Not Only Opera

This party sucks: Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Antonio Pappano, Christian Gerhaher and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
Balcony standing C64, £5
23 April 2018

Programme
Strauss, Metamorphosen
Martin, Sechs Monologe aus Jedermann
Shostakovich, Eight British and American Folksongs
Elgar, Enigma Variations

You assume the intention of a concert that takes the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House out of the pit and onto the stage is to celebrate that orchestra and its flourishment under Antonio Pappano, and while we’re there show its chops at music that falls out of the opera house repertory (because I guess it’s just not impressive enough to be able to play the Ring Cycle). I’m mystified as to what went wrong because despite a clear brief, a whole lot of repertory to choose from, numerous earnest speeches from Pappano and I would say pretty strong raw material in the form of the orchestra itself, this concert entirely failed. Rather than do its job, this concert instead made me 1) grateful the musicians have ample opportunity to shine in their more usual fare, and 2) angry that the great Christian Gerhaher had been roped in for so little purpose.

I imagine part of the problem probably lies with the timing; it must have been difficult to prioritize a one-off concert of random bits and bobs over the run of, say, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and the imminent premiere of Lessons in Love and Violence. I suspect the timing led to an economy of programming, which is the most evident part of the problem. There was economy of numbers in the first half: Metamorphosen is of course a prestige piece but is this 23-strong work really what you would select in a concert to celebrate an entire symphony orchestra? And then economy of music in the second half: it’s probably a safe assumption that every instrumentalist will have played Enigma Variations a good number of times, even if they haven’t already played Ashton’s ballet setting for the ROH; and the school-orchestra simplicity of the Shostakovich I think could well have been performed on just one run-through or even sightread on the night. Pragmatic, but hardly celebratory.

The one piece where the programme did push the boat out was Martin’s Everyman Monologues, a work that Pappano evidently wanted to do justice to in involving Gerhaher. I was glad to hear it and it certainly gave Gerhaher room to display his trademark deep engagement with text and textual colour, supported by the orchestra in precision and control, particularly in their long, graceful diminuendos. Still, it is a rather somber piece and neither complements nor is complemented by Metamorphosen, similar in tone and idiom and already desperately samey with itself (sorry, Strauss fans). The strings’ performance was all well enough but below the level of ensemble and musicality brought by the LSO in their performance, and now as then I’m sceptical the piece really works at all in an auditorium as large as the Royal Opera House or the Barbican.

So that was the first half. Going into the second I wasn’t too psyched about hearing the Elgar (again) but I thought at least there would be some fun in the Shostakovich. Wrong. The setting of these well-known (i.e. worn to death) folk songs is so bland it could have been written by anyone, let alone someone of the invention of Shostakovich. Watching Gerhaher, arguably the most sophisticated singer working today, and a symphony orchestra perform these completely generic settings felt like the musical equivalent of buying a rocket in order to make the run down to the shops a bit quicker. I was most unimpressed. And then follow that by Enigma, played richly but sloppily and sounding like every other mediocre performance of this wretched piece you’ve ever heard. Surely this orchestra deserves better. Maybe it’s called opera.