Standing up for Jonas

 

It’s not every day that opera house orchestras get to emerge, blinking, into the light above ground level. But that’s what happened to the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra this last week as they appeared with the German tenor, Jonas Kaufmann, in the concert hall of the Sydney Opera House.

I say ‘appeared with’ because although the audience had come to hear the Great Divo, the orchestra occupied half the programme without him, playing splendidly – overtures to I vespri siciliani and La forza del destino, intermezzos from Manon Lescaut, I Pagliacci and Cavalleria rusticana, the Bacchanale from Samson et Delila and the winsome Meditation from Thaïs (lovely solo from concertmaster Laura Hamilton).

Daughter Dora, possibly to be provocative, said she enjoyed their pieces most in the concert.

Of course, Jonas was there too, in excellent voice, providing clear evidence of why he has emerged as the leading tenor of our day – voice bright with a baritonal tinge, together with an unusually total command to the Italian and French styles, as well as his native Austro-German.

The audience bayed its approval, the standing ovation lasting some twenty-five minutes and interrupted by four gratefully received encores, the final one rendered in German, then English – ‘You are my heart’s delight’.

We had tickets for this take-out-a-mortgage event courtesy of our two New Best Friends in Sydney, to whom grateful thanks.

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of… America?

Not that I go as much as I used to, but I don’t ever recall a spontaneous standing ovation at a straight play in a British theatre before. This is what happened at the Old Vic in London last Friday for Kevin Spacey’s Richard III.

I say Spacey’s because it was very much his show. Stanislavsky said, “There are no small roles, only small actors,” but in this case, the rest of the cast were seriously in the shadow of Spacey’s masterly performance. By contrast, Laurence Olivier’s 1955 film was a Who’s Who of outstanding British actors of that time.

One factor that will have led inexorably up to the ovation was his extraordinary declamation, close to the end of the play, of “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” Dramatic magic.

Does the ovation happen after every performance? I guess so. Does it betoken a change in the usually somewhat restrained response of audiences in Britain? Was the audience packed with Americans (who do this sort of thing rather as a matter of politeness)? Or is it simply the result of Shakespeare's genius and Spacey’s great acting skill?

One last question. Before Maestro Spacey, when was the last time a great American actor came to live and work in Britain, making such a tremendous contribution?