ENO's Pearl Fishers don't float

The Pearl Fishers - English National Opera, 4 June 2010

Aerialists ‘swimming’ behind a rippling blue undersea projection accompany the prelude with a stunning, eerie beauty. After that, Penny Woolcock’s new production plunges to depths previously uncharted by even the notoriously variable ENO.

She begins at a disadvantage. There’s little for a director to grab hold of in Les pêcheurs de perles: dramatically unconvincing in its original language, rendered even sillier in this tepid translation, and with only one decent tune to its name.

With a background in film directing, Woolcock falls back on letting the images tell the story. This is a fatal mistake when the budget can only scrape up two sets – a very plausible shanty town on stilts lit by Islingtonian fairy lights, and a rather more economical mini tent in front of the curtain.

Some of the technical details are impressively realised. A motor boat glides across a glassy inlet. A diver plunges into waves created by ripply projections on an artfully-wiggled groundsheet. But it’s all too West End-musical, prey in casting and costuming to the generic ‘exoticism’ of which its composer has been justly accused. And it doesn’t compensate for what appears to be zero direction of the principals. Take away the sets and you’d have no idea of who’s talking to who or what they’re trying to express, let alone the story. So much for ENO's aspirations to the cutting edge, this is even less adventurous than Oliver. It's decorator opera of the worst sort, beansprout-Zeffirelli.

If the music was any good it wouldn’t matter, but on this occasion it wasn’t. Indulgence was sought for both Hanan Alattar (Leila) and later Alfie Boe (Nadir) due to severe throat infections, but no excuses were made for the muffled and cracking baritone of Quinn Kelsey (Zurga). In the pit, Rory Macdonald sounded as if he’d lost the will to live. I almost left at the interval – whatever perverse impulse persuaded me to stay wasn’t rewarded by any improvement in the second half. I only paid £20 for my discount ticket, but I still feel robbed. The Royal Opera House’s forthcoming concert version won’t have to work hard to trump this dismal display.  

More photos and discount details.

Comments

[Ruth]

Oh dear! It sounds like you got a spectacular dud of a performance. I rather enjoyed the first night, but nobody had throat infections on that occasion. I hear that yesterday Alfie Boe AND his understudy were both indisposed...

My (opening-night) review: http://www.operatoday.com/content/2010/06/pearl_fishers_e.php

[John]

I was at this performance too. Agree with your comments . The largest stage in London and the conductor has to beat time while the chorus exit off their rickety cramped platforms.

[Adrian Sells]

Oh dear ... have you been taking Christiansen pills to make you so grumpy. I saw the performance in which both Boe and his understudy were indisposed and a wonderful American tenor (previously unfamiliar to me), William Burden, stood in and sang in French from the side of the stage while the understudy "acted" the role silently.
Of course this bizarre arrangement makes it impossible to comment on the direction of the principals as the whole staging has become somewhat surreal. However, musically - excepting the vinegary Hanan Alattar - the evening was a triumph with outstanding singing from the aforementioned Burden and Quinn Kelsey.
As far as the production goes, I'm much more with Ruth on this one: the main set was stunning and there were some wonderfully realised effects (as even you concede) and to dismiss it as West End musical is a little cheap (as is the assertion that there's only one decent tune in the work).
It's good for ENO to do this kind of thing: it doesn't exclusively have to be cutting edge.

[John]

Adrian,

as you say there is nothing wrong with West End glitz but what I found lacking with some recent ENO shows (Aida and Turandot particularly) is that they were dramatically inept, believing colourful staging and lots of choreography can be a substitute for character development and interaction. The Minghella Butterfly managed it though I found it trivialised the work.

It surely should be possible to have cutting edge and visual spectacle like the best of the Powerhouse ENO productions (Macbeth and Mazeppa for instance).

Recently the Luonatar and Riders to the Sea double bill achieved it brilliantly, but they were not directed by a film producer .

[Una Barry]

Perhaps ENO should take a leaf out of Kent Opera's books of old. Get a member of the chorus to understudy the role, give them a learning fee to go off to their teacher, and then use the repetiteurs on tap at the opera house to learn the role. Of course, Kent Opera's singers were all freelance soloists in their own right, and all the understudies, apart from one which was Violetta in Traviatia, were from the chorus. I covered Turn of the Screw. We got paid when we went on, which was very rare because those doing the job in the first place were robust and well trained technically, given the space for the voice to develop, and not pushed onto a stage as so many are now with the full glare of the media, the image thing, and the fear of one duff note and the newspapers and the internet will be down on them like a ton of bricks. There are more cancellations and apologies for that alone these days because singers become scared.

Pearl Fishers is a good show and I went to see it last night with two replacement singers. Why, when push really comes to shove as was the case, is there such a problem with someone singing in French and another in English, and being more credible than a ventriloquist on stage and someone singing from the pit or the wings? I do not know. We did Lucia di Lammermoor in Scottish Opera. Denis O'Neill was singing it in Italian and was ill, and we delayed the show to fly in a tenor from Germany who only knew it in German but it was a credible show and people soon got over the change of language, rather than have a struggling singer. It happened all the time years' ago but we have become so image-orientated, rather than put the music and communication first. I am a great fan of opera in English but half the time you can't hear the English words because singers don't pronounce, and there is so much emphasis on the voice production, rather than in communicating, as Tom Hemsley and Janet Baker would say, what the composer had in mind, consequently being the mediator between the composer and the audience first, not oneself or one's bank account. So much more politics to deal with as well. There is no easy answer, but a few thoughts here from a singer.