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Resurrection London
Wilton's Music Hall
04/01/1999 -
Kurt Weill and Georg Kaiser The silver lake
Damian Whiteley (1st Lad/Doctor), James Cleverton (2nd Lad), Simon Wolfe
(3rd Lad), Jason Morell (4th Lad/Baron Laur), Michael Hart-Davis (Severin),
Tara Harrison (1st Shopgirl/Nurse), Denise Silvey (2nd Shopgirl/Maid), Mike
Burnside (Fat Country Policeman), Danny Sapani (Olim), Daniel Norman
(Lottery Agent), Ali McGregor (Fennimore), Rachel Luxon (Frieda), Buffy
Davis (Frau von Luber)
Charles Hazlewood (conductor), Gordon Anderson (director) Broomhill Opera's first production in its new London home is notable both
for the venue and for the work. Wiltons' Music Hall, first opened in 1858
and last used for performances in 1889, amazingly survives with its barley
sugar columns supporting a gold baroque gallery, claret and blue walls and
lavish mouldings almost intact. It has been restored with donated materials
and labour in less than a month, if not to glory -- the colours date from
before electric lighting and look dull today --, then to safety and
usability. And the truncated shoebox auditorium is superb, particularly for
Weill's cabaret-inspired numbers, carrying the singers' voices and words
clearly, if noisily.
Weill and Kaiser's The silver lake (Der Silbersee), elegantly
revived by Rory Bremner's translation, also produced in a comparatively
short time, is similarly a survival from another age. A combined opera and
play with fully integrated music and demanding song-numbers, it requires
singer-actors of the kind who trained with Max Rheinhardt. The plot is
essentially a Marxist allegory of the situation in Germany when the work
was written, at the time of the first Nazi government, but the positive
characters are much more human and sympathetic than any of Brecht's. Olim,
the policeman who shoots a starving man during a robbery of a food shop,
then tries to make amends by keeping him in luxury, represents the confused
middle-class social democrats of the Weimar Republic. Severin, the injured
man who is obsessed with revenge for past wrongs, represents the bitter
working class people. And Frau von Luber, the scheming impoverished
aristocrat who defrauds Olim of his castle by building up his fear of
Severin, represents the militaristic aristocracy making a comeback,
presumably how Weill and Kaiser saw the Nazis.
Both because of the resources it needs and because of its pessimistic, and
historically specific, message, The silver lake is rarely performed,
and almost never in its complete form as it is in this production. But it
includes some breathtaking music. Severin has a tormented revenge aria. He
and Fennimore, the oppressed young woman who becomes a spiritual guide,
have a beautiful visionary duet. And there is an intensely moving slow
melody while Olim and Severin contemplate death together at the end. There
are also some show-stopping songs which have become well-known separately,
notably the Lottery Agent's song, on the uses of wealth, Fennimore's song
about the miseries of being a poor cousin, and her ballad on the death of
Julius Caesar which spurs Severin's desire for revenge. But none of these
is a Brechtian alienation number. They are all integral to the plot and
characters, contributing moods and often tough ideas.
This production had signs of being work in progress, emblematized by the
pile of rubble at the back of the stage. The staging took up a lot of
space, not all of it used very much. The stage of the theatre is
comparatively shallow -- presumably built with only flat backdrops in mind,
which might be a problem in future productions -- and there was a platform
in front, extending into the audience, with video screens (old television
sets) built into its surface. These displayed only occasional images, of
water and fire, very effectively at the end. They didn't seem to add enough
to justify taking up the space, but perhaps there wasn't time to try out
more possibilites. In other ways, the use of space, with a lower area in
the platform for the ditch and cellar, and a box hanging above the stage
for the attic, worked well. The sets were rough and ready, mainly old
furniture, and the costumes were roughly in period. The shopgirls' dresses
looked like the real 1930s thing. The wood at the beginning and the end was
projected on to the entire front of the theatre. The snow at the end was
done with a ballroom mirrored globe. It looked strange hanging from the
high-Victorian oriel in the roof, but had a magical effect.
The performers seemed slightly insecure, particularly in the spoken
sections, with occasional muffed lines and one painful mishap when Olim
accidentally dropped a trap-door on Frau Luber's head. (Buffy Davis, who
has all the marks of an old trooper, responded in character, to applause.)
But all of the performances were good, and several were outstanding. Davis,
and Tara Harrison as the first shopgirl, gave detailed comic
characterizations which could have been middle-aged and young Margaret
Thatcher, but both had a lot more. Denise Silvey as the second shopgirl was
also inanely funny, completely unable to grasp her friend's unconsciously
serious political insights about the stupidity of throwing away food to
keep prices up. She sings with a grand belt just right for the music hall
setting. Ali McGregor as Fennimore was bruised physically and emotionally,
except when she sang and suddenly became theatrical and subversive,
delivering the tours de force of her main numbers in style. In an
outrageous pink dress, she had a touch of Jane Horrocks in Little
Voice, though she has an operatic-quality voice.
Daniel Norman, in a loud check suit and sinister clown makeup, also
delivered a tour de force in the Lottery Agent's song, somewhat predictably
translated as "It's you, it's really you". The four lads sang lustily, and
Mike Burnside did a competent schtick as the fat country policeman. Danny
Sapani was an attractive and sympathetic Olim, coming over as a bit of a
lightweight, perhaps again a sign of room to grow. He has a good speaking
voice and briefly revealed a pleasant singing voice which suggests that he
could do music theatre with a bit more training.
Michael Hart-Davis as Severin was the standout performance. It's difficult
to judge how big his voice is in this space, but it is a very fine tenor,
and his acting is committed and powerful. He was frightening when he
started doing threatening things with the knife because he conveyed so much
pain as well as anger.
The smallish orchestra was partly hidden in a room to the side of the
auditorium, and some of the detail was obviously lost. Charles Hazlewood
and the orchestra got the varied idioms, from raucous bar-room band to
Brucknerian romantic, spot on, often producing a beautiful warm sound in
the lusher sections.
The first-night audience included a fair proportion of sponsors and others
who seemed to have little idea what to expect. Many people seemed to be
blown away by the music in particular, but also by the force of the drama
as a whole. Perhaps it's not so strange. Wilton's is just off Cable Street,
not far from the Tower of London which symbolizes traditional
military-aristocratic rule. In the 1920s, Winston Churchill became so
paranoid about an imagined gang of anarchists in a house in Cable Street
that he sent in the army.
H.E. Elsom
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