We’ve all been there, haven’t we? A few bottles too many in a questionable establishment, an unreliable wingman and all of a sudden one is embracing in a most intimate manner a person of the opposite sex like Mother Goose who, in the clear and sober light of day, would not really be deemed acceptable to the parents – several decades too old, in a dubious profession and perhaps a few stone too heavy to satisfy NHS guidelines. However, never in the darkest days of debauchery were my friends able to convince each other that there was a machine with the mystical power of converting stone to bread as Nick Shadow convinces Tom Rakewell in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress.
If the questionable bedroom advice and the frequent malevolent winks weren’t enough of a clue that Shadow is a wrong’un, this would surely have given the game away. Alas, only rarely does Tom stray from a gormless ignorance, that moment of clarity ironically succeeded by a lifetime in Bedlam. It’s an entertaining romp and Glyndebourne’s 1975 production by John Cox remains one of the finest around; its revival for the eighth time as part of Glyndebourne’s 2023 festival is welcome. That both Cox and David Hockney – who created the visually stunning sets – were present at the first night of this revival added a sense of moment: both now in their late eighties, they were quite rightly given a standing ovation when they took their bow.
Enough ink has been splashed over the years in enumerating the merits of Hockney’s etched sets; suffice to say here that they still elicit gasps as the vibrant front cloth goes up. The balance of colours, the inscriptions and the choreography make this as decadent for the audience as it is for the characters. The detail and complexity of the sets mean that the number of scene changes adds a good ten minutes on to the running length, but there’s a certain charm in each vignette being separated, giving the chance to savour and digest what has come before. Tik-tokkers would approve.
A favoured production such as this puts high expectations on Glyndebourne to assemble a strong cast and in their principals, they delivered this in spades (pun intended). Thomas Atkins is superb casting as Tom; his stage presence was engaging, conveying the character’s energetic naivety with lithe motions and a winning smile. Diction was clear – his singing required no consultation of the surtitles – and his pale tenor’s bright top was never strained, immaculately deployed in one of the performance’s highlights, his moving “Love Too Frequently Betrayed”. This Tom gives an air of perpetual unrest; by contrast there’s a stillness to Louise Alder that gives her Anne a solidity: an anchor if he only knew it. Alder took a little time to settle, with muggy diction early on; it was at her heartfelt and virtuosic delivery of “No word from Tom” that her performance took flight and from then on, it never descended. Whether almost stupefied in the Act II trio with Tom and Baba or in her moving lullaby in Bedlam, Alder’s performance was coated in a simple humanity which charmed the heart.
Beneath the swagger and bombast, there was humanity too in Alisa Kolosova’s eye-catching Baba, an empathy and understanding for Tom’s true love which cut through. Kolosova’s chesty mezzo was a pleasing contrast to Alder’s creamy soprano, practically sizzling in the lower register. Whether throwing plates or stroking her whiskers with deep self-satisfaction, she held the stage wherever she stood. The aforementioned wingman, the visitor from below disguised as factotum Nick Shadow – a demonic Figaro – was sung convincingly by bass-baritone Sam Carl, in excellent voice – forceful at the top, cavernous at the bottom. Alastair Miles was a stolid Father Trulove, while Rupert Charlesworth’s inflated Sellem was splendidly characterised. Despite the excellent vocal performances though, it was the man in the pit to whom the laurel wreath must be given. Ticciati’s conducting in Dialogues des Carmélites earlier in the Festival was one of that production’s highlights and here he again delivered the goods with the London Philharmonic Orchestra in an angular, thrusting reading that captured both the traditions on which Stravinsky was drawing and his own modern, subversive inclinations. As revivals go, this was a triumph.
