<<  -- 5 --  Roderic Dunnett    THE HAUNTED MANOR

By now two other characters had come to the fore. James Edwards made a youthful Miecznik : the sound he produces is still a little insecure, but at best it's gorgeous -- a slightly tenorish baritone, with beautiful tone and phrasing, and sufficent dignity for the Swordbearer's great Polonaise aria ('Here in my imagination'), a crucial moment where both the conductor, David MacDonald, and soloist seemed to hit on exactly the right pacing. Miecznik's exposition, 'l00 years ago', was another instance of excellent harmonising between stage and pit.

The other was William Molesworth's elderly suitor, a crabby Rossinian spoof named Damazy : a nice if slightly croky tenor voice, and a wonderful piece of characterisation -- gloriously venomous ('May they both be struck by lightning'), fretful, inventively mischievous, archly sly, hilariously outwitted, brilliantly moved by Gilpin and rightly a hit with the audience. Damazy and Czesnikova are the past that has to be shaken off in this opera; Miecznik, the past that looks ahead. The visual build-up from the first eye-contact between the pairs of girls and their beaux and the musical build from quartet to sextet to nonet plus chorus -- an undoubted masterpiece -- were superbly managed, both visually phased and musically phrased with insight and feeling.

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