Happy Alchemy by Robertson Davies

Author:Robertson Davies
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: RosettaBooks
Published: 2019-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

20

Opera for the Man Who Reads Hamlet

In this lecture about “Opera as Related to Literature” (he used both titles for this talk), Davies has given many examples of operas whose libretti were based, however loosely, on books. We have selected three pieces from his Theatre Diaries to give you his reactions to productions of these operas. Wozzeck was chosen because it was the first time he saw it, and Sir John in Love and Falstaff because they are based on Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor. The lecture was first given at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto on March 15, 1989, and again at the St. Louis Opera Festival on June 18, 1989. Colin Graham, who is referred to in the Diary entry, is the Artistic Director of the St. Louis Festival.

October 29, 1977, Saturday: Alone to Wozzeck by the Canadian Opera Company at O’Keefe: Had never seen it or heard a note of it before. Captivated. Deep pathos approaching tragedy. Could not have been achieved except by Berg’s atonalism, which totally won me. Fine performances by Allan Monk as Wozzeck, Lynn Vernon as Marie, and Ara Berberian as the Doctor and all the others congruous. Very good simple production by Lotfi Mansouri, and sensitively conducted by Raffi Armenian. As I left a woman I did not know seized me: “Didn’t you think that last scene was just awful? It left the whole thing flat.” I had found the last scene deeply moving, and said so. Many old-guard opera people won’t go to Wozzeck. And it was written in 1925!

March 2, 1984: Friday: at the Macmillan Theatre, the Opera School, Sir John in Love. Have known this opera since Mazzoleni discoursed on it at U.C.C. [Upper Canada College] nearly sixty years ago: I believe he did some study with Ralph Vaughan Williams while it was being written, or produced. Have greatly admired it from the score and the recording but have never seen it before. Pretty well acted, though costumes were unimaginative except for the children in the forest. Settings bad, feebly coloured and Olde Shakespearean in the weak sense – though the forest in Act 3, Scene 2 was good. Lighting disastrous: purple skies and pastel “effects.” But the singing was good and the orchestra under James Craig good though often too loud. Tempi right and sense of the texture of the music right. What a fine score! I prefer it to Verdi’s Falstaff, which lacks tenderness and of course Englishness, and reduces the plot to Mediterranean sniggering about cuckoldry and Falstaff to a mere schemer. But Ralph Vaughan Williams gives it fine English dimension and opens up the silly plot with magnificent, truly Shakespearean music. We were delighted, as was the full house.

April 14, 1992: Tuesday: Canadian Opera Company Falstaff well directed by Jonathan Eaton and conducted by Richard Bradshaw. The Globe and Mail slated this production but I found it excellent, though it does not reconcile me to Italianized Shakespeare. Timothy Noble a spirited, witty Falstaff and Nancy Gustafson a charming Mrs.

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