The Scottish Opera

Well, I finally got to see "The Scottish Opera" yesterday - you know, the one based on a play by Shakespeare that you are not allowed to say the name of, lest some of the witches' curse comes to haunt you. Live at the Sydney Opera House, with an impressive cast of singers that could do justice to Verdi's music.

And what a show it is! Sometimes, it really does take seeing a staged performance to really love and understand the music of an opera. That definitely applies here. Some of the things that may seem weak in the music on CD, really come to life when you understand what is happening, and can see it played out on stage. But ultimately, it demonstrates yet again, just what a master Verdi is at writing music to for dramatic purposes. No one wrote for chorus quite like he did, though ask me how he makes it work every time, and I scratch my head, it just does. And of course, the tunes!!! He instinctively had an ear for the tuneful, but was not afraid to write ugly music when the story called for it, its just his ugly makes many other composers seem like crows next to his nightingale.

So, what was today's performance (the last) like you say? Well, funny you should ask that…

Personally, I found a lot to love, and a little to dislike.

I am going to start with the dislike first. With a caveat. I rarely ever like Peter Coleman-Wright as a singer. There is something about his voice that irritates me. I think it is something weird he is doing technically, that I can't work out, but he never sounds vocally "all there" to me. It is as if he is swallowing his vowels or something, it just never sounds as forward and as ringy as it should, especially if you are sitting towards the back of the theatre. This day, I have to say, he was worse than normal vocally. Now, don't get me wrong, as a performer, he is quite absorbing to watch, but I would never buy a CD of his, and normally would avoid going to something he is in, but this was a production I have been eagerly awaiting, so he was not stopping me.

So, as Macbeth he was the consummate performer, tearing up the scenery as required, as the ambitious scheming Macbeth whose grip on reality begins to slip as the story progresses. The scene where he sees the ghost of Banquo demonstrates just what a powerful actor he is, with a performance that would not be out of place in a performance of the play.

As his wife, Elizabeth Whitehouse was the rock that the production revolved around. Her magnificent voice shone throughout the performance, tossing off Verdi's difficult music, if not with ease, certainly with confidence and flair, showing while she may be known more for Germanic roles, she certainly can sing Verdi Spinto/dramatic roles well. This is a singer in command of a big voice, who knows how to use it to great effect. Frequently while listening to her voice, I realised I would love to hear her sing Abigaille from Nabucco, as the vocal demands seem similar when you listen to them. Having said that, early in the opera, I was worried listening to some of her high notes. They sounded wayward, not in pitch, but tonally, as if she was struggling to get them out, not singing with the ease and clarity of her lower and middle range. Thankfully this cleared up as the opera continued, which makes me suspect she was feeling less than 100% at the start, or was not warmed up fully.

But of course, any Lady Macbeth stands or falls on her Sleepwalking scene, that mad scene for dramatic voices. Verdi himself was more concerned about believability than beautiful tones in his original Lady Macbeth, and you can sort of see why, she really is not a nice character, but a manipulative, amoral cold blooded killer, who thinks nothing of goading Macbeth into other murders.While I would never call Elizabeth's voice harsh, or ugly, there were definitely times when she sounded ugly and harsh, making her beautiful voice serve the drama, demonstrating the ugliness at the heart of Lady Macbeth.

As Banquo, Daniel Sumegi was mostly what you expected. Solid voice (seemed to be less full and rich than I remembered in the lower register, but that could just have been the day) with a big dark sound that carried well. He portrayed the solid friend who becomes progressively fearful of his friend as well as he is able in the limited time he had before he succumbed to Macbeth's murderous behaviour.

The big surprise for me was Rosario La Spina as Macduff. It is not a big role, but wow, that is a real tenor!!! When someone in a small role gets such a huge applause, you know either the rest of the cast are hopeless (which they were not!!) or that the small role was ideal for the performer and they really shone. In his aria just before the sleepwalking scene, La Spina showed how to sing Verdi's passionate, heart on sleeve music, and the audience went nuts with applause. As they should.

Everyone else sang well, but few stood out, except maybe Richard Anderson, wasted as the Doctor, as indeed, he is so often, with his powerful voice reduced to being a commentator as Lady Macbeth did her sleepwalking routine. I was also very impressed with the chorus, I have not heard them sounding so good in a long time.

Now, having said all that, I do have to take my hat off to the lighting designer. Etienne Boucher (restudied for the Sydney Opera House stage by Nigel Levings) worked wonders with lighting. He made us forget that we were dealing with a unitary set, and instead see different places, be it the witches scenes, the castle, or the forest. The lighting took the scene and made you see different things. Even after the forest scene, when there was snow falling on the rebels, I was thinking how were they going to clean it up, without closing the curtain before the next scene. With the change of lighting from outside, into the nighttime castle scene for the sleepwalking, the lighting changed such that the "snow" disappeared altogether. He both picked up mood changes and environmental factors, weaving them into a cohesive whole, in a way few lighting directors seem to be able to.

As to the production generally, while I do not like as a rule unitary sets, this one was made to work. As I said, this had a lot to do with the lighting, but also by the range of places on the set, that were all utilised at different times, in different ways.

On the other hand, the costumes were less successful. I started out annoyed at the twentieth century dress styles and lack of kilts (the men all started in great coats that looked more Germanic than anything), by the end I was not really concerned about how the various people were dressed. I assumed that there was some message intended by the modern dress, but it was not clear to me. Personally, I just thought of it as someone attempting to keep something accessible by making the costumes seem like what you might see in the streets today, but at some points the clothing looked definitely early twentieth century not current, which does tend to defeat the purpose…

But ultimately, this was a fairly traditional production of a standard opera, albeit one we rarely see in Australia. It was mostly beautifully sung, and only one person sounded out of place or miscast. Many sounded like luxury casting. And really, in the end, opera is about the singing, to my mind. And in this performance, I knew I had got my money's worth, and then some, with moments of pure magic. Can we really ask for more?