SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Prokofiev, Wallen: Enkelejda Shkosa (mezzo), Alwyn Mellor (soprano), Jason Howard (tenor), Megan Llewellyn Dorke, Samantha Hay (soprano), Dabiella Ehrlich, Sian Menhir (mezzo), Simon Curtis, Alun Rhys-Jenkins (tenor), Robert Winslade Anderson, James Robinson-May (bass), Carbon 12 Ladies Community Choir, Men of the WNO Chorus, Risca Male Choir, Parc and Dare Brass Band, Orchestra of Welsh National Opera / Carlo Rizzi (conductor), Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, 12. 6.2008 (GPu)

Prokofiev, Alexander Nevsky
Wallen, Carbon 12


Though Carbon 12 was billed – somewhat misleadingly – as A Choral Symphony – both these works, one well established, one new, are best viewed as variants on the oratorio or cantata. They made a striking pair in an interesting evening under the auspices of Welsh National Opera. Neither work finally persuaded one that it was possessed of any great profundity, but both contained much to engage ears and mind and both were performed with passion and commitment.

The creation of Alexander Nevsky was surrounded by historical ironies. Having returned from Paris to Russia in 1936, Prokofiev was recruited to work alongside Sergei Eisenstein on a film telling the story of Alexander Nevsky, a subject endorsed by Stalin as relationships between Russia and Germany deteriorated. Nevsky, thirteenth century Prince of Novgorod, led armies which defeated Swedish invaders at the river Neva in 1240 and, in 1242, a force of Teutonic Knights at Lake Chud (or Peipus). Stalin saw obvious analogies – and propagandistic potential – in the story of Nevsky’s military triumphs. The film, with Prokofiev’s score, was completed in 1938. But when Stalin and Hitler signed a non-aggression pact in August of the following year, the film found itself at odds with Russian policy and largely disappeared from sight (and sound) in Russia; when Hitler attacked Russia in 1941 the film was rehabilitated and newly circulated. Just months before the signing of the non-aggression pact of August 1939, Prokofiev had conducted the premiere of the cantata he had made from his film music, in Moscow on May 17^th. How easily works of art tied to political events and attitudes can find their fate tied to the fate of those attitudes and events! Events since 1941 have, of course, added further layers of irony.

The music itself has – as befits its origins as film music – considerable evocative power. It is, though, somewhat short on subtlety. In its first section, ‘Russia under the Mongol Yoke’, the orchestra of WNO responded well to the broodingly ominous quality of the opening, with some lovely work from the woodwinds and the low strings. When the chorus entered it was hard not to be disappointed – for all the inevitability of the realisation – at how far the basses fell short of the sound we would have heard from a great Russian choir at this point. Proclaiming that “Those who march on Russia shall be put to death”, the chorus largely held its own against some powerful orchestral playing. But for the most part – as in the third section, ‘The Crusaders in Pskov’ – it is the orchestra which carries the real weight of this piece,  to dominate and sustains the hearer’s attention. Still, the women of the chorus took the opportunity to distinguish themselves in ‘Arise, ye Russian people’ (“Arise you free, brave people” (!)).

In the longest section of the work, the fifth, ‘The battle on the ice’ there was much fine orchestral playing, with Carlo Rizzi tightly controlling some elaborate and jagged rhythmic patterns. Still, though well done, this fell short of that final edge of fierceness and ebullience to be heard in the very best performances of the movement. In the lament (and celebration of bravery) which makes up ‘The Field of the Dead’, the Albanian mezzo Enkelejda Shkosa sang the solo part with a distinctively Eastern European weight of voice, tonally rich if not especially various, the whole achieving a moving dignity. In ‘Alexander’s Entry into Pskov’, which closes the work, the text tells us that “All Russia came in triumph to the celebration”, but Prokofiev’s orchestral writing here seems to fall rather short of creating the sense of scale that such words imply. Overall, Alexander Nevsky’s virtues and limitations were alike evident in this generally accomplished performance. It had a particular poignancy since it was the last piece in which John Stein will serve as leader of the WNO orchestra, having held the position  since 1970 and having played a considerable role in the development of the orchestra. John Fisher, General Director of WNO, came on stage to pay tribute to Stein, who was very warmly congratulated by orchestra, chorus, conductor and audience alike. Music lovers in Wales  - and far beyond – owe him a considerable debt of gratitude.

