Understandably, Covent Garden hungers for success, especially when Britain is going through difficult times yet again, and cultural compensations seem a morale-booster. The attempt to proclaim Stiffelio a lost masterpiece and Edward Downes (associate music director and principal conductor) a great Verdi conductor, however, should fool nobody. The premiere cannot have been so much better than the following Friday's performance, seen by this reviewer. That Verdi could sustain a whole opera even when melodic inspiration escaped him is indeed interesting, and the somber instrumental coloring and puritanical, chorale-based material are distinctive. Perhaps with a strong baritone and a plush-voiced tenor it might have jelled better.

Elijah Moshinsky's non-interventionist staging left the singers to decide what to do. Catherine Malfitano had not been given any instructions or told where to move in the graveyard scene. Word had it that José Carreras (in the title role) couldn't take direction, which seems hard to believe, since he displayed a natural reserve and dignity.

Michael Yeargan's sets supposedly indicated the transfer of the story to a U.S. Protestant community around the time of the opera's composition. There were cast-iron pillars in the pastor's main room, magnificently spacious windows down the left wall and a grand painting on the back wall of (one thinks) Christ and the woman taken in adultery. The graveyard set had a Montana glacier in the background. The denouement was visually striking: Lina fainted in front of the reading desk whence Stiffelio had delivered his Biblical text about adultery; a congregation of choristers on either side of the stage craned their necks to get a glimpse. Stankar and the blood on his wooden (or plastic) sword were embarrassing. Incredibly, Robin Leggate's Raffaele lecherously fingered the neck of the pastor's wife at the welcoming reception.

Downes conducted with wavering energy, never with the severity of address the plot invites. As Lina, Malfitano performed with passion and commitment, but without correct vocal style or alluring timbre. Baritone Gregory Yurisich was underpowered, not glowing, at the climactic top of his range and seemed young for Stankar. Vocally, Carreras worked hard, sometimes ferociously, but never quite matched the ease and buoyancy that used to characterize his work. There was firm command, though no emotional flow and phrasing; anger, though no longer pity and sweetness.

Scottish Opera followed up the daring success of Willy Decker's Giulio Cesare with Die Zauberflote, directed by Martin Duncan and designed by Ken Lee with a naive storybook atmosphere but a deconstructionist theatrical method. The result was both entertaining and thought-provoking, in part because the performers were enthusiastic and convincing under Nicholas McGegan, whose conducting was sensitive to nuance and rhythmically buoyant, probing the rhetoric of the melodies. Lee, an artist more than a stage designer, devised a marvelously fertile visual language. Duncan directed the acting more like a play than an opera, and the company rose to the challenge.

The Queen of the Night (Jennifer Rhys-Davies) was discovered, waiting to give Tamino his commission, on a vast sofa, like a phony fortune-teller. Rupert Oliver Forbes' Monostatos looked like a black cockroach who was into S&M. The contraptions he supervised for restraining the imprisoned Pamina defined his tastes, and Sarastro's later reference to seventy lashes seemed more thrill than punishment. The star performance came from Simon Keenlyside, whose Papageno had the appearance of a slightly neurotic, scarecrow-like tramp, sporting stitched-on eyebrows, pointy nose, fluffy purple suit and a parrot feather, worn Indian fashion. The baritone executed some wonderfully birdlike darting movements and a way of lifting his left foot and shaking it. Much of his part was sung standing on one leg, with lovely tone and fine modulation. Paul Nilon's Tamino weighed his words fully (in the polished, amusing Jeremy Sams translation), arguing his case and singing with clarity and legato. Susannah Waters was a young, poignant Pamina, and Gidon Saks made a straight, approachable Sarastro.

Nicholas Payne's last season as boss of Opera North in Leeds (before taking charge of the Royal Opera) has been full of goodies. ON's Tchaikovsky double bill of Yolanta and The Nutcracker, originally unveiled at the 1992 Edinburgh Festival, was reprised in January in Leeds. Martin Duncan staged the opera economically, which might have been all right if the singing and conducting had been more extravagant. Anthony Ward's designs were marvelous, especially for the ballet.

David Lloyd-Jones, ON's former music director and a Slavic-music buff, seemed pedestrian, however, in Tchaikovsky's touching tale about the blind princess who is miraculously cured. Duncan treated the piece fairly straight, though it invites plenty of psychological speculation. A bigger problem was the casting of Joan Rodgers. An attractive, sensitive singer and a lovely, touching actress, she lacked the necessary physical ebullience for the title role. Kim Begley, a useful artist, was miscast as Vaudemont, and Robert Hayward was underpowered for Robert. Other problems included a stand-in for Gwynne Howell's Rene at the performance I attended.

Tim Albery's new production of the 1884 Don Carlo (without the Fontainebleau scene) at the Grand Theatre proved a big success, though strong casting for Filippo II (John Tomlinson) and Rodrigo (Anthony Michaels-Moore) was not matched by equally secure women. The bass, crusty and passionately abrasive, contrasted affectingly with the baritone's youthful, earnest idealist. Linda McLeod did not have enough musical imagination or vocal color for Elisabetta, though she is a pleasing artist. Claire Powell's gutsy Eboli also lacked the right sort of vocal edge and intensity. Richard Burke's appropriately volcanic, neurotic Carlo, with the odd Vickers-like mannerism, did not have that tenor's length of voice and stamina. Insecurity undermined a good idea of the role.

Albery has taken to Hildegard Bechtler as his set designer, whose abstract style perhaps frees him to concentrate on character relationships. Here the collaboration worked well, with towering dun-colored walls creating claustrophobia, expressionist backcloths adding tone, and cracked distress floors forcing movement into dynamic lines. Albery played much of the intimate political drama at the front of the stage, sometimes framing a scene with a cutout front drop. The production focused firmly at ground level, apart from the striking conclusion of the auto-da-fe, which showed victims climbing a vertiginous ladder into the flies. Charles Edwards' effective lighting was characterized by extreme contrasts, and Nicky Gillibrand's costumes mixed the historically correct period with the 1840s.

The staging had stunning flashes of revelation, an impelling energy. Paul Daniel, Opera North's music director, conducted - his finest achievement to date. Robust attack, the dispatch Verdi invites, had proper foundations in the bass lines of the dramatic architecture. Daniel achieved the attentive, determined, lovely playing that is usually found only in international houses. Such quality would be rare in Germany. We may not have enough opera in Britain, but at their best, British companies can achieve the remarkable.

Copyright © 1993 The Metropolitan Opera Guild, Inc.