Fidelio at the Proms last Friday was thoroughly satisfactory. I had last seen it at the Proms in 2009 with Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and a good cast.
It’s a funny name for an orchestra, isn’t it? But Wiki, sometimes, has the answer.
West–östlicher Divan (West–Eastern Diwan) is a diwan, or collection of lyrical poems, by the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It was inspired by the Persian poet Hafez.
The orchestra is based in Seville and last week’s Fidelio had more than a whiff of Spain and that beautiful city where my Mendoza ancestor was born. Conducting the BBC Philarmonic was Juanjo Mena, who has been their chief conductor for six years. What he did rather well was to keep the orchestra damped down in the volume department so that the singers could do their stuff without being drowned out. As you know the Albert Hall is jolly big and – for the Proms at any rate – there is no amplification. Do you remember Jeremy Irons singing at a Last Night quite a few years ago? His rather nice voice would just about fill a drawing room, it hardly got to the first row of prommers.
On Friday an experienced cast, in which Stuart Skelton stood out, had no problems projecting themselves with Juanjo’s sensitive handling of his orchestra. Now what Fidelio needs is a big choir and the Proms are good at doing “big”. There were sopranos, altos, tenors and basses – about 140 in all – and everyone of them was from Spain.
Chorus Master, José Antonio Saint Alfaro, and the Orfeón Donostiarra were making their Proms debut – a phrase beloved of commentators at the New York Met’s broadcast operas. They gave great pleasure to a full house on Friday and I hope they enjoyed themselves too. The choir has performed at the highest level all over Europe and further, including a visit to Caracas where it warbled Beethoven’s Ninth with the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra. They are 120 years old, so hardly surprising that they know their onions.