most when it came to playing full scenes on DVD, that I asked if he'd be willing to talk about it. 

Richard always declares that these things were too long ago to remember much, but then he goes and delivers fascinating and unexpected takes with great vividness. He was especially good (and funny) on the disjunct between music and text: 'part of my affection for it is this very extraordinary, eerie and incredibly memorable music combined with this Listen-With-Mother, Ealing vowel text, and I like that disparity very much'. 

Responding to Mark's comment about Grimes being 'bulletproof', he declared that 'there are certain pieces where you can have your day in the sun as a director - one is Jenůfa, another is Grimes'. 

So far he's only directed it once, but would be up for another shot (which, given his capacity for re-imagining, would probably be very different). I just don't think there could a more intense and upsetting experience than what he and his choreography Sarah Fahie get out of the Teatro alla Scala forces and the principals: all the more remarkable given the chorus's threat to walk out at one stage (or perhaps because of it: needless to say Jones enjoyed facing an angry mob). 

The two leading performances are devastating. John Graham Hall may not have the tonal beauty of a Pears or a Clayton, but like Langridge's, his is a Grimes on the edge from the start. 

It's the only time I've seen the Apprentice played by a teenager (Francesco Malvuccio, who spoke no English, but as Richard says, that may have been an advantage). So there's a boy who can stand up for himself a bit, but is still physically dominated by the abuser.

The biggest rethink is the role of Ellen Orford. Jones believes there are no good people at all in Grimes, and she's horribly deluded, an ex-cultist who never notices what's really going on. That doesn't stop us feeling pity for her as she falls apart. 

Susan Gritton sings and acts better than any other Ellen I've seen. Wigglesworth conducted her too, and advised me to get her along. By which time, alas, it was too late in the course and she was taken up with performances on the weekend we might have spoken. But we had a splendid email exchange. 

I was also hoping for another appearance from the supremely eloquent Robin Ticciati, who conducts the La Scala production magnificently, and who was looking forward to telling some memorable stories. But he was taken into hospital to be operated on for a kidney stone, so that was not to be ditto Felicity Palmer, who gives an interesting Auntie, but declared it wasn't a role she felt close to. No matter; we watched so much of the film, and I urge you to do so if you think a Grimes can't be more intense than the Royal Opera one. For me this is the greatest Grimes, while Langridge is the greatest Grimes. Get hold of the Arthaus Musik DVD of Albery's ENO production too, if you can.

These, for me, are benchmarks, and yet there was so much new and perceptive in the latest comer. I just didn't come away from it wrung out. To me it seemed that Clayton was a truly great singer who acted well, not a born singer-actor. But then RJ, who hadn't seen the production at the time of our conversation, reminded me of his astonishing delivery in the Royal Opera 4/4 staging of H K Gruber's Frankenstein!!!, and yes, that did make me think it was the director's job to bring out the best in him. I think the RO should bring back the film complete now that a star is truly born, but this minute is good enough to show you the audacity, weirdness and agility.

Don Giovanni and Falstaff: choices

So you may have listened to the BBC Radio 3 Building a Library on Elgar's Falstaff by now, but if you haven't, it would be unkind of me to blazon the front runner amongst a mostly fine selection to the rooftops. Which is why I've chosen an image of Elgar the conductor, historical choice from 1930, above, after Klemperer and Mackerras, whose recordings of Mozart's Don Giovanni have so far been my lynchpins in the first three of five Opera in Depth classes I'm devoting to the opera.

And of course I'm in seventh heaven, living and breathing Mozart for so much of the week. I must also say that for all its skewered brilliance, Richard Jones's ENO production didn't affect me as deeply as revisiting Deborah Warner's take for Glyndebourne. I've always admired it the most for taking what I'm convinced is Mozart's and Da Ponte's line in the first scene that when a girl says no she means no. Does it have to be a woman director who has the courage to accept this? Besides which, the students agreed that Gilles Cachemaille is a very convincing seducer with an edge.

We all loved the first scene with Zerlina, so softly persuasive with the bizarre on-the-spot suggestion that she marry him; so convincing that Juliane Banse's gorgeous virgin feels like she's in a dream; so clever to have Giovanni dress her rather than undress her, putting on the wedding accoutrements instead of taking anything off.

As for Klemperer, I ordered up his recording thinking I'd want an extreme opposite to Mackerras's perfect and mostly brisk pacing. But I ended up mostly convinced: when I talked it over with Stephen Johnson, who was staying here on Wednesday night before we travelled up to my old workplace the Freud Museum to record for a Radio 3 documentary on  Freud and music, he pointed out the energy of Klemperer's rhythmic articulation, which means that slow rarely feels slow (he used the example of playing OK's Fidelio, and his wife Kate being smitten and surprised that it felt faster than it actually was). Of course there are exceptions rather beyond the pale - his late Mahler Seventh and Cosi, for instance - but this Giovanni brims with energy. And I love the battle of two intelligent basses, Nicolai Ghiaurov and the great, underrated Walter Berry as Leporello, rising to three when the statue of the Commendatore (Franz Crass, also magnificent) comes to dinner.

Here, too, we 'bought' a mezzo Elvira, Christa Ludwig, and Mirella Freni is at her youthful best as Zerlina. Curious that there are two married couples featured - Ludwig and Berry were still together when the recording was made, Ghiaurov was yet to wed Freni (I wonder if the wooing began in the studio here). So, paraphrasing RuPaul, it's a case of 'Klemperer's Don Giovanni - bringing couples together'.

