I have not posted for quite some time, here is a much belated review of A Dog's Heart at ENO from November:
I just came back from A Dog's Heart at the English National Opera and was woefully disappointed by an endeavour of great skill and effort. I found the production quite amusing with lots of winning moments, choreography and dramaturgy - all of which seemed to come from the director, Simon McBurney, and not that of the Rastakov polyglot score or the almost poignant libretto, either suffering from mistreatment by the composer or the English translation.
The story is this: a doctor in the advancement of medicine (and his personal reputation) implants the pituitary and testes of a man who plays the balalaika into a dog. This dog/man grows (evolves) into what looks like a man and demands his rights as a Russian citizen much to the chagrin of the doctor. The Doctor then faces persecution that threatens his privileged position in the bourgeois, so the doctor removes the testes and pituitary and the balalaika playing man/dog reverts into his half dog/man self, thus ending...
Andrew Watts made the music sound singable as the "pleasant voice" of the dog with his winning and reverberant tone, as did Steven Page in the role of the Professor. His diction was outstanding and not an easy feat in a score filled with music which does its best to stop communication of the text. The other members of the cast I just felt sorry for, to have to sing this music which controlled their expression and their ability to sing it quite brutally. They shrieked and moaned through all octaves and falsetto techniques and tried to communicate cohesive sentences that were in most cases broken apart by the composer trying to create a style unto himself, except we've heard that all before in Ligeti and other such mid century composers. Peter Hoare created almost a mockery of the impossibility of the the score in his interpretation of the dog/man character and created in one phrase of extreme interval juxtaposition a different color for each note. He was never consumed with beauty of tone or even production and flipped up into falsetto quite regularly just because it was necessary and not because it was written in the score (of that I am almost certain). The orchestra played well and seemed to be in good stead with the singers.
The music was at times quite expressive of the theatrical events taking place on the stage, but never did it emerge as something more, never did it transcend its own manner to communicate a deeper substance, which I think the work lacked overall. The composer was too involved in creating a disjointed vocal line pock marked by impossible rhythmic unisons with the orchestra, which always sounded like missed opportunities rather than communicative tools. I do not blame orchestra, conductor or singer for this, composer's should know better, but computers make them believe its possible - because Sibelius can do it, so can an orchestra...
I am angry because I was hoping to find that frustration and longing of Bulgakov and pre-war Russia in this show but it was almost never palpable. I am disappointed that the staging made this music better than it deserved. The director layered dramaturgy and choreographed movement to the score which carried the evening, had I seen another production attempting more of a realistic approach or perhaps just a different approach, I would have been quite upset. But I was entertained as an audience member, but as a critic woefully disappointed by another failed exploration into the art of modern opera.
In conclusion and in the context of the argument being laid out in this blog, I felt the piece too consumed in its manner, novelty (use of megaphones) and disjointed vocal writing. It was not enough involved in the substance of the subject. The moment you felt an almost certain a truth was coming baffled me even further by saying the man/dog did not have a dog's heart but a human heart... meaning we are all animals? The music here was quite close to moving, and this attempt to explain the deeper metaphor behind the piece pulled me out of the story into an intellectual conundrum in my own mind instead of advancing the plot or the character's motivations. It was a mildly entertaining 2 hours and 25 minutes, but I found it a complete waste of time for those looking for music that speaks to us in our time. That tells our souls we are not alone and that we do and can find meaning in this life. I am not sorry to put it so bluntly; that is what we seek, is it not? All that time effort and money for a good night out... that is had in any number of theaters just around the corner from the Coliseum. The conversations that were taking place when we left the theater were not about the show or performers, the audience was not touched and it did not start any conversations of depth or meaning, but continued what they were discussing before they came into the theater.
