THE LIGHT SHINES ON: THE TELEPHONE (Edinburgh International Festival/Scottish Opera)****

 

By Louise

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkdksRstd80

Available until: Unknown

The Edinburgh International Festival isn’t officially happening this year. Like the Proms, the Glyndebourne Festival and almost every other live performance, it was cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic. However, also like the Proms and Glyndebourne and many others, the Edinburgh International Festival didn’t want to leave its fans with nothing to watch this year, so they have filmed quite a few different performances which we can enjoy at home. The series is called The Light Shines On and there are a lot of different videos for us to enjoy.

The Telephone by Gian Carlo Menotti is a very short opera which is just twenty-five minutes long. It was written in 1947, but it has been updated to the present day so instead of just talking on the phone, the characters send text messages, which are flashed up on the screen so we can read them too. I think this is a brilliant way to start because when I watch these videos, I’m usually really missing live performance, but the first thing they’ve done here is to do something that couldn’t be easily achieved live onstage. So straight away, this production is saying that although there is no live theatre and it is very sad, they are going to make the most of the resources they do have. I think this is a really positive attitude to have and something we can all relate to as we’ve all had to do it.

The production is filmed in the bar of the King’s Theatre in Edinburgh, so it’s a film and theatre at the same time. It starts with Lucy (Soraya Mafi) sitting in the bar, exchanging text messages with Ben (Jonathan McGovern) as the music plays (luckily, her phone is quieter than most people’s so we can still hear the music). It could have felt like an intrusion to show images over the overture, but it doesn’t because everything we see really suits the music.

Not everything quite works in a modern context. Perhaps, if they’d had a little bit more time, they could have made changes so it makes more sense – it might not be possible to update the language because of copyright (young people don’t really call each other ‘dear’), but the call where Lucy claims to be too ill to go out doesn’t need to take place on Face Time, which would probably show clearly that she’s in a bar rather than at home. (Unless this was meant to be ironic.)

However, some things work better – it seems silly for Lucy to tell Ben her number when they’re talking on the phone and he was the one who called her so he obviously already knows her number. But with smartphones, it makes more sense for Ben to memorise it so he can still contact her if he loses or damages his phone or it runs out of charge or there’s no reception.

The basic story worked with the updating and it really makes more sense to meet in a bar because there is likely to be a bar very close to the station. There is a barmaid in the scene too, but this doesn’t spoil the intimacy of the conversation at all – it’s lovely that someone is supporting the couple and Lucy and Ben both have times in the opera where they could do with an ally.

I think this story is also very good at demonstrating why it might be better to turn your phone off when you’re on a date because they always ring when you don’t want them to. (Of course, when you’re actually waiting for a call, they go so completely silent, you start worrying about the battery and the reception.) But I think switching a phone off is one way of stopping some of the tricks phones can play.

The music is really beautiful. It’s unusual to find such a tuneful opera from as late as 1947. There are obviously some wonderful composers from the 20^th and 21^st century and they don’t really sound tuneless to me because I’ve heard a lot of modern operas and you do learn to identify the tunes, but modern classical music tends not to be immediately accessible to new audiences. I wouldn’t be sure about recommending most modern operas to anyone who was completely new to opera or who hadn’t seen many modern productions. But this is a modern opera I feel like I could recommend.

Soraya Mafi sings Lucy and she really is an outstanding singer. This opera really asks a lot of the soprano – she’s a lyric soprano one minute and a coloratura soprano the next. She needs to do comedy and (to her mind anyway) tragedy. Soraya Mafi seems able to sing anything and her voice is really beautiful. Her acting is excellent too. She portrays Lucy’s emotions really well. Lucy is a little bit of a drama queen, but she’s so sweet and lovely at the same time. I can understand why Ben loves her.

Ben doesn’t have as many vocal challenges as Lucy and he has a lot less to sing than she does. But in some ways, that makes the role of Ben more difficult because every singer wants to make an impression as a performer and that’s more difficult when one character has vocal acrobatics and the other doesn’t. But I thought Jonathan McGovern did a really good job. He has a beautiful smooth baritone and he’s brilliant at showing Ben’s feelings. He’s adoring and frustrated at the same time and I think a lot of people would find it difficult to show both emotions at once.

I really enjoyed this a lot and it would be lovely if Scottish Opera filmed some more short operas or even just extracts.