There’s no real reason
why Sly shouldn’t work well on
stage. It embodies aspects of buffa
and of verismo with elements of Puccinian
and to a lesser extent Wagnerian scoring;
there are boisterous tavern scenes,
love interest, subtle orchestral writing
and idiomatic scoring for the voice.
The deepening tragedy – unusual in Wolf-Ferrari’s
work and unguessable from the opening
crowd scenes – could well be successfully
and convincingly explored. But problems
of dramaturgy apart there are certainly
weaknesses – of plot structure, psychological
depth, and consistency of musical inspiration.
Christopher Sly – the
Sly of the title – a convivial
and boisterous pub drunk (the scene
is a London alehouse as we start) is
tricked by his aristocratic superiors
into believing himself to be the Earl
and the Earl and his entourage to be
Sly’s servants. A woman sent to deceive
him, pretending to be his wife, falls
in love with him – in time honoured
accelerated-time operatic way – and
Sly, bewildered, humiliated and betrayed
slashes his wrists with a bottle, a
suitably histrionic way for an alcoholic
to sever his ties. The woman, Dolly,
curses the aristocrats and the opera
ends in bitterness and death.
Written in 1927 the
influence of Puccini is palpable; one
can hear it in the opening crowd scenes
where the hints of verismo first appear.
There are also folk tunes woven into
the tapestry and all the trappings of
the aristocratic heavies in the fanfare
arrival of the Earl and his bored, sadistic
entourage. Sly’s entrance is cunningly
delayed, rousing expectation and heightening
theatrical tension. There’s certainly
force to the Italianate and deeply lyric
scene Bear Scene and the drunken scene
are carried in this recording with conviction
and verisimilitude - Hans-Dieter Bader
proving a magnetic presence as Sly .
The implacable slumming of the Earl
(the Graf in this production)
is equally well delineated and the scored
is highlit with little memorable moments
– the intimate string writing of Oh
wie sie duftet and the "sleep"
music.
There’s a touch of
Wagner at the start of the Second Act
and much ceremonial dancing music tinged
with parody and a rapturous love duet
(faked by Dolly). It’s true that a lot
of this is stagy in the extreme; the
hammy music for the Earl in the second
scene of the second Act for instance
(Oh Sly, wo steckst du) but against
that there are moments when Wolf-Ferrari
thins his forces to merest whispers
and cushions the action with intermezzi
of quartet-like intimacy. The central
focus of the second part of the opera
is the Boris-like death of Sly, anguished
and truly verismo, with the tune of
All Thro the Night running beneath
the vocal line.
Performances are more
than polished and fully engaged. Bader
and Polaski bear most of the vocal burden
and they do so with considerable power.
There’s a rival on Koch, with Carreras,
Isabelle Kabatu and Sherrill Milnes,
recorded in Barcelona under David Giménez
which I’ve not heard but which seems
to have been slightly cut if one can
judge by the timings. Against that this
Arts production is sung in German. This
Arts recording has a good booklet with
a German-only libretto. Brittle and
brutal though it may ultimately be it’s
certainly worth your occasional acquaintance.
Jonathan Woolf
Choir and Orchestra of the Niedersächsischen
State Opera, Hannover/Robert Maxym 
