The Rake's Progress - Opéra Garnier, Paris, 5 March 2008
I have no idea whether Parsifal director Krysztof Warlikowski and Rake's Progress director Oliver Py had a quiet chat at some point, but there were an interesting couple of coincidences in their productions.
Firstly and critically, the underpants issue. Christopher Ventris only dropped his trousers once in Parsifal, but Toby Spence could barely keep his on here. Again, what was revealed were sensible M&S whities, of the type the Parisian imagination can readily accomodate to all English tenors. And it wasn't gratuitous either - without the benefit of curtains here, Spence's numerous onstage trouser swaps provided a neat transition between scenes.
Py, like Warlikowski, also invented a child, absent from the libretto. In the year and a day of Tom Rakewell's 'progress' there was a rupture of the time/space continuum that in England would bring Daleks flying from the ceiling. Instead here it allowed Anne Trulove to spawn a six year old child in the space of little over twelve months. This enabled an heartwarming ending around the family table, a curious echo of the similarly engineered finale to Warlikowski's Parsifal.
But Py's main theme was rather more basic. In the ingeniously adaptable scaffold-like set, the one constant was the frequently-used bed, home to a succession of cavortings, and eventually to Rakewell's final insanity.
Py really milked every possibility of the second act brothel scene. The chorus, wigged and suspendered like Crazy Horse dancers, were supplemented with an array of top shelf flesh. Unlike the Royal Opera House, which issues nipple alerts at the faintest whiff of nudity, there was no warning at all the Paris Opera programme information. The two Japanese children I saw going in with their parents seemed to have disappeared by the interval, so who knows what happened there.
And just for good measure, he introduced an acrobat, a pair of strongmen and a painted dwarf to illustrate the cornucopia of London life. Just like Covent Garden on a Saturday afternoon, minus the human statue.
An unfortunate consequence of the staging was that the singers were often performing from high on the scaffolding, far back on the stage. The acoustic made it difficult to hear even strong singers like Toby Spence from this perspective, although all were clear from stage level.
It was a shame, because there were no weak performances here, starting with Laura Claycomb's cool and crystalline Anne Trulove. Laurent Naouri was a dark and powerful Nick Shadow, perhaps more camp than truly menacing, but then that was the tone of the production. And his English diction (he's French) was absolutely flawless. As Baba the Turk, Jane Henschel opened all the stops and let rip with a fearless and hysterically funny portrayal that made full use of every colour in her voice.
With an efficient, if rather pallid, performance in the pit from Edward Gardner, ill-matched to Py's high-octane farce, it was Toby Spence's Tom Rakewell who really held the performance together. He negotiated every step, from farce to pathos, with honesty and commitment. In the past I've sometimes felt he's allowed his natural vocal gifts to compensate for less than total preparation and application, but this role fits a singer of his versatility like a glove and every moment was truthful. Py's splashy stage-cramming theatrics lent spectacle to the production, but Spence cracked its brittle chill and gave it a heart.
