RVW: The Pilgrim's Progress - ENO

[Simon B]

I'm on my way to London to go to this production for a second time. I didn't realise it was getting a broadcast until another reader of these, er, characterful boards pointed out that tonight's performance is getting a live relay from the Coliseum.

All IMO, naturally, but radio listeners are missing little in not being able to see anything. That's not a criticism of the production as such. I think the conventional (cliched?) view that it's not really an opera ("A Morality" I believe RVW called it) and doesn't really work as theatre is at least partly correct. Nice lighting and use of real flames even so...

However, the music is just glorious - if a synthesis of all of RVW's styles into one extended not-quite-coherent whole. The bits common to the 5th Symphony in particular were literally spine tingling at the first performance I went to.

For the most part the sweeping ebb and flow of RVW's richly orchestrated score were guided almost ideally by Martyn Brabbins. Roland Wood as the Pilgrim perhaps lacks the degree of stage presence that would be ideal, but has a clear, consistently resonant voice and the stamina to sustain singing almost constantly throughout. The ENO chorus were on terrific form, and the ENO orchestra played the score with great richness and refinement. Magnificent brass in particular - vital in this music. Hopefully the R3 mic's will capture at least some of this...

[EdgeleyRob]

I'm on my way to London to go to this production for a second time. I didn't realise it was getting a broadcast until another reader of these, er, characterful boards pointed out that tonight's performance is getting a live relay from the Coliseum.

All IMO, naturally, but radio listeners are missing little in not being able to see anything. That's not a criticism of the production as such. I think the conventional (cliched?) view that it's not really an opera ("A Morality" I believe RVW called it) and doesn't really work as theatre is at least partly correct. Nice lighting and use of real flames even so...

However, the music is just glorious - if a synthesis of all of RVW's styles into one extended not-quite-coherent whole. The bits common to the 5th Symphony in particular were literally spine tingling at the first performance I went to.

For the most part the sweeping ebb and flow of RVW's richly orchestrated score were guided almost ideally by Martyn Brabbins. Roland Wood as the Pilgrim perhaps lacks the degree of stage presence that would be ideal, but has a clear, consistently resonant voice and the stamina to sustain singing almost constantly throughout. The ENO chorus were on terrific form, and the ENO orchestra played the score with great richness and refinement. Magnificent brass in particular - vital in this music. Hopefully the R3 mic's will capture at least some of this...

Simon B,I couldn't agree more.
I meant to post a heads up but been busy today with grandkids etc.
It needs concentrated listening without distractions so I will have to catch this on listen again.
I'm so envious of you actually being there.

[euthynicus]

radio listeners are missing little in not being able to see anything... Magnificent brass in particular - vital in this music. Hopefully the R3 mic's will capture at least some of this...

Indeed. That is an understatement. Actually the piece still sounds overscored on the relay, just as it does on recordings, whereas live (on Thurs) the orchestration sounded less ravishing but also much less thick. Brabbins's comments in the interval feature lead me to surmise that he has thinned it out a bit, and that's a good idea. The biggest problem I have with Boult's recording is how heavy and utterly unoperatic it sounds.

But for all its singularity of vision, Oida's production makes a coherent case and a very good show, even if at the end a dismal one too. I am puzzled by no one remarking on a central conceit of the production, which is that Pilgrim is quite clearly a conscientious objector, or rather a soldier who has become one after returning to the front - a deserter, in other words. The white feather is significantly waved more than once during the course of the Pilgrim's stay in prison, and it is this which makes sense of the setting (in a British military prison) as a whole, the video material in Act 3 which some have found distracting, and the appalling, double-facing action of Act 4.

The most memorable and personal point in the opera, and in the production, for me, does not involve Bunyan, or indeed any fancy dramatic interpretation, but Pilgrim's scena in Act 3 scene 2 (at the start of the second half of the ENO production), the text of which is (almost?) exclusively drawn from the Psalms. VW's careful selection of text from Bunyan and across the Bible is never-failingly deft and ingenious - a missed vocation for him?

[Maclintick]

I went last Tuesday -- front row of the grand tier which is about as good as it gets acoustically in the Coliseum -- & IMHO the radio relay tonight gave a good representation of the performance, with a bit of extra definition on the voices, as one would hope, & texturally it didn't sound over-scored. Brabbins & his forces were resplendent, especially the orchestra & Roland Wood as Pilgrim, & what struck me, apart from the obvious quotation or pre-figuration of the 5th Symphony in Part One and at the close of the opera, were the devastating war-tinged resonances of the Pastoral and Flos Campi in Part Two. Wonderful front-desk string quartet, with special plaudits reserved for the principal viola. As with Britten, this instrument embodies corporeal frailty, being close in register to the human voice, & is imaginatively deployed by both composers in passages of lamentation, whether representing the loneliness of Grimes' apprentice in the doom-laden central passacaglia of Britten's masterpiece ( & Lacrymae ), or in VW's wordless requiem Flos Campi (& Tallis Fantasia). These two composers are usually caricatured as antithetical, the more "continental" or cosmopolitan Britten versus a bucolic VW, sporting wellies clogged with good English loam, but perhaps in time the commonality of their humanistic beliefs, encompassing a folk-based version of Hindemithian Gebrauchsmusik, will make them seem a lot closer ?

[BBMmk2]

This piece sounds overscored? I have always thought that The Pilgrim's Progress', was never reeally that? I can hear every detail.

