Arnold - The Dancing Master (Buxton, 2021)

Malcolm Arnold - The Dancing Master (Buxton, 2021)

Buxton International Festival, 2021

John Andrews, Susan Moore, Eleanor Dennis, David Webb, Catherine Carby, Fiona Kimm, Graeme Broadbent, Mark Wilde

Buxton Opera House - 16th July 2021

You might think after last year's cancellation on account of the pandemic that the Buxton International Festival might be inclined to play it safe this year, both in terms of health measures and in the choice of programme. The former was taken into account as far the wearing of masks and distanced seating, but the latter concession to programming Sondheim's A Little Night Music was already part of a plan to reach out and extend the audience for the festival. The only real programming concession was to select works that could be easier to rehearse and stage should lockdown conditions make things difficult, and the choice of Malcolm Arnold's The Dancing Master could hardly be said to be made as a popular attraction. It turned out however to be a very astute and entertaining selection.

It's not just that Malcolm Arnold is very much under-represented and unappreciated in his own country - reason alone for an English opera company to reassess and revive interest in his work - but The Dancing Master itself is something of a true obscurity, a lost work that failed to get produced when it was composed in 1952 and was quickly forgotten even by the composer who just went on to the next piece of work (Arnold among other commissions always in demand for film scores). Based on a 1671 play by William Wycherley in the classic Restoration comedy style, the submission of the piece as a TV opera was rejected by the BBC who found it rather too bawdy for their audience. Arnold never found a place for it and the opera was never to be performed in his lifetime or indeed, ever fully staged until now. So this would be quite a coup for Buxton if they could pull it off, and they have form in that regard.

Rather than see the likelihood of regulations for mask wearing and social distancing as a potential restriction, the director Susan Moore works with it and, mindful of the opera's troubled past, chooses to stage the production as if it were being produced by the BBC; not as a TV opera, but as a radio opera. Or perhaps more like the standing at microphone recording of a classic 1950s comedy show like The Goons. It's a great idea that plays well enough, although a decision has been made somewhere along the line to have it semi-staged as well - a device used also at Buxton this year (less effectively, I feel) in Acis and Galatea.

This does complicate the idea of it being a stand-up radio recording, but there is limited scope in that idea and it's probably just as important that the intention of the work is not too much removed from its original source material to the extent that it seems like it is being played in a distanced way. The Dancing Master might be a little dated but it deserves better than to be treated ironically, as Arnold's opera and Joe Mendoza's libretto have genuine affection and feeling for the setting and character of the original play. Moore's production for Buxton unquestionably attempts to do justice to that within the uncertain conditions of not even knowing what restrictions might be in place by the time this would come to be staged in July 2021.

The opera itself is well-balanced, almost through-composed to let the drama and humour and farcical situations flow easily, although there is room for some pretty arias and moments of reflection. The characters are likewise balanced, even if individually there are not characters of any great depth. The older people get the plum roles for colour and comedy; the Spanish loving Don Diego, his sister the prim Mistress Caution and her son, Monsieur Caution with his French affectations. The young lovers Miranda and Gerard just want to be free to make their own choices, but are forced into employing schemes to cover their tracks. So when Gerard is caught in Miranda's room, having climbed a ladder in search of a woman who has stolen his heart at first glance, he is forced to pretend that he is a dancing master, even though he has no dancing skills at all.

"Farce ensues" is the outcome and that is usually the sign of great entertainment to be had, particularly when there are ladders at windows and in some cases plenty of doors and wardrobes for hiding involved. This is far from the sophistication of The Marriage of Figaro however and the farce in The Dancing Master is much less complicated, almost entirely built around the fact that the supposed dancing master cannot dance with the only "twist" being that Miranda's father knew this all along. There is however some delightfully silly dialogue and preposterous pomposity. More than the plot or the characterisation, what is most enjoyable about the opera is Arnold's breezy score, which is deceptively light but far most sophisticated than it appears on the surface.

It's also enjoyable for the singing which presents some fine arias for Eleanor Dennis as Miranda, for David Webb's rakish Gerard and for the flirtatious maid Prue played by Catherine Carby, but Mistress Caution has some great moments and is played very well by Fiona Kimm. Graeme Broadbent blusters around marvellously as Miranda's Father Don Diego and Mark Wilde has a great time flouncing around as "Monsieur". Conducted by John Andrews, the Northern Chamber Orchestra brings a lightness of touch to Arnold's score, making this undeservedly lost work a thoroughly enjoyable rediscovery.

Links: Buxton International Festival

Caldara - Lucio Papirio Dittatore (Buxton, 2019)

Antonio Caldara - Lucio Papirio Dittatore

La Serenissima, 2019

Adrian Chandler, Giulia Nuti, Mark Burns, Robert Murray, William Towers, Owen Willetts, Rowan Pierce, Elizabeth Karani, Eleanor Dennis, Gareth Brynmor John

Buxton Opera House - 13th July 2019

As the director Mark Burns observes in the programme notes, there is a challenge about approaching an old forgotten work as a complete blank slate, particularly a work as rare as Antonio Caldara's Lucio Papirio Dittatore, composed in 1719 and almost unheard of since. Composed for the royal court of the Holy Roman Emperor in Vienna, for which Caldera was Vice-Kapellmeister, it's a work nonetheless that proves to be deserving of revival and sympathetic treatment. Its qualities are certainly borne out by an outstanding performance from period music specialists La Serenissima and some magnificent fine singing, but the direction proves to be unable to do much to enliven the rather dry long drawn out conventions of the opera seria.

