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London, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden: Lorin Maazel's ‘1984’

2005; UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL FLUMINENSE; Volume: 59; Issue: 234 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1017/s0040298205280300

1980-542X

Martin Anderson,

Musicology and Musical Analysis

I have had occasion to be sniffy about Lorin Maazel's music in these pages before ( Tempo No. 218), not least because of its sheer lack of profile, of any hint of individuality. So it was with exceedingly modest expectations that I took my seat for his first opera, 1984 , the world-première run of which began on 3 May. Even so, I was disappointed: no ditchwater is as dull. The basic problem is the absence of any discernible personality in what Maazel writes: the musical language of 1984 is a thin gruel boiled up from left-over Prokofiev, Copland, Bartók, Ravel, Janáček, whatever was lying around the mid-20th-century chopping-board of Maazel's memory as he put the piece together. Add a secondary deficit: there's absolutely no sense of dramatic tension – the work unfolds at the same plodding pace throughout. Now sprinkle with the kind of mistakes you might expect from a rookie operatic composer. The opening ‘Hate’ chorus, for example, revealed instantly what was going to be a recurrent difficulty: the scoring and an over-ambitious tempo combine to make the sung text difficult to understand. Maazel repeatedly doubles vocal lines in the orchestra, sacrificing their clarity.