Falstaff - Irish Times Sept. 2008
The Irish Times
Balfe - Falstaff, NCH, Dublin
The Dublin-born composer Michael William Balfe (1808-70) occupies a strange position in the history of music.
He was, in the words of the New Grove Dictionary of Opera, "the most successful composer of English operas in the 19th century, and the only one whose fame spread throughout Europe".
His entry in the Dictionary of National Biography recorded the appeal of his work to listeners who liked "his brilliancy, melody, and fertility of invention" but also noted that "by those who look for deeper thought and more intellectual aims in music, he will be regarded as a mere melodist, the ephemeral caterer to a generation who judged rather by manner of expression than by the value of what was expressed".
His most famous work, The Bohemian Girl, has long disappeared from the repertoire, although national pride has ensured performances in Dublin, Castleward and Cork during the last 15 years. He hasn't featured in a regular production from Opera Ireland since 1943, and he last featured in the main Wexford Festival programme in 1963. A 1991 Bohemian Girl recording with the RTÉ NSO under Richard Bonynge didn't manage to spark the interest of operatic managements around the world, Enter Opera Ireland and RTÉ in 2008, for the bicentenary of the composer's birth. At the NCH on Thursday they presented a concert performance Falstaff (1838), a piece which hasn't been heard in full for 170 years and which is about as far away from The Bohemian Girl as you can get in Balfe's output.
It's not a ballad opera and, although it was written for the London stage, it's in Italian, not English. Thursday's performance used a score reconstructed by Valerie Langfield, and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra under Marco Zambelli delivered it with a solidity and focus that were lacking in Richard Bonynge's approach to The Bohemian Girl. Zambelli also had principals who rose with commanding ease to the sometimes extraordinary vocal demands made of them.
The standout performances came from soprano Majella Cullagh as a sparkling, vocally agile Mrs Ford, and Barry Banks as an ardent Fenton, driven to - and glorying in - flights and heights that most tenors would simply baulk at. And mezzo soprano Tara Erraught's Annetta showed a lustre that fully warranted Fenton's attention.
Marcel Vanaud's well-turned Falstaff suffered a little from the setting - capturing the character of Falstaff dressed in concert attire is not the easiest of challenges - and he seemed at times to be singing for the microphones (CDs and internet downloads are to be ready before Christmas), as if allowing the engineers to sort out the balance with orchestra in ways that were impossible for listeners in the hall on the night.
The smaller roles were ably taken, and the members of the National Chamber Choir, spread out at the back of the stage, provided the full- voiced chorus. The recording, when it comes out, will, I'm sure, work wonders for Balfe's reputation, although dispelling the DNB's reservations may be another matter entirely.
MICHAEL DERVAN
