AT COVENT GARDEN
HE adroit use of commentary, in the programme on Britten’s Gloriana, enabled the listener to imagine something of the glittering magnificence that must have filled the vast Covent Garden stage with scenes of tented field or pillared ballroom. It was enough, at least, to make one understand that the spectacle would make al! the difference: for the opera itself, heard (as it were) with the eyes shut, seemed patchy going, sometimes broad and exciting, sometimes thin and dull. Britten can write a tune, and is an inventive orchestrator: but can it be that his real talent is for "chamber orchestra" on the scale of Peter Grimes or Lucrece, and that it is here over-extended? Or was it that pall of reverential dullness that descends on all (except Mr. Hugh Ross Williamson) when they set out to glorify Gloriana? Or is the best opera, in any case, raised on foundations of nonsense — either a nonsensical fairytale like The Magic Flute or roaring melodrama like JI T'ro-vatore’-but that, of course, leaves out Boris Godounoy, In any case, it was wise of the NZBS to give us a second héaring of Gloriana within a short interval.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19531211.2.18.1
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 752, 11 December 1953, Page 10
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196AT COVENT GARDEN New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 752, 11 December 1953, Page 10
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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