<<  -- 3 --  Roderic Dunnett    MOLDOVAN MAGIC

And like Racovita, Materinco is still young by operatic standards. Flitting around like a particularly ugly Charles Laughton ('I know my deformity disgusts you but I too have feelings' -- a kind of ostensibly harmless echo of Canio's ominous 'The clown too is a man'), this Tonio had heart, yet also the sinisterness of a sly 12 year old, the sting of an annoyed wasp, the venom of a plotting spider; yet -- despite the chancing assault -- feels too canny for the 'bestiality' Nedda attributes to him ('your mind is as filthy as your body') : rather, an Iago, a Scarpia played buffo : playful, awesome and terrifying.

Moscow's State Circus lives on, just. Three Moldovan clowns led by the Moscow trained Ion Stanca produced some hysterically original turns -- a show in itself, and, like the efficient surtitles, a feather in Ellen Kent's cap (their act were less striking in Act II of La Bohème). The Silvio, Yuri Gisca, was not so good -- it's the weakest-sketched role anyway -- and Nedda's first aria, not helped by one of the violins' off-moments, was well received, but rendered uneven by a not too well controlled fast vibrato. The choruses throughout were phenomenally strong. There are numerous Wagnerian echoes in Pagliacci (quite apart from the through-composed structure), even though Leoncavallo had nominally shed his youthful Wagner enthusiasm; the brilliantly played two flutes, for instance, sound curiously like woodbirds.

The Harlequin costumes were as vividly dazzling as if they were were from a brand new Punch and Judy show, and the frozen tableau of the troupe of five (Canio/Pagliaccio centrestage, icy, Materinco's red mop-headed Tonio gaunt overhead, three facing, two rotated right -- a brilliantly simple piece of asymmetric stage blocking) was the kind of touch that made this worthy of the London stage.