The enterprising Northern Opera Group continues to hone in on the opera world’s curiosities. At this year’s Leeds opera festival the spotlight was on Gustav Holst’s rarely performed operas, works that range from the slender and focused through to the downright verbose.
Holst’s own translation of an episode from the Mahabharata provides the libretto to his 1909 chamber opera Savitri and, though littered with anachronisms (smatterings of “wendeth”s and “methinks”-es) the source is treated with the reverence it deserves. It’s an opera with asceticism at its heart, as Savitri bargains with Death to return her vanquished husband Satyavan (Kamil Bien), often with little to no instrumental accompaniment. That sparsity made George Johnson-Leigh’s luridly hued design an odd choice – a plainer set would have carried the drama better.
Kamil Bien’s Satyavan was fresh and chirpy, making a good foil for Julian Close’s commanding Death, delivered with echoes of the Wagnerian spirit the opera frequently falls back on. Lewis Gaston encouraged a committed display from Skipton Camerata, but even the small forces required for Savitri overwhelmed the singers during the meatier musical passages, a persistent issue throughout the evening. Those problems of balance didn’t deter soprano Meeta Raval though, whose Savitri was polished and emotive.
Savitri’s strength lies in its economy of musical gesture; At the Boar’s Head dispenses with that idea almost entirely. Holst described his later opera as a “musical interlude”. In reality, it’s an hour of relentlessly dense textures that proves difficult to warm to. It’s perhaps unsurprising that this is one of only a handful of professional productions ever attempted.
The story cobbles together sequences from Henry IV Parts One and Two, with Shakespeare’s 19th sonnet added in for light relief (a tender moment for Joseph Doody’s combative Prince Hal).
Charged with finding the action in both operas was Emma Black, an arduous task given the two works’ unfamiliarity. Both stagings fell a little flat despite some classy touches – Morley’s generously proportioned town hall was used to great effect, and the relationship between Andrew Slater’s indulgent Falstaff and Doll Tearsheet (sung by Rosemary Clifford) was full of intrigue and suggestion. The production, brave though it was, served as a reminder that the “rarely performed” designation doesn’t necessarily qualify quality.
