It is Official. Natalie Dessay is annoying me. In a recent ‘back-stage’ interview conducted with Norman Lebrecht at the Theatre des Champs Elysees, she said a number of things which smack of so much horse s@!t even I have switched sides. A bit of back story first, this is the girl who showed up in 1993-4 and wowed the world, she was musical, had a faultless technique, stratospheric high notes no one had heard in decades, and looked good on stage. Two separate surgeries have seen the very very top notes go but the overall voice is still exceptional, she has a good high E-flat (as high as Sutherland ever sang well), and tremendous flexibility. She is wonderful in Bel Canto, Baroque and French Repertoire but shies away from Modern repertoire (no Lulu? WHY? It is a role which requires her remarkable levels of musicianship and a slim figure AND the ability to act!) as well as heavier lyric roles. Her first Traviata is next year in Santa Fe, the heaviest role she will have attempted at that point. So in this interview, the first thing she says is ‘I got rid of my high notes, they were getting in the way. It is very easy for someone with high notes to impress, even if the rest is not very interesting. High notes are something that people seem to like – I never understood why. It’s like being able to fly. OK, you can fly, so what?’
Umm…well…Natalie, being able to fly is pretty impressive in my book. And guess what? High notes are part 
of opera. An intrinsic part. Take them out, the audience notices, and feel they are missing something. Also, I would argue that she has NOT gotten rid of her high notes. She is still singing roles like Amina, Margeurite and Violetta, all of which feature High Cs, Ds and E flats. True, she does not sing above an E in public anymore, but she hasn’t ‘gotten rid of’ these notes. She simply can’t sing them anymore, an unfortunate outcome of two throat surgeries. IN this interview, she goes on to turn up her nose at the Vienna State Opera, saying ‘They are not interested much in theatre, only in music.’ Interesting to note, her biggest triumph of late was a production of La Fille du Regiment with that very company, a production as lauded for its theatrical qualities as its musical gems. That, and it is one of the top Five companies in existence. They must be doing SOMETHING right Natalie. She went on: ‘I have given up solo recitals. I don’t like to be alone on stage.’ Fair enough, but I feel the need to point out that in a solo concert you have a pianist with whom one is in constantly communication (or should be) or an orchestra and a conductor, in which case one is onstage with fifty or more people. Also, not alone. A conductor’s job is to make the singer feel less alone. Among other things. Dessay has said publicly that she is not interested in opera unless it is theatre, and that she is, in fact, not a singer at all, but an actress. If that is the case, why is she singing the soprano solos in the Bach Magnificat with Emanuelle Haim ant L’astree? There is no character there, no ‘role’ other than singing, therefore it is not ‘theatre’. Based on her statement, besides her cancellation of any future solo concert/recitals, I also expect her to never make another recording (or reap the substantial financial benefits thereof), as a recording is played in a persons house, away from the theatre, and she is not ‘acting’, but ‘singing’, and as she has said, she is not a singer, but an actress. Does this whole thing reek of ‘phoney’ to anyone else?
Next…I finally got to go to Glyndebourne. Unfortunately, the opera I saw/heard was Eotvos’ ‘Love and Other Demons’, based on the recent-ish book by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Extremely short synopsis: Girl bitten by dog in Latin America, locked up by superstitious Priests, Nice Priest falls in love with bitten girl, psychotic priest performs psychotic exorcism, girl dies. Sounds like perfect plot for opera, and it is, but frankly I think the picturesque Sussex countryside would better suit Mozart, Handel or Strauss. The music kept me on edge all night, as it should. I love horror films and this piece at times resembled one. The music is prohibitively difficult, the central role of Sierva contains some of the more vicious coloratura I have ever heard. 
