Lammermuir Festival: ‘The View from The Villa’
We weren’t quite sure what we were going to get on the last Sunday afternoon of the Lammermuir festival, not least because the festival failed to produce its normal programme sheet. Was it a recital, was it a drama? The answer we discovered was that it was a musical comedy and very funny it was too. I met a couple leaving after the show and asked them what they thought of it. ‘Well’, they said, “we will never look at Wagner the same way again, he is a bit like Boris Johnson isn’t he, a chancer!” “Yes”, I said, “but don’t forget his music is wonderful”. Our musical comedy today was written by Ian Burnside, well known to us as a broadcaster on Radio 3, but also a fine piano accompanist and author of dramas which illustrate composers’ lives. Today it is the turn of the Wagners and the Wesendoncks, neighbours in Zurich, courtesy of Wagner’s rich patron, Otto Wesendonck who built a grand villa and installed the Wagners in a smaller house next door! As Ian Burnside in his programme notes said, “Exiled from Germany the Wagner’s were at one another’s throats bickering constantly. Mathilde was young beautiful and highly intelligent. What possibly could go wrong?”
Assisting Ian Burnside in this very entertaining musical drama was Susan Bickley, a fine mezzo soprano who very appropriately is singing Fricka in the ENO Ring Cycle this autumn. She played Mathilde Wesendonck and sang some lovely songs including one of the Wesendonck Lieder. She also played Mathilde very convincingly with some very funny lines from Ian Burnside. Mathew Brook is a very well-known singer in Scotland particularly with the Dunedin Consort. He played Otto Wesendonck very convincingly and sang well too. Completing our trio of players was actress Victoria Newlyn who teaches drama at the Guildhall Opera School and played Minna Wagner, the composer’s first wife. She had some wonderfully funny and sharp lines undermining the great man. There were interesting ideas about links between Wagner’s operas and his domestic life, which had some veracity. Also some very funny lines about Wagner’s preference for silk underwear, ironically supplied by Otto Wesendonck who traded in such goods. “I’m amused to think I’m clothing Wagner’s genitals!” The songs came from a number of German composers as well as Wagner, all expertly translated by Jeremy Sams and this meant we were able to follow the meaning of the music as well as the speech. It was all very entertaining, and the cast got a great reception from the audience. The Lammermuir Festival has yet again shown it can mount a festival, not only of very high standards, but of originality in putting on this premiere at a time of great challenge from the pandemic.