It really needs a little more because in many respects Lucio Papirio Dittatore is to the untrained ear indistinguishable in content and approach from the opera seria of Vivaldi, Scarlatti and even Handel in his dryer works. Others too that I may have forgotten or have failed to register in the memory because aside from the bigger names who have been mined in recent decades, baroque opera has slipped slightly out of the picture as far as I can see. All the more reason to be delighted when a company like La Serenissima are prepared to dig a little deeper into what still remains largely buried treasure. Any one of Caldera's 40 or so surviving operas would be a true rarity and surely deserving of the kind of sympathetic treatment of a period music performance.

A largely static period production of a baroque opera seria won't do it any favours or win over any casual opera goers at the Buxton Festival. It's true that there's not a whole lot you can do with a work that is about the traditional struggle between power, authority and love and make it feel fresh, modern and exciting without shoehorning in a lot of contemporary references. We've had all that already in Buxton with Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and David Cameron all referenced in Orpheus in the Underworld, and in Georgiana too to a less obvious nod-and-a-wink extent. Even in a work where a plebiscite or referendum takes place and is eventually overruled, there's no such highlighting of any obvious parallel, preferring to let the content and treatment of Lucio Papirio Dittatore speak for itself.

To his credit, the director Mark Burns does attempt to modernise the themes with a reference to the building wrapping art installations of the Bulgarian artists Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Marie Denat, the Roman arches and monuments here draped in a fine muslin-like cloth. A casual viewer who hasn't read the programme notes is unlikely to notice this or catch the reference to the artists' background under Soviet Communist rules and its implications of tyranny of the weak. As it stands, with the cloth hangings the same colour as the stone and marble it just makes the arches look a little rough and bumpy, but perhaps on some level it informs the production.

As far as the performances go there appears to be little to the direction other than blocking, moving forward and backward, making entrances and exits. On the other hand it has to be said that the drama, what little of it there is considerably drawn-out, plays out with admirable clarity and holds attention. That is no mean feat in a work of this type, particularly when it appears to be played in full without any cuts, even going as far as to include the coda in praise of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI. If you are going to the trouble of reviving a rare work like this you want to do it without compromise, but inevitably that's going to come at the cost of accessibility. I can't fault La Serenissima for their choice and the director has had to work within those constraints, and to be fair, since many like me come to Buxton for the opportunity to experience rare works performed nowhere else, I wouldn't have it any other way.

What provided visual interest on the stage however was the decision to put the orchestra up there with the drama. It's a large ensemble too, occupying a full third of the stage. This was a complete joy to see and it provided the accessibility that that drama didn't, permitting the audience, particularly those with a higher view than the stalls, the opportunity to see how Caldara uses different sections of instruments to vary mood and situation, which part used harpsichord, theorbo and cello continuo, which called on the brass fanfares, which brought in the whole ensemble with percussion and woodwind. Without a conductor, there are two musical directors then for the diverse parts of the work and recitative, Adrian Chandler leading on violin, Giulia Nuti on harpsichord. All the drama is in there and you would miss much of that if it was consigned to the orchestra pit.

Without getting into the technicalities of the plot, like most opera seria works derived from Zeno or Metastasio, Lucio Papirio Dittatore is actually quite simple in outline but needlessly complicated in detail. During the Second Samnite war in 324BC, the Roman army general Quinto Fabio has disobeyed the orders of the dictator Lucio Papirio and launched into battle with the Samnites. No matter that he was victorious and won the day, ending the war almost single-handed; his failure to follow orders amounts to treason and he must be punished. There's only one sentence according to the law and that is death, no matter that Quinto is married to Papirio's daughter, Papiria. Quinto is assured of his actions despite being warned that "Innocence cannot save you from power and envy". In true opera seria fashion, the situation inevitably introduces a lot of lamenting and pleading on the part of Papiria.

That's drawn out to about an hour and a half in the first two Acts, which is tough going. You can see parallels with power and envy clear enough without it having to be spelled out but mainly you see a lot of conventional opera seria. In the second half Papirio shows that he is not actually motivated by envy and is willing to spare Quinto if the people of Rome vote in his favour. Unfortunately the people of Rome, for some reason, decide they want their hero executed. Lucio proves magnanimous and commutes the sentence, forgiving Quinto. The soldier is so overwhelmed with this gesture that he decides he would happily die. And then somehow it's all wrapped up with a happy ending. Don't ask me to make sense out of any of that. There's a fuller synopsis available in the Festival programme, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort, at least not as far making sense of the plot.

What matters is that Caldera's music makes it work, and it is absolutely beautiful music with wonderful sounding period instruments - including a harpsichord, theorbo and chalumeau - delivering vivid exciting rhythms and sounds that are unlike anything else. And it works too because of the singers. Owen Willetts's Quinto Fabio is superb, a countertenor with strength and impressive control, he is able to handle the flights of emotive expression. Rowan Pierce's Papiria too is impressive. Initially saddled with laments for the most part, she nonetheless makes the role sympathetic with an edge of defiance against her father. Eleanor Dennis's Cominio is also excellent in the subplot romance that I've intentionally neglected to include in the plot description for fear of making it any more complicated, but again, the performances make it fit, hold attention and overcome any issues there might have been with the otherwise static stage direction.

Links: Buxton International Festival