The 1960 Festival did without the usual exhibit of crafts, which are frankly peripheral anyway. But I must protest the exclusion of photography, which was such an outstanding part of the 1959 Festival. Photog- raphy is certainly an "art," even if not on such a high level as the other acknowledged arts.
Orestes Revisited
The Festival's stage events--encompassing music, dance, and the spoken word--were particularly rewarding this year. The play offering was the New England premiere of Jack Richardson's The Prodigal, which has been enjoying acclaim and a long run in New York this season. Written during a fellowship to Europe when the author was still in his early twenties, the drama is a retelling of the ancient Orestes story. It is indeed a distinguished script, except for the last few minutes, which, with direct address to the audience, constitute a serious miscalculation. The production by the Charles Playhouse, under Michael Murray's direction, was little more than adequate; and only Pauline Flanagan, as Clytemnestra, provided a wholly satisfactory performance.
Devotion and Debauchery
The Lexington Choral Society, supported by the Festival Orchestra, devoted its concert, under the direction of Allen Lannom, to two major works: Vaughan Williams' Dona Nobis Pacem, and Orff's Carmina Burana. Acting on his premonition of World War II, Vaughan Williams wrote his cantata in 1936, in which he fashioned his text from a phrase of the Roman Mass, sizable excerpts from Walt Whitman (who is full of superlative choral texts), and bits from John Bright and the Bible. Composed with a knowing hand, it lacked only vitality in performance.
Orff's Carmina consists of settings of two dozen medieval Latin and German poems on the subjects of fate, spring, drinking, gambling, and love. All the performers summoned plenty of vitality, and there was fine solo singing by Aletha Munro, soprano; Robert Patterson, bass; and Charles A. Campbell, tenor. The audience was wild in its approval. Personally, however, I found that this work does not wear well at all. It is monotonous, and its unvaried strophic repetitions soon become tiring. Only in the short, lyrical "In Trutina" (No. 21), for soprano solo, did Orff touch greatness.
Entrancing Entrechats
For its four ballet evenings, the Festival presented a company headed by Andre Eglevsky (who had also performed at the 1956 and 1958 Festivals). Paired up with Melissa Hayden, the two demonstrated their renowned artistry in pas de deux from Tchaikovsky's Black Swan and Delibe's Sylvia. The pleasantest surprise was the dancing of young Edward Villella; his entrechats were breathtaking, and his consummate general control clearly places him on the verge of a noble career. Most of the dancers in the company were from the New York City Ballet. Among the other items on the program was the world premiere of Soiree Musicale--music by Rossini as arranged by Benjamin Britten, with mediocre choreography by John Taras.
A New Shrew
Three evenings were given over to performances of Vittorio Giannini's comic opera The Taming of the Shrew. Composed in 1953, it proved to be one of the finest operas yet written by a native American. The libretto uses only words from Shakespeare: the text of Shrew, a speech from Romeo and Juliet, and some lines from the Sonnets. Unlike the Cole Porter musical comedy version of the play, Kiss Me, Kate, Giannini has given equal weight to the two pairs of lovers in the original tale--Katherina and Petruchio, Bianca and Lucentio. The result is a highly dramatic and serviceable opera libretto.
Musically, Giannini's work is eclectic and often reverts to an almost 19th-century style. Yet the music is no hodge-podge; everything works, and everything is appropriate. It is heartening to find a composer willing to write for the voice as though it were something besides an instrument. Vocally, the score is in the Verdi-Puccini tradition; orchestrally, it recalls most frequently the sonorities of Richard Strauss, especially of Rosenkavalier. Giannini did not shy away from penning a beautiful, lush love duet for each pair of lovers. The first act has a fugal trio that can take its place with the finale fugue in Verdi's Falstaff; and the third act has a masterly vocal sextet.
Essentially, the production was the same as that given at New York's City Center. The staging and settings were exemplary. Julius Rudel conducted with complete authority; and the singers--headed by Gail Manners, Walter Cassel, Dolores Mari, and Robert Williams--were uniformly excellent down to the smallest part. In all, a stunning production of an important addition to the American operatic repertory.
Breath, Brass, and Brawn
The program for the final evening was called "Music for a Festival." The two participating groups, performing both separately and together, were the Chorus Pro Musica, conducted by Alfred Nash Patterson; and the Festival Brass Ensemble, conducted by John Corley. Both bodies displayed some raggedness, but on the whole performed well indeed. The first half of the program was devoted to 17th-century music by Buxtehude, Purcell, Monteverdi and others; the second half offered 20th-century works by Hindemith, Rachmaninoff, two Harvard-connected composers -- Walter Piston and Daniel Pinkham--and others. The most unusual part of the program came with Jacques Casterede's settings of three proclamations of Napoleon (well narrated by Robert Brooks), winding up with an over-whelming musical representation of the Battle of Waterloo for brass and full percussion.
In my review of the 1959 Festival, I urged the use of a concerted brass ensemble as an effective outdoor medium, after the predictable failure of setting puny strings afloat on a swanboat in the lagoon. Now that the brass proved so successful on the Festival stage, let's have a brass ensemble on a floating swanboat next year.
Included among other events that I was unable to attend were: Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Robert Lowell, winner of the 1960 Festival Poetry Prize, reading from his own works; an evening of international folk dances and folk music; two evenings of jazz, with Woody Herman an other soloists; and several lectures on the art exhibits.
Hopefully, the officers will solve during the coming year the problem of getting the best paintings submitted and chosen, decide to reinstate photography, and maintain a high standard in the stage offerings--in order to make the decennial Festival of 1961 a fitting milestone in Boston's cultural life