Jan 31, Toynbee Hall, Orpheus

It would be idle to pretend that I really remember the performance which I heard, 16 ½ years ago in the grounds of Warwick Castle apart from the fact that the chorus on that occasion was several hundreds in number.

My knowledge of the opera depends aurally on the Columbia records & historically on what I have cleaned from Messrs Newman, Cooper and Einstein. To-night’s performance was more than reasonably good. The orchestra was at least semi-professional since 15 of its 31 members appeared with the L.S.O [sic] the previous night and the leading cellist was D[avid] F[f]rangcon Thomas. They played well under Hans Gellhorn, the enterprising director of music at Toynbee Hall. The ballet was provided by members of the London Theatre Ballet with Gerd Larsen as soloist. The dances were arranged by Antony Tudor & Peggy van Praagh. The chorus who sang well in spite of their stolid appearance were members of the Toynbee Hall Opera Club. They were mostly arranged in well devised groups with no attempt at dramatic realism – which indeed is hardly needed in this rather slow moving work. For the scene at the entrance of Hades half a dozen of the ballet in masks & with long straggling red hair provided just the right dramatic movements & gestures to emphasize the dialogue between the furies & Orpheus. The principals are all, I believe, members of the chorus of the Glyndebourne Opera. Though their voices might have seemed small in a large opera house they were quite adequate to this auditorium. The Cupid amor (Barbara Beaumont) small in stature, as in voice, was beautifully clear, despite the disadvantage of being placed, most of the time on a raised platform at the back of the stage. Eurydice (Elisabeth Abercrombie) managed to get some passion into her dramatic scene with Orpheus on the road from Hades. But it was of course, on Orpheus (Catherine Lawson) that the main burden fell. Her voice was even and beautiful in quality. If it was a little lacking in light and shade and in emotional emphasis that was a small fault in this music. Nowadays it is the sheer beauty of the music that enthrals the hearer rather than the tragic intensity which may have been the more remarkable 150 years ago. The décor and costumes by Lotte Reiniger were beautiful and harmonious. For the opening scene the cyclorama represented a clear blue sunny sky. There were black wings with a design in white of pillars or a colonnade. In the centre was a white pillar on a support of a few steps. A few conventional trees added variety at the sides and at each side there were platforms or steps concealed by a representation of a hillock, which allowed the chorus to be grouped in irregular pyramids. The chorus had long Greek robes in soft pastel shades, often with a scarf of a contrasting colour draped across the body. The role of Orpheus was coloured orange with white sleeves crossed by bands of orange & a diagonal yellow & green scarf. Orpheus & some of the women had chaplets of silver leaves. Cupid Amor had a white tunic not quite reaching to the knees & decorated with a close pattern of crimson diamonds or triangles; behind the shoulders were long wings which curved upwards to meet over the head. For the second scene at the Gates of Hades, the black wings were covered with white gauze; the cyclorama had projected on it a “marbled” pattern of dark grey and white. Apart from the ballet who represented the furies in action, the rest of the chorus were grouped on the floor of the stage, practically in darkness & still more obscured by hooded, black cloaks. When Orpheus appeared it was on a raised platform at the right, immediately above the mouth of Hades. The fact that he carried no lute was especially unfortunate in this scene since it robbed the plucked accompaniment of its point. The next scene, in the Elysian Fields was all light and air. The stage was left quite clear, the black wings were lightened by a covering of white gauze and on the cyclorama was projected a picture in green & purple of a flowery, hilly landscape with a Greek Temple (It was not quite in focus which may have been intentional). The seven blessed spirits who danced at the outset on the empty stage were in tunics reaching to the knee or a little lower & danced on their points. The soloist was, as I have said, Gerd Larsen; of the other six I was again struck by the promise of Sylvia Hayden. When the singing chorus appeared they wore the costumes of act 1 but were enveloped from head to toe in gauze veils like those in which the Wilis first appear in the second act of Giselle. I don’t remember the details of Euridice’s costume. For the scene on the road from Hades, the cyclorama had a red & white “marbled” design. A black cloth with a gold pattern on it hung at the right and was eventually drawn aside to recel the Temple of Amor.

Two points in the production displeased me: (1) the use of the English pronunciation of Eurydice —≥∪∪ (or perhaps —∪≥∪∪) – the Italian —∪≥∪ fits the music so much better. (2) The transference of the Fury ballet music from the beginning of act II to become an entr[’]acte between the first & second scenes (while the scenery was being changed from the entrance to Hades, to the Elysian fields). Musically it seemed quite out of place after Orpheus had tamed the furies. The translation used was Dent’s. I was not able to determine which version of Gluck’s opera was followed or whether it was a combination of the two. Since a contralto can presumably sing the music as written for a male alto it may be that there was no trace of the Paris version in which it is said the transpositions needed in turning Orpheus into a tenor alter & distort the key relationships of the succeeding numbers. I noticed that in the Fury ballet music (played, as I have said, as an entr[']acte) the crashes & bangs of cymbals & drums were absent. They certainly occur in the Paris version tho’ not in the Don Juan ballet for which the music was originally written nor presumably in the Italian version of Orpheus which followed Don Juan by only a year. The most impressive part of the whole opera was the scene in which the attempts of Orpheus to tame the furies were punctuated by their reiterated cries of “No!”. But the whole thing is so lovely – the ballet with flute solo in the Elysian Fields being especially beautiful – that it was all a joy, especially in such a devoted and adequate (or more than adequate) performance[.]