[bluestateprommer]

For the most part the sweeping ebb and flow of RVW's richly orchestrated score were guided almost ideally by Martyn Brabbins. Roland Wood as the Pilgrim perhaps lacks the degree of stage presence that would be ideal, but has a clear, consistently resonant voice and the stamina to sustain singing almost constantly throughout. The ENO chorus were on terrific form, and the ENO orchestra played the score with great richness and refinement. Magnificent brass in particular - vital in this music. Hopefully the R3 mic's will capture at least some of this...

Agreed that Brabbins controlled the proceedings from the pit wonderfully, with the ENO orchestra and chorus on splendid form. Likewise, Roland Wood did yeoman's work as both Bunyan and Pilgrim. Special thanks also to the fellow whose name unfortunately I didn't note (his 1st name is Toby), who stepped in for Benedict Nelson to sing Evangelist, Watchful and the First Shepherd, at this particular performance that went out over the radio and eventually iPlayer.

However, I got the sense from hearing the music that there are, in fact, good, if hard-to-articulate, reasons why this opera has never taken its place in the English-language opera repertory in the same way that Britten's operas have, for example. I had the feeling that the life of this opera is more in the orchestra than in the singing, because of the characteristic VW orchestral sound throughout. To me, for example, the rich string sound in the scoring rather got in the way of the pace of the opera, making it seem rather plodding. For me, Martyn Brabbins put his finger on part of the problem during the interval, when he mentioned that so much of the music goes at a "walking pace", which almost encapsulates the reservations in a short, single phrase. It also says something that ENO placed the interval not between acts, but in the middle of Act III, after Pilgrim is sentenced. This is the same place where the break between the 2 CDs of Boult's recording occurs.

None of this would have stopped me from getting a ticket to this production had I been in London, of course. And I do have Boult's EMI recording of the work, but I haven't listened to it in over 10 years. I'll have to give it another visit at some point, after I've let the memory of this radiocast sink in.

(PS: Shouldn't this go under the sub-forum "A Night at the Opera"? Just asking.) [Yes, thanks, moved with brief redirect; ff]

[An_Inspector_Calls]

I was at one of the later performances of the ENO run.

Yes, there's some rich string sound in the piece; equally there are long passages where the strings are reduced almost to quartet level (and which were beautifully played by the ENO orchestra). And again, yes, there are long passagaes where the music is slow paced - walking pace even(!) (in which case, bin the last act of Parsifal). But examine these in detail. For example, the Bunyan in gaol aria is lengthy but markedly contrasted in mood. (And on a par with Judas' aria in The Apostles). And the Evangelist has some beautiful music (c.f John Carol Case in the EMI recording). And back to the orchestra, it's not all strings either - it's late VW with all the experience of six symphonies and considerable film music at his disposal.

I've no idea why VW's operas are so neglected. Hugh the Drover is no great masterpiece, but equally, neither is Dvorak's Rusalka but that old warhorse seems to make regular appearances. Riders to the Sea is surely one of the great operas of the twentieth century (perhaps the finest libretto) but when did that last make an appearance in the theatre? Sir John in Love is quite as good as verdi's Falstaff (but does require a large number of lead soloists). I can't explain the popularity of Britten, but then neither can I explain the Mahler craze.

[Dave2002]

Not sure what to make of this piece. Currently listening to Boult. I was at the last night of the recent ENO run. Unlike other "operas" the action, or at least as ENO did it, doesn't necessarily make for a greater experience, though certainly a different one. The use of the electric chair was bizarre, though I don't know what stage directions, if any, VW recommended for this work. Listening on CD one at least doesn't have to worry about the meaning or appearance of a set, and concerns about "where the action is going" are less relevant than in a stage production.

The Apollyon section is quite scary! Some of this comes across on the CD - but seeing the "monster" on stage was effective. Note that Apollyon is the Greek god of destruction - the destroyer - and Pilgrim comes from the city of Destruction.

The Vanity Fair scene (I've not reached that yet on the CD) was however pretty riotous in the ENO production.

On the other hand, not having any visual distractions may also give a very different, and also unsatisfactory experience - but I'm not quite sure why. Some of the music is good, with reminiscences of the Five mystical songs and the 5th symphony, and even Elgar's Gerontius (the demon's chorus). Another similarity is with the Sinfonia Antartica.

Maybe it gets better with repeated listening.

[amateur51]

I can't explain the popularity of Britten, but then neither can I explain the Mahler craze.

What's to explain? You either enjoy the music or you don't

[An_Inspector_Calls]

What's to explain? You either enjoy the music or you don't

yes, petal, but I was gently responding to bluestateprommer's

However, I got the sense from hearing the music that there are, in fact, good, if hard-to-articulate, reasons why this opera has never taken its place in the English-language opera repertory in the same way that Britten's operas have

[RobertLeDiable]

I can't explain the popularity of Britten, but then neither can I explain the Mahler craze.

Britten wrote operas in which there is real drama and gripping characterisation. For all the musical beauty of some of The Pilgrim's Progress, we're given no real insight into the feelings of the people represented on stage. RVW did always say that it wasn't an 'opera' in the normal sense, but then insisted that it should be done in the theatre and not a church. But his vocal lines are a mostly slow-moving arioso which are inherently undramatic - though it's true that Bunyan doesn't provide him with the material for a convincing libretto. You might criticise Wagner for the slow pace of a lot of Parsifal, but there's infinitely greater variety in the way he uses the orchestra and a much stronger idea of what is theatrical, even in a quasi religious scenario like that. As for Verdi - well, if you think Sir John in Love is the equal of a great masterpiece like Falstaff I'm afraid you're very far out on a pretty weak limb.

Riders to the Sea was done at ENO a few seasons ago, by the way.