<b>✭✭✭✭✩</b><b> / </b><b>✭✭✭✭✩</b><b>
</b><b>by Dame Ethel Smyth, directed by Jessica Derventzis
Opera 5, Theatre Passe Muraille, Toronto
June 22-26, 2017
</b>
“Strong, strong—stand we at last,
Fearless in faith and with sight new given”
(from “The March of the Women”)
For lovers of operatic rarities that deserve to be better know, Opera 5’s latest offering of two one-act operas by Dame Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) is self-recommending. Under the umbrella title of <i>Suffragette</i> (for Smyth was an outspoken advocate for women’s rights), Opera 5 is presenting her “Dance-dream” <i>Fête Galante</i> of 1923 followed by her operetta <i>The Boatswain’s Mate</i> of 1916. Other than the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan, few people have any notion of British opera in English between Henry Purcell’s <i>Dido and Aeneas</i> (1689) and Benjamin Britten’s <i>Peter Grimes</i> (1945). Opera 5’s double-bill gives us the much-needed knowledge that there were eminently worthwhile works written within that wide gap. That they should be written by a woman is a fact that never should have been forgotten.
Smyth was determined to become a composer despite her father’s opposition. She studied in Leipzig, where she met Dvořák, Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Clara Schumann and Brahms. Until 2016 her opera <i>Der Wald</i> (1903) was the only opera by a woman ever staged at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Her “The March of the Women” of 1911 became the anthem of the women’s suffrage movement. She was famous enough in her own time that she was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1922 for services to music. Why her music fell out of favour likely has to do with her being pigeonholed as a “female composer” rather than being regarded simply as a composer. Now, of course, that designation only works to her advantage though her importance simply as a composer is finally being recognized and some of her voluminous works are finally being recorded.
Opera 5’s double-bill begins with <i>Fête Galante</i>, which some consider the finest of her six operas. The opera, composed to a libretto by Smyth and Edward Shanks, deals with the blurring of illusion and reality, a theme most people now associate with Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936), but was based on a story by Maurice Baring that appeared in 1909, seven years before Pirandello’s first play.
The action involves a late-night mingling of aristocrats and the members of a <i>commedia dell’arte</i> troupe. For the appearance of the King (Jean-Philippe McClish) and Queen (Eugenia Dermentzis), the troupe stages a little play about how Columbine (Elizabeth Polese) is torn between Pierrot (Alan MacDonald), her real-life boyfriend, and Harlequin (Jonathan MacArthur), her best friend. Later, Harlequin saves Columbine from the King’s advances, but Pierrot won’t believe his story. Meanwhile, Pierrot observes a tryst between the Queen and her Lover (Kevin Myers) and vows to say nothing even when Columbine mistakes Pierrot for the similarly clad Lover. Pierrot is cut to the quick by Columbine’s assertion and when the King threatens to kill any traitors, the opera ends in tragedy.
Smyth has written the opera in a neo-classical style such as Igor Stravinsky was exploring in in his <i>commedia dell’arte</i> ballet <i>Pulcinella</i> (1920) with references to French baroque music and a wonderful <i>a cappella</i> setting of the poem “Soul’s Joy” by William Herbert (1580-1630) that makes one wish to hear more of Smyth’s choral works. Though the sung dialogue is written in a more modernist style, the strophic, rhymed structure of the songs gives the piece its sense of Britishness, placing it squarely between Sullivan’s settings of Gilbert’s more serious lyrics and Britten’s use of folksong in his operas. The quartet of of “Puppets” (Alexandra Smither, Michaela Dickey, Asitha Tennekoon and Jeremy Ludwig) who narrate the action performed by the <i>commedia</i> characters and Pierrot’s recurring, beautifully sung melancholy ballad are other highlights.
Designer Erin Gerofsky has moved the setting forward to the 1970s and the King and Queen have become rock star royalty rather than actual aristocrats. This likely makes the work visually more accessible yet does not diminish the importance of the personal power politics at work. McClish, Polese, MacDonald and Myers all possess powerful voices with full, rounded tones – a great sign of the strength of the new operatic talent coming up. The interactions of Polese and MacDonald make up the core of the drama and both bring to the characters’ fraught relationship a very believable complexity.
