The Holland Festival, 1954

This year, as last, the Holland Festival was particularly strong on the operatic side. One could pick and choose between offerings from La Scala, Milan, and the Netherlands Opera; Rossini's La Cenerentola from the Italians, Otello, Die Zauberflöte and Janáček's last and posthumous opera Aus Einem Totenhaus from the Dutch. To take the Netherlands contributions first, and, in some unhappy respects, least, one must record the fact that Holland's Die Zauberjlöte was not at all up to festival standards, by no means as accomplished as 1953's Figaro, or Freischütz even. Singing was scratchy (neither Vroons/Tamino nor Adèle Leigh/Pamina was very adequate), the production (Georg Hartmann's) did not hang together, and, at the performance I witnessed, the ugly scenery (Emil Preetorius's) was suspended all crooked and awry. Perhaps it was that I chanced on a particularly unfortunate occasion (Gebouw voor K. en W., The Hague, 6th July) when the malice of inanimate objects—always a force to be reckoned with—would have despoiled any producer's plans, however well-laid. Nevertheless, the odd gremlin or two would not altogether explain the waste of inferior singing which depressed our ears, or justify an eccentric experiment of the conductor, Professor Josef Krips, who had the Three Boys impersonated by three boys. Even more astounding than the sight of these night-gowned infants—they each looked like a Christopher Robin about to fall down stairs—was the excruciating and unprecedentedly unmusical sounds they produced. It was the most complete massacre of Mozart's music I have yet come across.