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Company
English
National Opera
Conductor
Paul Daniel
Director
Bill Bryden
Designer
William Dudley
Lighting
Designer
Mark Henderson
Choreographer
Stuart Hopps
Harry Heegan
Garry Magee
Susie Monican
Susan Parry
Mrs Foran
Vivian Tierney
Teddy Foran
David Kempster
Barney Bagnal
Leslie John Flanagan
Jessie Taite
Alison Roddy
Mrs Heegan
Anne-Marie Owens
Sylvester
Heegan
John Graham-Hall
Dr Maxwell
Mark Le Brocq
The Croucher
Gerard O'Connor
Staff Officer
Bradley Daley
Corporal
Leigh Melrose
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London
Coliseum
23
June - 6 July 2002
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English National
Opera first performed The
Silver Tassie in February 2000
as a newly commissioned opera by Mark-Anthony
Turnage. Its success prompted this year's
very successful revival. The original
play by Sean O'Casey has been recast
as a libretto by Amanda Holden into
two acts each with two scenes. The story
tells of a popular young Dublin man
(Harry Heegan) in 1915 who just before
returning to the Western front wins
a football cup, the Silver Tassie. His
good looks and popularity stimulate
both rivalries and the love of his sweetheart
Jessie. Back at the front he is wounded
and his injuries leave him unable to
walk or function below the waist. Back
in Ireland after the War his life has
changed. Bitterness has replaced optimism
and his girlfriend is now being willingly
courted by his one-time best friend
and war-time saviour Barney, whose recue
of Harry earned him a VC.
The story
is a biting piece of social commentary
reminicent in some ways both of Berg's
Wozzeck
and the film Born
on the Fourth of July. As Berg
did in Wozzeck
Mark-Anthony Turnage has loosely imposed
a musical super-structure on the work
so that the music can more easily articulate
the drama. In the interview in the programme-note
he comments, "Right from when I first
read the play, I thought of it as quite
symphonic". The almost fragmented series
of events and encounters that make up
the first scene are transformed by the
second scene set in the western front
trenches and by the third when Harry
is awaiting an operation on his now
useless lower half. The balancing return
to Dublin life, this time not a war-time
post-football match celebration but
a post-war festive dance, shows the
effects of the hero's, Harry Heegan,
catastrophe. This is very moving opera,
in particular the choral scene in the
trenches. Turnage has taken great pains
to differentiate the sonority of each
scene, and use instrumentation and vocal
colours to give each part of the opera
its special tone. Though the main roles
were originally carefully planned to
suit the voices of the original cast,
Garry Magee fills Gerald Finley's role
as Harry Heegan excellently as does
Susan Parry who took over Sarah Connolly's
part as the straight-laced Susie. It
is a measure of the depth of quality
of young British singers that such outstanding
replacements could be found for the
original cast. Magee has a natural theatricality
and his opening swagger turns chillingly,
and very convincingly, to burning resentment
as the opera develops. Like Tom Cruise
in Born on
the Fourth of July he manages
to conjure up a seemingly endless wave
of anger at his enforced transformation
from town-hero to town-misfit, once
adulated now only pitied and to be avoided.
Equally powerful in their roles are
John Graham Hall as Sylvester (Harry's
father), his wife sung by Anne-Marie
Owens and Barney, Harry's best friend,
rescuer and eventual rival in love.
The contrast between the flirty but
ostentatiously attractive Jessie and
the austere but ever-faithful Susie,
the girl from downstairs (inevitably
a mezzo role) is wonderfully brought
out not only in the music but in the
superb performances by Alison Roddy
and Susan Parry.
Though
there are some aria-type passages, The
Silver Tassie is primarily an
ensemble opera. Perhaps the most notable
and moving "aria-role" is The Croucher,
grandly characterised by Gerard O'Connor
perched behind a great first-war machine
gun. His gloomy prophecies epitomise
the almost Strindbergian slide from
hope to despair that is the main rite
of passage of the opera. The ensemble
work is outstanding and each character
plays brilliantly off each other. However,
unusually for an opera perhaps, one
outstanding contributor to this opera
is the chorus, magnificently prepared
by the chorus master Stephen Harris.
The men's chorus is the main character
in the second scene. This is the most
seering part of the opera. Turnage has
made the chorus part Greek-style commentator,
part articulator of attitudes. Echoes
and resonances abound making such brief
but understated quotations as "We're
here because we're here" dramatically
and musically telling. They might so
easily not have been, but Turnage has
a sure and discreet hand in using traditional
tunes and turns of phrase to telling
effect. Like Berg using Viennese undertones,
Turnage manages to re-create the oft-visited
horrors of the First-War trenches and
bring their horrific life back to the
stage once more by subtle allusion rather.
Deftly avoiding cliche, he makes this
primarily string-coloured scene speak
with terrific power.
Paul
Daniels presides over a masterful score
that is masterfully played, and not
only does each scene stand out from
each other through its ensemble sound,
but telling solos (such as the flute
and saxophone) permeate this trenchant
score.
The production
matches the music and its performance
with evocative scenes hovering between
realism and symbolism, imaginatively
staged and lit. Again the production
team match the performing sense of ensemble.
Turnage's
The Silver
Tassie is one of the most theatrically
and musically rewarding new operas to
have come from a British composer's
pen in recent years. It is free of longueurs
or dramatic misconceptions. It works
on stage, and in doing so allows its
powerful narrative to emerge with great
power and emotional force. In short,
it is a really good opera that will,
with luck, remain in the repertoire
for future revivals at ENO and also
tour to other opera houses, but perhaps
that's to fly in the face of expectation,
so it should not be missed this time
round at the English National Opera.
Roderick Swanston |
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