Weill : Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny
Royal Opera Chorus
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Mark Wigglesworth
Or rather, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, as the performance was given in English, rather than the original German. That in itself was something of a surprise; performance of opera in English is usually the remit of English National Opera, not the Royal Opera. Asked, during the interval, why they had chosen to go for an English translation, the director John Fulljames gave a perfectly reasonable explanation - the desire to make the text fully comprehensible to the audience, particularly in the light of Brecht and Weill's hallmark tactic of putting text and music in apparent, diametric opposition.
However, the end result was, to my mind, a textbook example of what happens when the director doesn't really understand the musical aspects of the opera he's staging, only the theatrical ones. Without the snap and snarl of the German language, the whole thing seemed softened, neutered, and the rhythm thrown off, to the point that there was quite a bit of uncertain timing in the choral and ensemble singing, particularly at the start. That wasn't a consistent problem, and there were other instances where the men's chorus, in particular, performed very well, but it was enough of one to be a distraction.
There was no real need to "modernise" the libretto, it's a semi-fantasy setting in any event, and the content, as everyone involved in the production rightly pointed out, remains pretty thoroughly contemporary and relevant. The staging started out referring visually to Britain, but the text tends to cancel that out almost immediately, and there was no attempt to streamline that aspect. The singers, clear enough, were singing this new translation in beautifully enunciated Queen's English - completely inappropriate for the characters they were portraying - while the spoken texts had a more naturalistic sound. The switching on and off of amplification between spoken and sung passages was a bit jarring too, though I imagine that would have happened no matter what language was being used. In other words, the use of an English translation was, frankly, little short of catastrophic. It robbed the opera of its bite and its venom, sterilising it needlessly, despite Fulljames's willingness to show the decadence of the city and its denizens.
Willing, he was; there were a lot of good ideas visually. The first act was set in and around an HGV trailer, which revolved, opened and closed to good effect. In the 3rd Scene, when the men of the old cities, dull and jaded, are loaded into the trailer en route to Mahagonny, I was irresistibly reminded of Pinocchio and the other boys climbing into the carriage for the Land of Toys, and the fate that awaits them there. In the second act, one trailer became a tiered heap of them, the lowest ones again providing "rooms" as required, the upper ones making walkways. Dress was on the whole contemporary, though Jenny and the other prostitutes played around the last century of fashion fairly indiscriminately. Excellent use of video supplied the scene summaries Brecht wanted the audience to be able to read (also narrated quite effectively by Paterson Joseph), and the typhoon that threatens at the end of the first act, as well as other neat touches.
Musically, Mahagonny takes a little while to warm up. The first number to really make you sit up is the Scene 7 Trio, and that did not come off at all tonight, the English text blurring the vocal lines too much. Then you're into a substantial sequence focussed very closely on Jimmy, and the menace of the typhoon, and that was when the orchestra really woke up, with the brass semi-fugue that introduces the typhoon. The brooding Prelude to Act 2 was excellent, and Wigglesworth ensured that the orchestral contribution remained strong from then on.
I've seen Mahagonny live once before; I don't actually remember much of it, save for one element - Felicity Palmer as Leocadia Begbick. With all due respect to Anne Sofie von Otter, whom I usually admire, she wasn't in the same league. It's not a matter of vocal qualities, it's how the character is projected, and I found it difficult to see any real menace in von Otter's Begbick. Admittedly, she wasn't helped by a rather preposterous long blond wig whose ends were dipped in six inches' worth of fuchsia pink - difficult to take anyone seriously with that on their head - but I missed a certain quality of steel in her interpretation.
With Kurt Streit's Jimmy, it was the other way around; dramatically, he was good, but although he could sing the role, his tenor didn't seem like quite the right kind, a little too light and soft-grained, where you want something verging on the Helden. Similarly, Christine Rice was a bit too vocally pretty for Jenny, although considering I have Lotte Lenya in my head for that part (which she created) that's probably a rather unfair comparison. Rice was, however, very good in her Act 2 number, "Meine Herren, meine Mutter prägte", which is a fairly crucial moment. Willard White, in excellent voice, brought Trinity Moses persuasively to life with his velvety bass and distinctive presence.
I have to file this one under "Missed Opportunities". An interesting production, well-staged, and generally good singing that might well have been much better had it not been saddled with that emasculating English translation.
[Next : 3rd April]
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