John's Musical Blog 7

I read just the other day perhaps one of the most humerous stories that I have ever read for a very long time. It was written by Bernard Levin, and is from a book called ‘Conducted Tour’ published in 1982 by Sceptre. I first came across this brilliant man when he had a segment in the show during the sixties hosted by David Frost, ‘That Was The Week That Was’. Bernard would sit upon a high stool and deliver a monologue on his pet hates and was, apparently, twice assaulted on live TV for his views. The word is much overused these days, but Levin was truly a man of genius. He wrote brilliantly for many newsapapers, in particular The Times. He died in 2004 from Alzheimer’s.

Levin describes in his book one of his regular visits to the Theatre Royal in Wexford, in southeast Ireland. The Wexford Opera House, is an award winning modern architectural wonder, which now has expanded the seating capacity from 440 in the Theatre Royal days to over 900, and has now replaced the older building.

The annual opera festival staged there specialises in little known works, but was of enormous interest to Levin. He writes when the capacity audience was 440 and was seated in a relatively intimate atmosphere.

It tells of an evening in 1979, and I quote, 

“The Theatre Royal in Wexford holds 440; it was completely full that night, so there are, allowing for a few who have already died (it is not true, though it might well have been, that some died of laughter at the time), hardly more than four hundred people who now share, to the end of their lives, an experience from which the rest of the world, now and for ever, is excluded. When the last of us dies, the experience will die with us, for although it is already enshrined in legend, no one who was not an eye witness will ever really understand what we felt. Certainly I am aware that these words cannot convey more than the facts, and the facts, as so often and most particularly in this case, are only part, and a small part, too, of the whole truth.” The opera that night was La Vestale, by Spontini. You will be excused if you have never seen it, or even heard of it.

Levin goes on to describe how the set consisted of a platform laid over the stage and raised about a foot at the back, sloping evenly to the footlights. It was meant to look like the interior of the Temple, where burned the sacred flame, and had therefore to look like marble. The set designer had achieved a convincing alternative by covering the raised stage in Formica, which had a very slippery surface. To avoid the risk of a performer taking a tumble, the designer and the stage manager had discovered that an ample sprinking of lemon juice would make the surface sticky enough to provide a firm foothold. This had been successful throughout all rehearsals and all performances until the last performance of the Festival. Apparently during the afternoon before the final performance (which was attended by Levin), a cleaner had seen that something horrible had been spilt on the stage and had given the surface a good clean and polish before the last performance was to take place.

I will let Bernard continue with the story in his own words:

“What happened began to happen very early. The hero of the opera strides on to the stage immediately after the curtain has gone up. The hero strode; and instantly fell flat on his back. There was a murmur of sympathy and concern from the audience for his embarrassment and for the possibility that he might have been hurt; it was the last such sound that was to be heard that night, and it was very soon to be replaced by sounds of a very different nature.”

“The hero got to his feet, with considerable difficulty, and, having slid some way down the stage in falling, proceeded to stride up-stage to where he should have been in the first place; he had, of course, gone on singing throughout, for the music had not stopped. Striding up-stage, however, was plainly more difficult than he had reckoned on, for every time he took a step and tried to follow it with another, the foot with which he had taken the first proceeded to slide down-stage again, swiftly followed by its companion; he may not have known it, but he was giving a perfect demonstration of what is called marcher sur place, a graceful manoeuvre normally used in mime, and seen at its best in the work of Marcel Marceau.”

“Finding progress uphill difficult, indeed impossible, the hero wisely decided to abandon the attempt and stay where he was, singing bravely on, no doubt calculating that, since the stage was brightly lit, the next character to enter would notice him and adjust his own movements.” So it proved, in a sense, to be correct. The next person to enter was the hero’s friend and confidant, who seeing him further down stage, loyally decided to join him. Levin continues: 

“From the moment he had stepped on to the stage he had begun to slide downhill, arms semaphoring, like Scrooge's clerk on the way home to his Christmas dinner. His downhill progress was arrested by his fetching up against his friend with a thud; this, as it happened, was not altogether inappropriate, as the opera called for them to embrace in friendly greeting at that point. It did not, however, call for them, locked in each other's arms and propelled by the impetus of the friend's descent, to careen helplessly further down- stage with the evident intention of going straight into the orchestra pit.”

“On the brink of ultimate disaster they managed to arrest their joint progress to destruction and, working their way along the edge of the stage like mountaineers seeking a route round an unbridgeable crevasse, most gallantly began, with infinite pain and by a form of progress most aptly described in the title of Lenin's famous pamphlet, ‘Four Steps Forward, Three Steps Back’, to climb up the terrible hill. It speedily became clear that this hazardous ascent was not being made simply from a desire to retain dramatic credibility; it had a much more practical object. The only structure breaking the otherwise all too smooth surface of the stage was a marble pillar, a yard or so high, on which there burned the sacred flame of the rite. This pillar was embedded firmly in the stage, and it had obviously occurred to both mountaineers at once that if they could only reach it it would provide a secure base for their subsequent operations, since if they held on to it for dear life they would at any rate be safe from any further danger of sliding downhill and/or breaking their necks.”

“By this time the audience - all 440 of us - were in a state of such abandon with laughter that several of us felt that if this were to continue a moment longer we would be in danger of doing ourselves a serious internal mischief.”

At this point the chorus and the heroine appear. They flung themselves en masse into a very freely choreographed version of the skaters doing the waltz, albeit to the wrong music. The singing had never stopped for a moment and the newcomers quickly came to the conclusion as the hero and friend, namely that the pillar was the only way to remain upright and immobile. 

“Those nearest the pillar clutched it, those next nearest clutched the clutchers, those farther away still clutched those, and so on until, in a kind of daisy- chain that snaked across the stage, everybody was accommodated.”

“The condition of the audience was now one of fully extended hysteria.”

“Theologians tell us that the delights of the next world are eternal. Perhaps; but what is certain is that all earthly ones, alas, are temporary, and duly, after giving us a glimpse of the more enduring joy of Heaven that must have strengthened the devout in their faith and caused instant conversion among many of the unbelievers, the entertainment came to an end when the first act of the opera did so.”

It came to an end amid cheering that had never been heard before in an opera house, and can never hope to be heard again. In the interval, a member of the production staff walked back and forth sprinkling the stage with the precious nectar, and all knew that their happiness had come to an end.

John Argyle