497

Tlte GRA1J1.0PHOll'E

May 1936

adequate piece of work, but to translate i t into singable English is impossible; even to translate i t into literal English without losing the subtle flavour of the Italian is practically impossible. To take one example, when Don Alfonso is making the wager with the two credulous young lovers he asks: " Parola ?" To which Ferrando replies" Parolissima." Par'ola means literally " word," as in the French parole d'honneur. Ferrando in his reply turns i t into a comic superlative as if i t were an adjective, a trick of emphasis which is only possible in Italian and the efTect of which cannot be I'eproduced in English. There are countless l i t t le touches throughout the l ibretto of this kind and unless a critic be thoroughly familiar with colloquial Italian he cannot appreciate them; but however familiar he was he could never reproduce them in English . F Sharp in a brave attempt to achieve the impossible translates loosely in an attempt to convey the sense: "That'sdone?" "That'sdone." But, as I say, the peculiar quality of the Italian simply cannot be conveyed in English, and when this peculiar quality is lost the improbability of the plot is thereby accentuated. The Italian is polished and artificial, but at the same t ime absolutely colloquial. The English translator has to choose between the artificial and the colloquial, and i t was right to choose the latter. In any case, there has been far too much ado about this improbable plot. I f we take three of our own most famous eighteenth-century comedies-Sheridan's School for Scandal and Rir;als and Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquerare not all of these almost as improbable? Do not all three demand from an audience a willingness to enter into the fun of the thing and pretend from the front of the house that what is happening on the stage really could have happened? Remember Falkland and Lydia in The Ri(lals. Sheridan believed that Falkland was a serious contribution to realistic portraiture. Yet everyone of his speeches is an unintentional parody of the eighteenth-century sensibility at which Sheridan was laughing when he drew Lydia Languish. What is the effect to-day? Falkland seems a ranting puppet and Lydia Languish a recognisable human girl. Take the screen scene in The School for Scandal. Nothing could be more false to the spirit of the piece than Lady Teazle's change of mood when the screen is thrown down, and this change of mood is always emphasised by leading actresses, who love to overplay the emotion. In She Stoops to Conquer, which is considered so much nearer to human nature than either of the others, is i t not asking a great deal of an audience to accept the fact that young Marlowe can seriously mistake Hardcastle for an innkeeper and Kate Hardcastle for a barmaid or chambermaid?

Mr. Legge does well to quote George Meredith's defence of artificial comedy, though I fancy he might have found a better defence in Charles Lamb. He also quotes Bernard Shaw on da Ponte's l ibretto: " Quite as good plays have often been improvised in ten minutes in a drawing-room at charades or dumb crambo, but the despised book has some fun in i t ." I could retort of Man and Superman that quite as good speeches have often been improvised in ten minutes in a parish hall at debates or politi cal meetings, but Tanner makes several sensible remarks. In any case what does probability or improbability of plot matter in an opera? An audience listening to opera accepts such a gross improbability in the mere fact of everybody singing about his private affairs at the top of his voice that logical behaviour is neither expected nor desired. The balance for a work of art supplied by Don Alfonso, the elderly bass buffo, acting i.n alliance with Despina, the pert light soprano maid, excuses the absurdity of Despina's ability to disguise herself first as an old doctor and then as an elderly lawyer. It is a defiant absurdity just as i t is a defiant absurdity for the two lovers to return disguised as comic Albanians to test the fidelity of their sweethearts. Readel's will remember the huge success of the revival of The Beggar's Opera at the Lyric, Hammersmith, when Gay's sufficiently improbable operetta was made even more improbable by the deliberate ca"icature of Nigel Playfair's production. That filled the theatre for months. Cosi fan Tulle is incomparably superior from every point of view to The Beggar's Opera, and if i t had been written originally in English instead of in Italian i t might easily run fOl' as many months. But the problem of making a singable translation is beyond the solution of the most ingenious.

Mr. Legge recounts the numerous attempts which have been made to make other versions of it, mostly in German; but they have all been flat failures, and in the end if COSt fan Tutte is to occupy the stage i t will occupy i t with the much abused da Ponte's original l ibretto.

Without having had the advantage of seeing the performance at the Glyndebourne Festival I can only judge by these records and proclaim the performance to be as near perfection as one could wish. I was amazed at the skill with which Ina Souez managed her immensely difficult arias and I ,vas tickled to death by John Brownlee's classical interpret.ation of Don Alfonso, but indeed the whole cast merits the highest praise and if their acting was as good as their singing the performance must have been a joy to see.

There are forty discs altogether and I have no doubt at all but that I shall continue to find fresh delights, fresh subtleties and fresh beauties in this enchanting opera with each playing. No finer contribution has been made to the repertory of the gramophone than that provided by these three albums and I urge upon every gramophone society to open a special subscript ion to make themselves members of the Mozart Opera Society.

Echoes

When Ferrando and Guglielmo make their mock departure for the war a troup of soldiers and towns-