Contrasting with the delicate tragedy of <i>Fête Galante</i> is the rowdy comedy of <i>The Boatswain’s Mate. </i> Because Smyth has woven her famous “The March of the Women” into the rousing overture, Opera 5 has decided to begin the work with a performance of that piece. Here, though, instead of proclaiming women’s rights, the performers on stage wearing “pussy hats” and waving flags proclaim gay rights and transgender rights. This strategy works well since we immediately pick up the strains of the “March” in the overture and ready ourselves to look at the coming action from a feminist perspective.
Smyth set her own libretto based on a comic tale by W.W. Jacobs of the same name from 1905. Since designer Erin Gerofsky has moved the setting forward to the 1980s, Opera 5 Artistic Director Aria Umezawa has updated the spoken dialogue. The plot remains the same. Widowed tavern-keeper Mrs. Waters (Alexandra Smither) is quite happy with her life and has got tired of turning down the proposals of marriage from a former boatswain Harry Benn (Asitha Tennekoon). He believes a woman needs the protection and guidance of a man, whereas her present life proves that nothing of the sort is necessary. She tells him, “Once bitten, twice shy”.
Once Mrs. Waters leaves on an errand, ex-soldier Ned Travers (Jeremy Ludwig) enters and Benn proposes a deal and has enough money to pay for it. Travers will break into the bar, make noise as if he’s a burglar and suddenly Benn will appear, thus proving that Mrs. Waters needs a man about the place. Before this happens we see how Mrs. Waters easily deals with a gang of drunken friends all dressed as punk rockers that her barmaid Mary Ann (Michaela Dickey) brings over. Needless, to say, Benn’s ploy goes completely awry and ends in a way he could not have expected.
The opera is well cast. Tennekoon’s high, clear tenor is perfect for Benn and his well-meant but unrealistic goal, while Ludwig’s creamy baritone is imbued with solidity and warmth. Smither’s rich, bright soprano captures the many nuances of Smyth’s Mrs. Waters, who is tough and independent but not afraid to admit she is not fully satisfied with her life.
As in <i>Fête Galante</i>, Smyth’s arias are all rhymed and strophic. In the second half of the opera she gives Mrs. Waters a long <i>scena </i>when she reflects on her life, the first part of which is written in quite an advance musical idiom before it settles into a strophic song. This is very well performed by Smither. The drunken gang’s songs, referencing English folksongs are delightful. (Did she really score them for banjo and accordion?) Other musical quotations include Beethoven’s <i>Fifth Symphony</i> when a policeman knocks at her door.
In both operas director Jessica Derventzis makes full use of the unusual topography the Theatre Passe Muraille Mainspace has to offer. The gallery above and behind the main playing area is a balcony overlooking a terrace in <i>Fête Galante</i> and Mrs. Waters’s bedroom in <i>The Boatswain’s Mate</i>. The constant ascending and descending of stairs to the upper space in <i>Fête Galante</i> contributes to its atmosphere of a party in full swing.
Conductor Evan Mitchell leads a 12-member ensemble in a lively account of both pieces. He is especially good at evoking the mysterious melancholy atmosphere that ends <i>Fête Galante. </i>His overture to <i>The Boatswain’s Mate </i>was so stirring it received a round of applause of its own. A further inducement to see this double-bill is that Mitchell is conducting the composer’s own reduction of both scores.
A programme like <i>Suffragette</i> proves how much the poorer we would be in Toronto without a company like Opera 5 to champion operas that fall outside the purview of the cities two largest companies. With <i>Suffragette</i>, Opera 5 likely have presented the first fully staged performances of any of Smyth’s operas in Canada. This not only rectifies an historic wrong but introduces a new audience to two eminently stage-worthy pieces that one hopes will never be so neglected again. The chance to see these two rarities that never should have become rarities so well played and performed is one no opera-lover should pass up.<i>
</i>©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photos: (from top) Eugenia Dermentzis, Alexandra Smither, Michaela Dickey and Michael Therriault and Elizabeth Polese singing “The March of the Women”; Jonathan MacArthur, Jeremy Ludwig, Elizabeth Polese, Alexandra Smither, Alan MacDonald and Asitha Tennekoon in <i>Fête Galante</i>; Alexandra Smither, Jonathan MacArthur and Kevin Myers (foreground) with the cast of <i>The Boatswain’s Mate</i>. ©2017 Emily Ding.
For tickets, visit <a href="http://www.artsboxoffice.ca">www.artsboxoffice.ca</a>.
<b>2017-06-23</b>
<b>Suffragette: Fête Galante / The Boatswain’s Mate</b>