Classical Music

The jury’s still out on ENO’s new era, remembering some projects were planned several régimes ago. The season opened with a downer, ‘Gaddafi’, prompting critical howls that carried over into the new ‘Traviata’ (not half as bad as some outraged flouncing would have you believe). ‘Jenufa’ redeemed everything, receiving raves for production, conducting and performance. ‘Figaro’, the climactic celebration of Mozart’s 250th anniversary, has just opened, and something like a recognisable policy emerges. Feature continues

The new management goes for handsome sets and international artists – the new productions look expensive and have been distinguished by some of the best available singers, mostly Brits acquiescent in ENO’s opera in English policy, but established on international stages. With directors the touch is less sure. This ‘Figaro’ has had a humour bypass, a peerless comedy of world theatre missing comic points time after time. Some under-reacting performers obviously need more guidance, and some baffling directorial touches show a lack of faith in the work. But after refined playing in Verdi and searing lyricism for Janácek, the orchestra’s still on a roll.

Given half a chance (and the repertory system, almost disbanded) ENO could rebuild the ensemble feeling that everyone misses in modern jet-set opera. Figaro himself, the phenomenal NZ-born Samoan, Jonathan Lemalu, whose meteoric career has propelled him round the world as he turns 30, notes how a new engagement is like ‘day one at school. I was recently in Hamburg. You have to find a common language – you pull out your quasi-German, quasi anything – it can be tough. Thank goodness for charades…’ Nothing beats working regularly in a town ‘where you know everyone, from the front of house to the backstage crew and the dressers’. Here he’s talking about Munich – ironically, since London’s his base. A newly acquired house in Clerkenwell enables him to walk to the Coliseum. ‘It’s a really great feeling to be home, to go to work with a bounce in my step,’ he beams, a genial presence you’d expect to see in a rugby scrum rather than sorting out the sexual shenanigans in the pine-scented arbours of Count Almaviva’s garden.

Lemalu is one of the international homegrown stars gracing ENO’s stage, echoing that other Figaro whose first star role in London (coincidentally in the Mozart opera) was on the Coli stage, Bryn Terfel. Lemalu admires the Welsh baritone but doesn’t necessarily envisage Verdi or Wagner as part of his repertoire. ‘I do a lot of Handel but mostly Mozart,’ he says firmly. ‘He’s my favourite. I’ve done eight Mozart productions this year: the “Flute” in Chicago, “Don Giovanni” in New York, Japan and Hamburg, “Figaro” and “Giovanni” in Munich. Part of the thrill of singing Mozart is that you’re so naked vocally. You have to be right – not 99 per cent; it’s either right or not. For some sadistic reason I love the pressure of knowing it’s got to be right…’

With globe-trotting artists like Lemalu, Amanda Roocroft and Catherine Malfitano (‘Jenufa’) and Emma Bell (‘Traviata’), ENO is obviously trying to live down its recent reputation for erratic or downright inadequate singing. Theatrically it’s still the liveliest, if most unpredictable, of London’s opera houses; and the atmosphere is still the friendliest for both audience and artists. ‘The Coliseum was the one place I could go cheaply to as a student,’ says Lemalu. ‘It’s nice to be back.’

Not all the critics share his feelings. ENO has been mercilessly savaged with strangely knee-jerk reactions that bespeak some individual critic’s private agenda. But the Coliseum’s forthcoming projects include Martin Duncan’s production of ‘The Gondoliers’, its satire on social advancement for money, not to mention republicanism, ripe for topical treatment; and ‘Agrippina’, another David McVicar Handel production – a house speciality – with another dazzling cast led by Sarah Connolly. And a revival of Stephen Pimlott’s cinematically fluid ‘Bohème’ production is a world away fom Covent Garden’s traditional clutter. After an uncertain start to the season ENO’s out of the starting gate. Where will the critics be putting their money?

ENO’s ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ and ‘La Traviata’ are in rep at the London Coliseum.