English National Opera
The London Coliseum
15 - 28 March 2002

English National revived Deborah Warner's staging of Bach's St John Passion which was first seen in 2000. Staging Bach's non-theatrical Passions is problematic and overall I found the experience uncomfortable and unsatisfying though there were persuasive and sometimes moving moments.
    The outstanding musical experience of the evening was Mark Padmore's performance of the Evangelist's part. This is a long role, and he is on stage almost all the time. Every word he sang could be heard beautifully articulated, but more than that he managed to invest the part with a kind of wondering sincerity. The story he narrated he lived, and if all the music-making had been as good as this all doubts about the validity of staging the Passion would have been dispelled. Padmore used his voice to perfection, sometimes employing rich tone, sometimes nearly speaking the part. It was a superb achievement.
    Paul Whelan's Christ was suitably dignified and hard-done-by, and Pilate was played as the grandee who would rather not be there though his duties forced him to be so. Both played, and above all sung, their parts convincingly but were required to be no more than predictable clichés.
    Amongst the soloists James Rutherford with his beautiful golden-voiced bass sang "Mein teurer Heiland" and "Eilt, eilt" heart-meltingly, especially the former with its wide leaps and use of different parts of the voice. Both arias are with chorus, the latter with the bass answering the choruses' question "Wohin?" (Where), but the arias were taken so fast and the chorus so buried behind the scenes it sounded more like interference than a contribution. This was a big musical miscalculation.
    The tenor, Barry Banks, and the soprano, Gillian Keith, also did credit to their arias, the latter being required to run around in places as well as sing, and at the back of the stage the ensemble with the flute in "Ich folge" faltered for a moment or two. Catherine Wyn-Rogers was sound and sonorous, but her vocal focus was not tight enough to all the notes in her elaborate melismas and decorations the clarity they need.
    Beyond these soloists the musical pleasures deteriorated a good deal, except for the outstanding string obbligati (viola d'amores, viola da gamba and Baroque violins) who added style and an appropriate volume to their performances. For the most part the music was patchy. The choral singing was loud, but the opening chorus, for instance, was so driven and over-projected that the notes of initial chords and ensuing counterpoint were often indecipherable. The words "Lord, Lord" might have been given just a little more tone to make their pitches more audible. On some subsequent occasions there was sufficiently little contact between the conductor and stage so the ensemble slipped even though it was obvious everyone was clinging to the driven rhythms in the hope this would not happen.
    Stephen Layton adopted a commendably modern view of speeds, but he lacks the ability to make the orchestra and chorus sing with sufficient sense of style to allow any let-up, nuance or sometimes precision. The performance was dry, and mostly efficient, but in the end overall unmoving despite sincerity and well-meaningness. The amateur chorus in the boxes somehow seemed much happier than the on-stage chorus, though the audience was distinctly bashful about singing the three chorales they were asked to; justifiably, perhaps, as not only was there a musical misprint in the handed out music-sheets, but there is no historical evidence to support the assertion made in the programme that the congregation joined in the chorales at the initial performance in 1724. This legend has been around for a long time, but is not believed any more by serious Bach scholars. Lutheran congregations sing chorales unaccompanied. The choirs in their churches sing the harmonized versions of the chorales, whose interpretation is understood through the often complex harmonizations. Moreover, though the organ was used as the continuo instrument throughout, it is quite likely harpsichord also was used as the bill for the hire of the harpsichord for the first performances is on record. Not like those thrifty Lutherans to waste money on an instrument that was not used.
    When Bach arrived in Leipzig he was appointed Cantor of St. Thomas, but it is more than likely he was viewed by the church and town authorities as a place-man of the Dresden court. He was a Kapellmeister rather than a Cantor; after all, he had no degree, was best known as a performer and had worked in courts for fourteen years before he arrived in Saxony's second city. However the devout Lutherans had toyed with what to them seemed a dubious and new-fangled idea, that of setting the Passion stories to opera-like music. They'd first allowed such a work by Bach's predecessor, Johann Kuhnau, in 1721, and were sufficiently keen to repeat the exercise for it to have been expected of the new Cantor that he should compose such a work for performance at the first opportunity. Bach might have hoped his first Passion would have been performed in 1723 but he took up the Leipzig post after Easter, so it was delayed until 1724. In this year it was the turn of the more open-minded, experimental Nikolaikirche to host the annual Good Friday Passion setting, so it is possible Bach satisfied his court supporters and the Nikolaikirche congregation with a deliberately dramatic setting of the John Passion. With this in mind there could be some historical justification for staging the work, but there are problems. Not being written for stage, there are many theatrical longueurs, not least the length of the arias with their literal da capos and often extended opening ritornelli. What role should the chorus have? Should it be like a Greek chorus, commenting and taking part in the action? But what about when interjecting in arias or singing chorales?
    These production problems are sometimes solved by Deborah Warner, but for the most part the staging is so literal that one wonders why it was not just enough to imagine what is going on, instead of having it underlined by redundant actions. The soprano, for instance, sings "I follow" in her first aria. What does she do, but run around 'following'. However, she has to spend a lot of time not following as the aria is long, so she runs a relay race round the stage, before skipping off to follow. At the end if the pathos of the crucifixion were not enough to move you, the Evangelist holds a live lamb. This is not pathos, but bathos.
    If the staging had played more against the text, or illuminated the parts in a way that could not be imagined before, then staging would have been justified. In the end I came away asking myself why is the English National Opera staging a work that can be heard a hundred times at this time of year in much better performances. It also crossed my mind it would have more enterprising if the company had staged a much less-known contemporary work such, such as Graun's Der Tod Jesu or even a series of Carissimi Lenten oratorios. Anyway aren't there enough operas that hardly ever get staged without having to resort to staging works that were not intended for the theatre at all?
Roderick Swanston