Berry even trumps the superb Alessandro Corbelli, Mackerras's Leporello, in the Catalogue Aria. And the recits are no less brilliant, though of course Mackerras has the greater sense of theatrical pace. We'll be turning to Giulini for the great Quartet and the most ineffable Trio in the middle of the Act One finale. Otherwise, curious how simply wrong early Don Gs were in the conductors' approach to tempi - Andante should never mean Adagio, and Mozart's Andante is brisker than, say, Brahms's (another Johnson apercu).

So, two more weeks and then on to The Nose, with an interpolated visit from Mark Wigglesworth. Seeing Shostakovich's first opera last night reminded me that quite a lot of it doesn't pass muster without the visuals, and Barrie Kosky failed to lift a couple of rather otiose scenes. But there are certainly flashes of genius like the dancing multiple noses (pictured above by Bill Cooper for the Royal Opera). My current earworm, though, is Britten's Billy Budd, which Opera North did so clearly and unforgettably. That was a worthwhile trip to Leeds.

By happy coincidence after we'd finished recording at the Freud Museum yesterday, we walked up to Hampstead and passed the site of Severn House, where Elgar composed Falstaff inter alia. The plaque is getting tatty; how about a proper light blue roundel? Freud has one, after all.

Final teaser with spoiler warning: this is how the Building a Library top choice looked when I first bought it on LP. If you don't want to know whose the performance is, don't read the small print.

Don Giovanni: the beginning and the end

Or rather, after Mozart's Overture and before the survivors' final sextet. Aren't these two scenes - Donna Anna rushing out of her father's house with Giovanni in hot pursuit, and the libertine's final meeting with the statue of the Commendatore - the big question marks for any director today? Richard Jones in his typically challenging production for English National Opera, stunningly conducted by Mark Wigglesworth, approaches them very much on his own terms - the first, for me, questionably, the last with characteristic off-kilter genius. Production images above by Robert Workman featuring Christopher Purves, Clive Bayley and James Cresswell.

The sticking-point, in every production I've seen since Deborah Warner's at Glyndebourne, is (as I put it in the Arts Desk review) male directors' refusal to believe that when a girl says no, she means no; in other words to accept that Don Giovanni, in disguise as Don Ottavio in the dark, is essentially trying to rape Donna Anna when she finds out it's not her fiance and starts hollering blue murder.

In Tirso de Molina's The Trickster of Seville, the fountainhead of all Juans/Giovannis, there's no doubt in the first scene that Duchess Isabel believes she's trysted with Duke Octavio in the dark - Tirso doesn't exactly sympathise, since sex before marriage even with the 'right' man wasn't on in the Golden Age of Spanish drama - or that Doña Ana in Act 2 thought she was giving up her honour to the Marquis of La Mota (also a cad, incidentally), not a 'murderer' (and not just of honour, for of course it's her father, Don Gonzalo, who shortly gives up the ghost).

Is there any reason to doubt Donna Anna's vivid struggle in Mozart's music? The sheer energy of it was woefully at odds with Kasper Holten's decision to have Anna and Giovanni taking a pleasant post-coital stroll at the Royal Opera. We also got off to a sub-Bieito start in Ole Anders Tandberg's inept Stockholm production, with the two having sex in a toilet while Leporello peered under the door (the aftermath pictured above, I presume, by the same photographer whose images I used in the initial piece, Markus Gårder). Jones's sado-masochistic play while the Commendatore prepares to have sex with a prostitute next door may have been more convincing, but like those directors, he makes his Donna Anna insincere when protesting in 'Or sai che l'onore', and generally devious.

These are signs of our times, just as the sanctification of Anna as angel got the better of 19th century writers. And there's often a kind of implied sexism made implicit in the late William Mann's otherwise sound The Operas of Mozart when he writes that about Anna that  'it would be beneficial to her personal growing-up if she had been pleasantly raped by Don Juan (as some writers on Mozart's opera assume, I think optimistically).' Well, it hardly needs spelling out that there's nothing pleasant or optimistic about a rape. Why has it taken a woman to get it right? Only Deborah Warner at Glyndebourne has shown us a distressed rather than a relaxed or protest-too-much Donna Anna. That's still the production I admire the most.

As for where to end, it can't be an option to remove the final gathering of survivors and leave it at Don Giovanni going to hell. A group of students for whom I put together a programme of music-history classes were sceptical about the epilogue until I showed them Warner's compelling final thoughts on the discombobulation of those left behind. Holten clearly never liked it; when I saw his Royal Opera production first time round, the voices came from behind a screen; for the revival , I gather, he cut it altogether. Jonathan Kent in the most recent Glyndebourne production seemed happy for cuts within the ensemble - hard to miss that final exchange between Donna Anna and Don Ottavio - while Jones keeps the full ensemble but has his own masterly solution. Which I'm glad to say no critic I've read so far has had the meanness to divulge.

Meanwhile, we've kicked off Don Giovanni at the Opera in Depth class with a preliminary circling-round, not least listening to some of Gluck's amazing music in his 1761 ballet. A fandango got reused by Mozart for the Act 3 wedding ceremony in Le nozze di Figaro, but the stunner is the final sequence, which gives us some idea that Mozart's Sturm und Drang didn't come out of the blue. Gluck transferred the final 'Dance of the Furies' to the Paris version of Orfeo ed Euridice, in which guise we find it here - sans the trumpets which make Bruno Weil's performance with Tafelmusik, the one I used, so exciting.