The Victorians had a great fascination with 'mysteries of the sea'. This
seemed to serve them with the same sort of fuel for speculation which UFOs
have exercised over more recent generations. Of these the most celebrated
was probably the disappearance of the whole crew of the
Mary
Celeste in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. This was elaborately
embroidered by contemporary publicists with manifold circumstantial details
which, in the words of Gilbert, seem to have been "intended to give artistic
verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative." Subsequent
researches have rather disappointingly reduced the mystery to the fact that
the crew abandoned ship in a lifeboat (which was missing). The only field
for speculation now is the reason why they did so.
The facts regarding the mysterious disappearance of the three lighthouse
keepers from the Flannan Isles in December 1900 were much more reliably
recorded in the subsequent Court of Inquiry. This fully documented case has
surprisingly managed to elude the attentions of the conspiracy theorists.
One would have imagined that much speculative capital could have been made
out of the fact that information regarding this clear example of alien
abduction would have been suppressed by Lord Salisbury's government,
distracted by their involvement in the Boer War and anxious to avoid other
entanglements. Would they have commissioned Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to create
the fictional character of Professor Moriarty to provide a smokescreen for
any Government involvement. Would they also have made use of H G Wells to
write a story about alien invasion of Earth in order to obviate any public
empathy with the intentions of the clearly benevolent if obscure purposes of
the ETs involved. I realise that there are serious problems of chronology
here, but then historical accuracy has rarely been allowed to stand in the
way of theories of this type. I am sorry that I don't have space - or indeed
the inclination - to develop this clearly tenable hypothesis in more
detail.
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies in his operatic treatment of the subject steered
well clear of the wilder possibilities, mooring his setting firmly in the
frame of the courtroom testimony of the three officers of the lighthouse
ship
Hesperus who discovered the disappearance of the three keepers
on a routine tour of duty. The action then shifts to the lighthouse itself,
where the three keepers are each presented as fictional archetypes of
various characters - with the names of the historical keepers changed.
There's a bible-thumping religious zealot, a rough diamond from the slums
and a seemingly innocent pacifist. Their internal conflicts do much to
provoke an access of madness which leads to their destruction. It seems as
good a theory for what presumably was either a group suicide, or a double
murder followed by the suicide of the murderer - although there were no
signs of violence - as any. Experiments over the years have shown that
isolating small groups of men for prolonged periods can have odd results,
and certainly provide plentiful opportunities for characterisation and
emotional sympathy. By contrast many of the protagonists in Maxwell Davies'
other operas appear to lack the attributes of basic humanity. They function
as representations of ideas and ideals rather than as real people or stand
as psychological studies in extreme human conditions. That said, the sense
of engagement the listener feels with Blazes, Sandy and even the religious
monomaniac Arthur, is palpable. This may well explain the fact that
The
Lighthouse has been the most performed of any of Maxwell Davies operas.
It is the first opera to appear in the praiseworthy Naxos series of reissues
of recordings made by the now defunct Collins Classics label.
The recording was made at a live performance, but the audience are
impeccably well-behaved and the excellent sound has clearly been well
judged. In the opening scene the questions posed to the boat crew are
represented by a solo horn. This could have been dramatically problematic
but comes over well. The diction of all the singers is highly commendable
and most of the words are clearly delivered even when Maxwell Davies'
chamber orchestra is at its most strident. Neil Mackie was at the time
something of a specialist in the composer's works, and throws himself into
his role with the utmost conviction. Christopher Keyte made his career in
more conventional repertoire, but sounds thoroughly at home. Ian Comboy
mouths his religious platitudes with relish, and manages his excursions into
falsetto with aplomb although he shows a considerable sense of
strain in the upper register as he evokes the image of the Beast. While in
his earlier works of music theatre Maxwell Davies made plentiful use of
extended vocal techniques in the
avant-garde manner, here his
writing is more considerately written for conventional voices, and this
helps not only with diction but with the establishment of character. He also
indulges his sense of parody, as in the 'music hall' song for Blazes, the
'parlour ballad' for Sandy, and the revivalist hymn - with Salvation Army
style brass band accompaniment - for Arthur. The variety of sound that
Maxwell Davies conjures from a mere fourteen players is amazing.
There was I believe at one time a version of
The Lighthouse
available on video in the production by Music Theatre Wales, but this does
not appear in current catalogues. The work, like most modern operas, gains
from the presence of the dramatic and visual element and Mike McCarthy's
basic production has worn well. Mike Rafferty, something of a Maxwell Davies
specialist in his own right, yields few points to the composer in his
treatment of the score. The casting honours are also pretty even - Philip
Creasey in Wales is less mellifluous than Mackie, and Henry Herford is
rougher in tone than Keyte, but Kelvin Thomas makes much more of the manic
elements of Arthur than the comparatively civilised-sounding Comboy. Further
comparisons are invidious and irrelevant in view of the dubious availability
of this video; at the time of writing I could not even find any second-hand
copies through Amazon.
One assumes that in due course Naxos will reissue the remaining Maxwell
Davies operas originally recorded by Collins -
The martyrdom of St
Magnus, The doctor of Myddfai - although with the truly weird - even by
Maxwell Davies' sometimes very peculiar standards -
Resurrection
they need not feel a desperate sense of urgency
. However in the
year of the composer's eightieth birthday the re-appearance of this dramatic
opera in a blistering performance is cause for rejoicing in its own
right.
Of the original documentation, only the text is not given in the
packaging, and this is available online from the Naxos website. One does
however wish that the cover illustration could actually have
shown
the Flannan Isles lighthouse and not some other more generic and seemingly
more modern construction.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
Maxwell Davies on Naxos reviews