The ‘novelty’ of the evening was a new WNO commission (it had its premiere last week) with a libretto by John Binias and music by Errollyn Wallen. It takes a longish (50 minutes) look at the history of the coal industry in South Wales, exploring the geology, the social implications, the personal histories and much else. It celebrates and it deplores. It stages a ‘trial’ of coal, asking ‘Coal – was it a blessing or a curse?’ Though it has its moments of banality and information overload, John Binias’ libretto is often witty and humorous, thoughtful and lively. Musically the work deploys some pretty huge forces. Something like 250 performers, insofar as I could count them, were on stage throughout. A (distinguished) brass band, a (distinguished) male voice choir, a community choir of female voices, part of the WNO chorus, a team of supporting solo voices, two main soloists, the orchestra of the WNO – all contributed to a piece not lacking in ambition and scale.

In Alexander Nevsky one always feels that the music is essentially driven by Prokofiev’s orchestral writing, that the words sung (who wrote them?) serve essentially to supplement and make more specific the work being done by the instruments. In Carbon 12 one was inclined to feel that the roles were reversed: that Binias’ libretto carried most of the weight and that much of Errollyn Wallen’s music (especially for the instruments) served to clarify and reinforce what the words had to say rather than ever really taking the lead, as it were. That is not intended to dismiss or denigrate Wallen’s work in any way, but to suggest that she was largely content to support and articulate the words she was setting in a fashion that was relatively self-sacrificing. In an interview in the programme she says that “With me, writing music comes from the words I am setting and the atmosphere I am trying to create. It is a question of finding the right rhythms and the right intervals to convey the sense and meaning of the word”. Many a composer might say that; not so many do it in the unegotistical way that Wallen did in Carbon 12.

The libretto of Carbon 12 is built around the “funny story” of the funeral (and resurrection) of a kind of archetypal Welsh miner John Jones (sung by Jason Howard) and his relationship with his wife Bronwen (Alwyn Mellor). It is essentially a fable of continuity and revival, the survival of the human spirit in adverse circumstances. Libretto and music alike are able to draw on genuine and living musical traditions (as embodied in the brass band, the ‘amateur’ choirs and, let’s not forget, the WNO itself). It is interesting that the WNO chose two non-Welsh artists to create this work, a work so explicitly focused on a central dimension of modern Welsh history. In choosing the Yorkshireman (but Welsh resident) Binias and the Belize-born Wallen, WNO ensured a degree of objectivity that a Welsh librettist and composer might not have given them and avoided the dangers of cosiness and sentimentality. Or, indeed, of their obverse emotions – the anger and bitterness felt by many in Wales about its mining history (and post-history). But perhaps judicious objectivity – eventually the ‘trial’ of coal is left unresolved, the issues being found to be beyond the human capacity for judgement – is not the best ‘fuel’ (no pun intended) for memorable art.In Alexander Nevsky we know whose side we are on or, at any rate, whose side the music intends us to be on. Things are rather more ambiguous with Carbon 12, coal being seen as both creative and destructive, good and evil.

A writer and composer more directly and personally involved in the Welsh coal industry than Wallen and Binias might have reached less balanced conclusions, but the subjectivities on which they would necessarily have drawn, the family histories, say, might also have prompted from them music and words which, for good or ill, had more prejudiced passion about them. As it is, Wallen’s music is eminently accessible, well made and at times attractively melodic; Binias’ libretto is attractively allusive, finding room for humour and poignancy, for lists and litanies, for human sentiment and mythic energy – to all of which Wallen responded with aptness and fair inventiveness. But somehow the whole didn’t quite burn (again no pun intended) with the passion and intensity which its subject deserved. Some of Wallen’s most attractive music was delicate and romantic, expressive of the love Bronwen (vividly characterised and sung by Alwyn Mellor) felt for her exasperating husband (in which role Jason Howard was a forthright vocal and stage presence).

Carbon 12 was, in many ways an uplifting work – itself an affirmation of traditions and energies surviving political maltreatment (with such questions the libretto engaged only very obliquely). Despite my reservations expressed above, Carbon 12 was, in many respects, an effective articulation of time and place, of past (and a little more thinly) of present. To see and hear the ongoing traditions of Welsh music making,  fused with the work of an internationally renowned orchestra such as that of the WNO was gratifying and exciting. Speaking as a Yorkshireman, from coal-mining stock, who has lived in Wales for more than thirty years, there was much whose truth I recognised and much to move me. Listening to Carbon 12 in the Millennium Centre was an audience more various than that normally encountered at the WNO’s operatic productions. Wallen and Binias clearly spoke successfully to many in that audience and even though I suspect that Carbon 12 may not be able to transcend its particular place and occasion, it was surely a successful and worthwhile commission.

Glyn Pursglove


Back to Top                                                    Cumulative Index Page