ZAR UND ZIMMERMAN, John Lewis Partnership Theatre, Oxford Street, London, 4 May 1979.

I approached this production with great excitement, at last a chance to hear in its entirety one of Lortzing's operas. Lortzing, I had heard, was the German equivalent of G&S, and the nearest approach to G&S any country outside England had ever produced. Albert Lortzing (1801-1851) wrote 14 operas (exactly the same number as Gilbert and Sullivan, if you include Thespis). Zar und Zimmerman (King and Carpenter) was his fourth and was first performed at the Municipal Theatre, Leipzig on 22 Dec. 1837. Of the composer, Grove's dictionary says:- "He is as popular in Germany still as Sullivan in Britain, but has not the Savoy master's versatility, rhythmic resource, skill in contrapuntal combination or variety in the imitation or parody of styles. Sullivan has wit and satire as well as humour; Lortzing only humour of a blunter and more obvious kind ... Lortzing has a good deal more in common with Balfe than with Sullivan”. All I had previously known of Z & Z was a series of recorded excerpts. This production proved to me several things.

The G&S analogy has a certain amount of truth, but it is, nevertheless, misleading. Anyone going to Z & Z expecting to hear a G&S opera, would be disappointed. The libretto has nothing of Gilbert's satire and wit, though the principal character in the piece, the comical Burgomaster of Saardam, might have stepped in straight from a G&S opera (save that he is a bass, not a light baritone). His justly famous aria, "O sancta justitia" is a piece of pure Rossini, but with overtones of a G&S patter song. Sullivan is much more in evidence and one suspects that he must have been influenced by the music of Lortzing, which he possibly heard when in Leipzig. The plot of the opera centres around Tsar Peter the Great who takes a job as carpenter in a Dutch shipyard. The opera received a a superb performance from John Lewis Partnership, excellently staged and dressed. Clive Rearing conducted skilfully and with vitality. As the Burgomaster, Richard Robson worked very hard in a difficult role and achieved a personal success, taking in his stride problems such as dropping his hat and handkerchief (several times) and breaking his baton when conducting the choir in the hymn of welcome to the Tsar. Clive Harré as the Tsar had a firm and mellow tone and Dennis Hooker as the French Ambassador acted well, even if his voice was not excessively beautiful. This was certainly the best performance I have seen at John Lewis since Der Vampyr in 1976. MICHAEL WALTERS

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