<<  -- 4 --  Roderic Dunnett    DRAMATIC TABLEAUX

We never really find out. At the close it is Christ who calls (not sings) 'whom do you seek?' -- the words uttered at the Garden of Gethsemane, where in effect the action began (the point is underlined by a glimpse down the time tunnel of the garden -- not clearly visible from all parts of the auditorium - and by a triple tableau, brilliantly depicted abovestage in pre-Raphaelite styling), before a final, and slightly incongruous, cock-crow. Incongruous, because although it serves well to remind us, the audience, that we too may be betrayers, it confuses the time frame. Onstage, we have been moving forward -- the disciples' foregathering, the footwashing, the supper itself, and the betrayal -- hence Peter's denials (not depicted, but Geoffrey Moses's Simon Peter was among the many fine vocal contributions) should be the next event. The 'retrograde' tableau above, however (using real life figures : they might be the very models from Holman Hunt's studio) has regressed from Crucifixion via the Via Crucis (or Route to Calvary) to the Betrayal. The last event in this reversed 'upper' scenario is Judas's kiss. By which time, in reverse, the cock-crow has already happened.  For this reason not least, the opera's ending feels marginally -- and only that -- incongruous and unsatisfactory.

What should, at both levels, be the termination -- Judas's kiss -- points to the central role the self-hanged, despised betrayer plays in the action. It is Judas on whom our attention is constantly focused; Judas whose rejection by the self-righteous eleven in an extended opening scene make us bridle with distaste and disquiet. Have they not forgiven him yet, even with all the benefit of hindsight? Fortunately Thomas Randle is particularly talented at playing the scapegoat : above all, Birtwistle endows him with some of the most lyrical passages in the opera -- his cor anglais-led aria 'I looked upon his silver face and wept/Red-rose-red on the tree of Time' is one of the loveliest passages in the entire evening : one can see why such lines appealed to Birtwistle the setter of 13th century verse. 

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