Not Only Opera

Cheer up, Ryan! The Winter's Tale at ENO

The Winter's Tale
English National Opera
London Coliseum
3 March 2017
Upper Circle D44, £20
https://www.eno.org/whats-on/the-winters-tale/

It's one of the things that everyone says about The Winter's Tale, that the scenes in Bohemia are so different in tone from the opening in Sicily that they could be from a different play. In his new opera adaptation, composer Ryan Wigglesworth proposes one possible solution to this 'problem', and that's to underpin the superficial cheer of the Bohemian scenes with a not-so-subtle current of malevolence. I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea in principle, but when so much of the story is omitted – as is necessary in opera, especially in one that's only two hours long, interval included – it casts a gloomy, life-sapping pall over the work.

Wigglesworth draws some interesting foci in his edit of the text: for example, the story's composition as an Ancient Greek tragedy feels more prominent than it has in stage productions I've seen (an effect further heightened by Vicki Mortimer's annoyingly expensive-looking set). But a number of these weaken the story's dramatic potency. He edits the text to undermine Hermione's goodness, and sour any happiness she and Leontes might have had together. The aim might have been to introduce more realism into the story, but the effect is to destroy its pathos. The mad cruelty of Leontes, and the tragedy of subsequent events, seem lessened when the libretto has gone to such lengths to show us their relationship was already loveless.

Nevertheless, the trial scene is very impressive, despite the slightly uneasy writing for chorus and the aforementioned ridiculous set. It's here, I feel, that Wigglesworth gives himself time and text enough to create a compelling response to this marvellous play. From here to the end of the opera, though, he seems to let his anxiety over running time get the better of his dramatic sensibilities. Much of the opera's second half is so curtailed that it survives as nothing more than a series of anticlimaxes. Antigonus is killed (or rather, not killed) in a handful of bars. Polixenes' dire sentences for Florizel, Perdita and her father are barely reflected upon. Leontes' recognition of Perdita is followed immediately by a scene change. The final reunion with Hermione is ruthlessly perfunctory. Well before the end, it all felt rather pointless.

I think Wigglesworth wanted us to question the assumptions we make about the happiness of unity in The Winter's Tale. My main reason for this is that even the deliriously jolly marriage of Perdita and Florizel has the joy squeezed out of it, Wigglesworth providing unmistakably dirge-like music for the occasion. Maybe we're supposed to conclude that Florizel will become just as tyrannical as the generation of men above him; that the pain of every human relationship is seeded in its beginning. Or maybe Wigglesworth is wary of opera's emotionalism. Or maybe he just doesn't like writing cheerful music. Either way, it's frustrating, as it introduces a monochrome dreariness and dramatic clumsiness in a work that is in all other respects full of promise for Wigglesworth's opera career. His sensitive writing for voices, nuanced and colourful orchestration and firm sense of pace all make me eager to hear his further operas, beyond my criticisms of this Winter's Tale.

Some of the credit, and a little bit of the blame, should go to his cast, who on paper could not be bettered. I've seen Iain Paterson twice at the Coliseum: his Don Giovanni dismayed me; his Hans Sachs was perfection. Both elements come into play in his performance as Leontes. Put bluntly, he does not have a dynamic stage presence. This works well for Sachs's quiet melancholy and for the grief-ridden Leontes of the second half, heartbreakingly slow to accept the treasures that have been restored to him. It works a lot less well for the charismatic Don Giovanni and for a Leontes driven wild by mad jealousy. Sophie Bevan's lustrous sound makes her perfect casting for Hermione – or at least for the traditional 'pure and good' Hermione. In the end Wigglesworth has provided her with some brutally challenging music which Bevan didn't have quite under her skin at the second performance, leading to an occasional harshness into her voice (then again, perhaps this was intentional). The rest of the cast is underused, criminally so in the case of the excellent Susan Buckley – an ideal Paulina, usually the best role in the story, but here little more than a third-act magician.

As to the production: it's quite a tall order to give a world premiere to an inexperienced director. As you might expect from an actor of Rory Kinnear's calibre and experience, his production is packed full of ideas, many of which have a whiff of National Theatre about them. Some of them are sound-ish (Leontes a tinpot dictator – fine, but the goosestep straight from the Ministry of Silly Walks was probably a step too far); some of them are distracting (the chorus is occasionally given Peter Sellers-style gestures to do – an idea that works terrifically in David Alden's ENO production of the chorus-heavy Peter Grimes, but here, with the chorus onstage only twice, looks very strange). But ultimately Kinnear's ideas have little to do with either the rest of the production or the opera itself. Mortimer's drum-like set, with rotating walls designed to enable blink-of-an-eye scene changes, is a fine idea, but evidently difficult to realize (there was much noisy trundling) and not really necessary for an opera which has many set-changing interludes written into it. I've not read anything about the production: maybe Kinnear and Wigglesworth actually worked very closely together – but from the end result it doesn't look like it.

For all my grumbling, The Winter's Tale is in many ways an impressive opera statement from a composer I've never found that exciting before now. I hope we hear more from him soon.