IS THERE a more quintessentially English composer than Ralph
Vaughan Williams; or, among his works, a more quintessentially
English piece than his opera - or "Morality", as he preferred to
call it - The Pilgrim's Progress?
His contemporary Herbert Murrill saw it as "summarizing in three
hours virtually the whole creative output of a great composer".
Most of us know this music only from recordings, especially,
perhaps, the one conducted by Sir Adrian Boult in 1972, with John
Noble as Christian. It was Noble who sang the part in a performance
at Cambridge in 1954. In 1951, Covent Garden had given the
première, but, shamefully, the current performances at the London
Coliseum are the first since then to be fully staged by a
professional company.
Why? The large cast, perhaps? Of the 34 solo parts, the composer
himself suggested that, with discreet doubling or tripling, the
number of soloists can be reduced to 11, as in this production. The
potentially static nature of the action? This might have been said
of Handel's operas and their preponderance of da capo
arias, but this no longer proves to be a problem. Early criticism
of The Pilgrim's Progress claimed that it was really an
oratorio in disguise, not an opera, a view whose adherents Edward
Dent declared to be "mostly stupid and unintelligent".
For this long-awaited revival, the English National Opera has
engaged the 79-year-old Japanese actor and director Yoshi Oida,
whose operatic experience includes Britten's Death in
Venice at the 2007 Aldeburgh Festival, as well as Don
Giovanni and The Pearl Fishers, for example. His
regular collaborator, Tom Schenk, is responsible for the
design.
Bunyan wrote his Pilgrim's Progress in Bedford Gaol,
and it is in a prison that Oida has set his production. Yet it is a
prison without bars; for, of course, Pilgrim's adventure takes
place in a dream, and in dreams anything is possible. As Oida
himself has commented, there is room for imagination. With a very
mobile set - and an energetic team of on-stage scene shifters - a
wide variety of locations are suggested, with back-projection of
First World War film in some of the scenes.
It is a characteristic of dreams that the dreamer is the main
character in the story, and so in this production the roles of
Bunyan and Pilgrim are taken by the same singer (Roland Wood).
Vaughan Williams described himself as a "cheerful agnostic", and
yet - besides editing The English Hymnal, Songs of
Praise, and The Oxford Book of Carols - he wrote many
fine hymn tunes, much church music, and settings of religious
verse, such as the Five Mystical Songs, with words by
George Herbert.
The Pilgrim's Progress occupied him in different ways
throughout his career, beginning with Bunyan's book, and the "noble
simplicity" of the English language, shared with the Authorised
Version of the Bible, and the Book of Common Prayer, which Vaughan
Williams loved.
Vaughan Williams may seem paradoxical in many ways: Wilfrid
Mellers has referred to the radical traditionalist, the
town-dwelling countryman, the Christian atheist. As Jeffrey
Aldridge has written, "it certainly explains why a man who was
'never a professing Christian' [according to his widow Ursula]
could write so much music devoted to celebrating Christianity."
The composer once said: "I wanted the idea to be universal and
to apply to anybody who aims at the spiritual life, whether he is
Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Shintoist or Fifth Day Adventist." This,
and Vaughan Williams's deep humanity, no doubt strikes a chord in
Yoshi Oida, whose stated aim in directing plays and operas is not
the set or even the idea, but how to portray human beings.
But this is a production that you will either love or hate. One
distinguished commentator has called it "the most upsetting
perversion of a great work by a misguided opera company I have
ever seen." I rather like "modern" interpretations of
opera, provided that they don't go against the spirit of the
original or contradict the text, but this surely works best with
music familiar from many years of repertoire performances in a
broadly "traditional" manner. I am by no means certain that anyone
who has waited sixty years for this would be very happy, and may
wistfully recall the wonderful semi-staged performance at Sadler's
Wells in 2008 with the baritone Roderick Williams and conductor
Richard Hickox.
It has to be said, however, that musically these ENO
performances are superb. The radiant and powerful score comes
across magnificently, particularly from the orchestra and chorus
under the conductor, Martyn Brabbins. But I wonder if the Ralph
Vaughan Williams Society, which supported this revival, knew what
sort of a production it was letting itself in for. I would love to
know what Vaughan Williams would say.
The Pilgrim's Progress by Ralph Vaughan Williams runs at the
English National Opera, London Coliseum, St Martin's Lane, London
WC2, until 28 November. Box office: phone 020 7845 9300.
www.eno.org