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Prom 34,  Rachmaninov and Puccini’s Il tabarro: Soloists, the BBC Singers and BBC Philharmonic Orchestra,  Gianandrea Noseda (conductor). Royal Albert Hall, London 11.8.2008 (JPr)


Proms concert programmes often include very strange bedfellows indeed, and  none more so  than this evening supported by the Rachmaninoff Foundation. Here we had clear promoting of the Foundation’s recent Chandos CD release of the First Symphony with the same conductor and orchestra twinned with the BBC Proms’ token gesture to the 150th anniversary of Puccini’s birth, his 1918 Il tabarro, the first of his operatic triptych Il trittico. Does the BBC’s charter allow the Proms to be used so blatantly to launch CD releases by independent companies even if involving one of its own orchestras?  Perhaps someone can enlighten me.

Rachmaninov’s Symphony No.1 in D minor, Op.13 was given a notoriously inept first performance in 1897 and was such a disaster that for two years the composer wrote almost nothing,  descending into such a depressed state that he only recovered from it following hypnotherapy. The problem was that the conductor, Glazunov,  was in an inebriated state, something only recognised by one St Petersburg critic, Nikolay Findeisen. Rachmaninov withdrew the score and it subsequently disappeared; it is performed today in a version reconstructed from orchestral parts and an extant piano reduction. The work contains a wealth of musical ideas including the main theme of the Allegro - which recurs transformed in the Scherzo and Larghetto  -  and the first movement’s more lyrical second subject heard in the woodwinds. The mood goes from the broodingly neurotic first movement to an almost orgiastic passage in the final one which ends with the sounding gong before the darker mood returns in an almost Brucknerian finale from trombones and timpani.

John Warrack’s Proms printed note considers that  ‘there is some evidence of a hidden emotional programme’ behind the works, as apparently the composer was in love with Anna Lodyzhenskaya , a woman of gypsy extraction who unfortunately had a husband. ‘Some’ may be quite a mild word for a work so redolent of gypsy music. Orchestrally this is noticeable at the start of the fourth movement when after the marching band music led by rampant side drum there is an exotic theme with an important contribution from a tambourine :  clearly a gypsy dance. Then there was the restless Yuri Torchinsky in the leader’s chair who played many passages above the rest of his string colleagues like a gypsy fiddler. In fact he had so many solo moments throughout the symphony that it seems (in my naiveté possibly) more like an unacknowledged Rachmaninov first Violin Concerto.

Gianandrea Noseda conducted his equally energetic BBC Philharmonic Orchestra with unfailing energy throughout.   He is tall, thin, has his ‘head in the score’, wears a collarless jacket and conducts using his whole body often jumping on the podium with excitement - and this conducting style seemed all very familiar. I then noticed that he is principal guest conductor of the Marinsky Theatre and the rouble dropped : he is of course, a calmer, more smiley version of his obvious mentor  Gergiev, although Noseda uses a baton. Overall the symphony seemed fragmentary and episodic,  but Noseda just about convinced me of its worth.

Puccini’s Il tabarro came after the interval. The story is standard operatic fare complete with adulterous wife, a young lover, cuckolded jealous husband and murder. A veritable ‘Death on the Seine’! On Michele’s barge, Luigi and some other stevedores are finishing a job on the boat. Giorgetta, Michele's beautiful wife, offers them a drink. Michele notices how Giorgetta looks at Luigi and dances with him, while a song-seller peddles his ballads and sings a song that has more than a hint of La bohème in it.  Ferret, the wife of Mole the stevedore, arrives with a bag full of odds and ends that she has scavenged. Before he leaves, Luigi arranges a rendezvous with Giorgetta at night - she will light a match as a sign that it their meeting will be safe. . Michele remembers regretfully how happy they once were and lights his pipe with a match. Seeing the agreed signal, Luigi boards the barge and Michele seizes him and forces him to confess. Michele then he strangles Luigi and when Giorgetta comes on deck he grabs hold of her and pushes her down against her dead lover's face. He was concealed under ‘The Cloak’ (Il tabarro) under which Michele and Giorgetta snuggled in happier times.

A concert performance of such a rarely performed work is just about acceptable in an anniversary year and at least the singers did not have scores. But such  a short work with so many characters becomes rather static and passionless with singers rooted to their microphones, wearing concert clothes and facing front all the time. The consequence was too little youthful ardour from Luigi, sung by Miroslav Dvorsky, a rather bear-like Slovakian,. The role requires a Calaf quality in the voice particularly in the high-lying ‘io te lo giuro, lo giuro’ and Dvorsky was sorely tested here and there was a lack of ‘a smile’ in his voice elsewhere. Jane Henschel’s mad Ferret struggled too, with the quick-fire Italian of her contributions. There was however valiant support from Barry Banks’  drunken Tench and Alistair Miles (Lurch-like) doleful Mole. Of the even smaller roles,  Allan Clayton as the Song-Pedlar had a very pleasing lyrical tenor voice. Also the BBC Singers made the most of the small moments Puccini gives them.

For me, the least satisfactory singing came from  the Georgian Lado Ataneli’s Michele. His voice was-dimensional his acting was uninvolving  demeanour and when he sang the Italian version of ‘Why, why don’t you love me anymore?’ he might as well have been singing to her that there was an empty milk  bottle in the fridge. He summoned up frighteningly little vengeful anger at the end.

The best principal singer throughout was the only Italian in the cast, Barbara Frittoli as Giorgetta and her ‘Si. Il fiamifero acceso’ (Yes, the lighted match) had a wonderful seductive quality.

Strangely enough, the unsatisfactory nature of this piece is possibly the composer's fault. Puccini does not make us care sufficiently for Giorgetta’s fate as he might do in a longer work nor does he create enough tension over the shorter span of this opera. Even more strangely, he  gives us typical Puccini musical climaxes too often and occasionally at inappropriate moments like  Giorgetta’s ‘the sun going down on the Seine’. The sun goes down and the music goes up. If I am missing something here, could someone please tell me?

Gianandrea Noseda and his splendidly secure orchestra occasionally overwhelmed the singers but could be forgiven for attempting to raise the emotional temperature. Puccini survived as he will surely do for another 150 years,  but he was worthy of a better birthday celebration than this odd evening at the 2008 Proms.

Jim Pritchard


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