Читать книгу Things That Have Interested Me - Arnold Bennett - Страница 4

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I have never seen a reasonably good all-round performance of grand opera. Nevertheless, though not a melomaniac, I am extremely fond of grand opera, and have seen it in the following cities: Antwerp, Brussels, Florence, Ghent, Hanley, Lisbon, London, Milan, New York, Paris, Ostend, Philadelphia, Rome, San Remo, and others which I cannot recall. If operatic performances succeed in several particulars, as they sometimes do—though rarely in more than one—they always fail in at least one particular, generally in several, sometimes in all. The best show I ever saw anywhere on the operatic stage was a performance of Le Mariage de Figaro in English at Drury Lane under Sir Thomas Beecham. The production had been superintended by Nigel Playfair. The translation was quite neat, and often very witty indeed. The acting was good. There was an ensemble. The scenery was not really good, but it was so immensely better than ordinary scenery in world-renowned opera-houses that it gave the illusion of being good. I was as well satisfied by this affair as by a faulty performance of Strauss's absolutely enchanting Rosenkavalier at Covent Garden: which is saying a great deal. It would be impossible for me to decide which was the worst show I ever saw—the choice would be too embarrassing. But it occurred certainly in either Paris, Milan, or London. I know that after a performance of Siegfried, at the Paris Opera House I took an oath never again to enter the Paris Opera House. It was all bad, but especially the scenery and the "production" were horrible. I broke my oath, because the Russian ballet chose to begin its West-European career at the Paris Opera House, and I attended. After a pre-war performance of Parsifal at Covent Garden I took an oath never again to enter Covent Garden. The flower-maidens' garden and the costumes and antics of the flower-maidens must count among the foulest and most ghastly artistic outrages in the history of music. I had to close my eyes; I slept. I broke my Covent Garden oath because of Strauss. All the standard operas ought to be re-"produced," and their stage traditions entirely demolished, by somebody fairly abreast of the craft of modern play-producing. They ought properly to be re-"produced" by the creative producers who have made the Russian ballet; but one must not ask for too much.

The methods of the Russian ballet appear as yet to have had no influence at all on French, English, American, or Italian productions. Imagine what the Russian ballet people might do with Tannhäuser, Don Juan, Faust, Tristan! Operatic performances frequently give ravishing pleasure to the ear, but they always, always, always offend the eye; and they offend the reason. Operatic scenery, for instance, is more than ugly; it is ridiculous. When architecture is given, the architecture is manifestly impossible. No architecture could conceivably exist with the plans and elevations of the palaces, cottages, and cabarets of the operatic stage. The same with gardens, forests, rocky crags, and desert places. There is no technical excuse for this. Nor is there any technical excuse for the operatic mismanagement of lighting and grouping. The truth is that operatic mismanagers are obsessed by the music, and they leave everything else to people who are either dead and have forgotten to get themselves buried, or who don't know the elements of their job. I do not underestimate the tremendous difficulties of operatic production, but I do assert that the importing of common sense, comeliness, and logic into operatic production would lessen and not magnify those difficulties.

There is one difficulty, however, that only the progress of medical science can remove. Either a predisposition to obesity goes with vocal capacity, or singing has a marked and frightful tendency to produce obesity in singers. I do not know which. The whole question is very mysterious. The obesity of male singers can be borne by the opera-goer with relative equanimity, but the obesity of women on the stage is a real affliction for the sensitive opera-goer. Much discretion is needed for the discussion of this subject. Stout sopranos are not criminals, though I know opera-goers who would violently refer to them as such. They are victims, who fight in vain against their unkind fate. Nothing can at present be done, for to put all obesity out of business in opera would be nearly to annihilate the profession. Yet in some cases licence is carried too far. Last night I saw a vast woman, a highly accomplished singer with a long and honourable career behind her, in a part which demanded grace and physical charm. As the beloved of a very young and very slight creature she had constantly to say things which in the most cruel manner rendered her grotesque, and the climax came when she had to disguise herself and be mistaken for a mere girl. Many members of the audience, screened in darkness, smiled and laughed to one another. Every scene in which she appeared, and especially the scenes of comedy, took on a horrid humour which nobody intended. The opera was ruined. If this lady accepted a mere offer of the rôle, then both she and the mismanagers were to blame. If the rôle was forced upon her, then the mismanagers were solely to blame. Anyhow, the result was excruciating to the sensitive. Of course, the case was extremely exceptional. But all cases of obesity are gravely regrettable. Does one Venus in twenty look the part, even from the distance of the farthest gallery? I think I have only seen one really slim Venus in my life; and what a marvellous difference she made to Tannhäuser!