Nathan Gunn did what he could with the underwritten role of Delaura. Interesting to note, even when playing a priest, the director finds reason for Nathan Gunn to get his kit off. Given his physique, no one complained. The real show stoppers were Felicity Palmer as the eventually unhinged abbess, and Jean Rigby as a psychotic ex-nun. I have been longing to see these two women onstage ever since I saw them on TV in the English National Opera’s lauded production of The Mikado. There were fewer laughs in this production. The Glyndebourne experience overall is somewhat surreal. During the interval, the ruling classes picnic on the lawns, dreading the bell calling them back to the theatre. Despite the ‘Summer Season’ quality of the place, the standard musically and theatrically is absolutely top notch. But it has to be said, this is an audience of people who to some extent come to Glyndebourne because it is expected of them. Frankly, I’m inclined to leave it. I think, if one wants to go to the opera, one should go to the opera. If one wants to go on a picnic, go on a picnic. The prices are prohibitive to anyone on a less than considerable income, and getting a hold of tickets in the first place is nigh impossible. One must first become a member to get access to tickets, and there is a waiting list for membership, to say nothing of the fee. Depressing when the season is full of things actual music lovers would love to see, and instead, an elite group of people who in many cases don’t give a damn what they’re hearing get first dibs.
Next…’Piaf’ at the Donmar. I love the Donmar. It is my favorite company in London. When I got here, the place I was dying to go more than any was the Donmar. The space is tiny, a few rows of seats on two levels. Each year a handful of productions including a musical are put on, usually selling out before the opening night. Donmar audiences don’t wait for reviews, they book early because of the limited number of seats, and trust that the show will be good. And they tend not to be disappointed. This year’s Othello sold out in hours, partially due to the presence of Ewan McGregor as Iago. He turned out to be the weakest link in a phenomenal cast. Donmar policy is to sell 10 day seats to each show at 10.00 am each day. For Othello, people slept overnight for them. So did I. I saw the closing night and it was one of the great evenings of my life. For Piaf, I wasn’t having that, I booked the day the seats went on sale. Good thing too, it was also sold out before opening night. Pam Gems play is over 30 years ago, and I had previously seen it in Australia starring genius Caroline O’connor. I remember it being a slightly flawed, but funny, moving, and wonderful 
night in the theatre. No one put on French accents, it was done with English accents, class differentiation clearly audible. The production at Donmar was less effective. Gems edited the play from 2 hours to 90 minutes, taking much of the details and humour out in the process. Director Jamie Lloyd directed over what few jokes and humour remained. I counted three laughs. The men in Piaf’s life (who were hardly detailed in the 2 hour version) were now so sketchily drawn it was hard to remember who they were. This was done, I assume, to better highlight the star of the evening; Elena Rodger. She made a phenomenal splash in London as Evita on the West End, helped by the fact that she is actually Argentinean. In Piaf she seems good casting, and she is. She is diminutive (like Piaf), has an expressive body (like Piaf) and is able to morph her voice into something startlingly like Piaf during the songs. Problem is, all the other actors use English accents. She can’t as English is not her first language, so she does her best to turn her Latin accent French. She does an excellent job of this, but sadly a lot of her dialogue is hard to understand. It is not helped that Lloyd has directed everyone to do everything so fast that things get garbled. But Rodger brought the house to its feet, because in the end she is a smarter performer than Jamie Lloyd is a director.
The Revenger’s Tragedy at the National Theatre was he last thing I saw, and it was my first evening in the Olivier Theatre, the largest in the National Complex. The play is one of those Jacobean Tragedies where the pile of corpses at the end begs for a War Crimes Council. What was wonderful about this play (and Piaf) is that neither are commercial, they rely on
a generous subsidy from the Arts Council. Therefore, they can be generous with casting, extras, sets and everything which is missing from commercial theatre. Six people contributed live music. Each role was cast individually (24 actors!), and the single set was lavishly appointed. The actors were entirely unmiked in an 1100 seat house, and I would say 90% of the dialogue was clear enough to be understood. Not bad. The play itself is part black comedy, part revenge tragedy, often switching between the two in the same scene. When, at the end, Rory Kinnear as the protagonist Vindice looks around at the pile of corpses for which he is largely responsible, the sense of ‘I overdid it a little’ in his speech is both devastating and funny. The standout performance for me was Barbara Flynn, as Vindice’s mother who manages to gain the audiences sympathy, lose it, gain it back a little, then bring us to tears as we see her told of her sons’ deaths. The audience jumped more than once in this show, I won’t tell you where…
