Metropolitan Opera Archives

The Metropolitan's new production of "Martha" in English turned out to be all I had heard about it, and more. Also less. More because the production adapted by Ann Ronell and staged by Carl Ebert, with "musical preparation," meaning meddling, by Jan Behr, and unfortunate settings by the gifted Oliver Smith, was more cheapened, coarsened, and generally vulgarized than even its more disillusioned critics had led me to believe. Less because those of us who went to McCormick Palace yesterday afternoon found that Victoria de los Angeles was "indisposed." Laurel Hurley, a fugitive from operetta, stepped in - a fairer statement than to say she took her place.

Otherwise the cast of principals was the first cast, with Richard Tucker, Giorgio Tozzi, Lorenzo Alvary, and Rosalind Elias, which makes it odd that even in so shrill and bumpkin a version of a charming period piece there was not more worth hearing. Ugly as they were, the settings filled the stage better than the cramped makeshifts used for "Aida," but the performance was pinched and thin. Ideally, 'Martha" is a small theater opera, but beautiful singing can make it a delight in a large house, as it was for decades in the Auditorium. The problem here, in addition to an inferior production, was a poor performance.

"Martha" is the tale of a bored beauty at the court of Queen Anne and how she, her companion, and a doddering, devoted admirer go to the Richmond fair where the two girls amuse themselves by pretending to accept jobs as servants to two farmers. They are at the farmhouse long enough for some beguiling quartets, then rescued in the dead of night, but not until two love stories have struck root. For the happy ending one farmer is right for the companion, and the titled one isn't cheated because her farmer turns out to be the lost Earl of Derby. As a period piece it depends for its quality on taste, discretion, a sense of caste, superb singing and the essence of all these things, style.

The Ronell version, or one much like it, afflicted a rundown Chicago Opera about 20 years ago. It is as anachronistic as it is cheap. The Ebert staging has the two women doing a modified strip tease in the garden with the aid of the ballet (interpolated), it adds slaps on the rear, Hollywood type kisses, a heavy German accent for the English sheriff, and a high wheel bicycle as "comic" substitute for the jingling vehicle in which Sir Tristam rescues the girls. These things are no more than a hint of the debacle, which includes Plunkett's beating Nancy with a riding whip in the forest scene.

That such slapstick stage direction destroys characterization is no surprise. What destroyed the singing is less easily explained. Mr. Tucker had his big moment with "M'appari," sticking to English this time, and he won an ovation, but it was a long way from the Tucker who is one of the major tenors of opera. Mr. Tozzi possibly came along too late to know the Lazzari or Rimini performances which, with his stature, he might approximate. Instead, he is a buffoon. Mr. Elias was "cute" and busty. Miss Hurley did what she could in a voice at best miniature for the role. Mr. Alvary had a certain inate elegance as Sir Tristam that frequently frustrated attempts to make a him a boor.

Nino Verchi was the conductor, the orchestra often sounded shrill - was it the "musical preparation"? - and the theater was much too warm for comfort on a sizzling afternoon.

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