THE FIREWORK-MAKER'S DAUGHTER

THE FIREWORK-MAKER'S DAUGHTER

Royal Opera at the Linbury Studio

29.12.2015



Philip Pullman's charming tale is set in a non-specific Orient. A fairy story of elephants, mountains and fireworks. Like all the best stories, it has something to say to everyone; the young children and the adults in the audience equally enchanted.
The novella, now 30 years old, has also been a successful play, and now it is a proper opera, with music by David Bruce and a libretto by Glyn Maxwell.
John Fulljames's colourful production is deliberately, delightfully simple – shadow puppets [by Indefinite Articles] on all sorts of screens, OHP projections, and some stunning costumes. All to relate the adventures of feisty proto-feminist Lila – the girl who never gives up. She's desperate to follow in the firework-making footsteps of her ageing father Lalchand. He's unwilling to pass on skills and trade secrets, so Lila embarks on a quest to find the fire-fiend. She's joined by her friend Chulak, by Hamlet the white elephant, and by the optimistic, kind-hearted pirate Rambashi.
In the end, of course, father and daughter are reconciled, Hamlet finds his long lost love Frangipani, and Lalchand's fireworks win the day.
Bruce's fine, bright score – infused by eastern influences - gives many opportunities to the young singers, accompanied by CHROMA with Alice Farnham conducting. Lalchand – sung when I saw the show by Nicholas Merryweather – has a lovely aria to his daughter. Most of the lyrical lines are given to Lila herself – the excellent Lauren Fagan [seen this year in Orpheus by candlelight] – and to the elephant, beautifully done by American counter-tenor Tai Oney. Peter Kirk brings a cheeky charm to the elephant boy Chulak, and Ross Ramgobin is the audience favourite as Rambashi, not to mention the King, complete with stilts, fingernails and the flashiest frock in the show.
The evening is crammed with inventive inspiration, starting with the Linbury foyer, with fly-away powder, Firework cupcakes and rockets in the ceiling. The Echoes on Cruel Mountain, Hamlet's billboard bottom, and the firework competition at the end, with Herr Puffenflasch using sand, Signor Scorcini oil, to finger-paint the pyrotechnics before our eyes.

It all feels refreshingly hand-made. A taste of the lyric stage for the ROH's youngest opera-goers, and a timely reminder that magic can be made without microphones or electronics of any kind.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

The Royal Opera in the Linbury Theatre

17.06.13

How to make an opera out of Oscar's "trivial comedy" ?

In this, the first staged production [semi-staged, I'd have said], there are at least four strands, sometimes complementary, sometimes contradictory: the words, the music, the adaptation and the direction.

It's a sell-out run for the Linbury, and the audience is quick to laugh at the wit of the original [in anticipation, on occasion, a notorious shortcoming of surtitles]. There's wit in Gerald Barry's score, too, with Auld Lang Syne variated, German song referenced several times [Lady B approves of lieder], and nice G&S capering for a reprise of "What Can I Do?". Wilful pauses, clever punctuation, and for Cecily's duet with Gwendolen, augmented percussion including those forty notorious china plates.

Would Wilde have approved ? Probably. He may well have recognised something of himself in Alan Ewing's excellent "Aunt Augusta" – florid and pin-striped. One person who would have loved it is the Dadaist Tristan Tzara, who appears as Jack Worthing in Stoppard's Travesties. The subversive nonsense would have appealed – Lane [Simon Wilding, stalking his betters] peeling a cucumber, the food fights, Algie's red sneakers spotlit as the piece opens.

Ramin Gray has decided to set this in the present day – as if the rebarbative music were not dislocation enough – so Algie is listening to the piano on his iPod, and the Army Lists are googled on everyone's smartphone.

The actors, dressed so as almost to blend in with the audience, sit in row A when they're not on.

Character work to match the brilliance of Ewing's aunt from Hilary Summers as Prism in purple, pursued by her muscular Christian Chasuble, cycle helmet and sandals [Geoffrey Dalton].

Benedict Nelson [the Barber at ENO earlier this year] is a cool Algie, especially in his Bunbury clothes, and gives a confident interpretation of the score – for example in his Cucumber Sandwiches duet with Paul Curievici's Ernest. Plenty of musical humour from the girls, too, starting their tea-time encounter on loud-hailers: Ida Falk Winland as a shrill bespectacled Cecily, Stephanie Marshall an amorous, elegant Gwendolen.

The orchestra, sharing the black raked steps of the stage with the singers, is the superb Britten Sinfonia, under Tim Murray. As well as negotiating the tricky score, they're called on to stamp and shout out dialogue. They rise to the occasion very impressively.

debris on the stage as we go into Act III - the view from our "box" at the Linbury ...

WIND IN THE WILLOWS

WIND IN THE WILLOWS

Linbury Studio at the Royal Opera House

22.12.12

Last show of the year, 180^th audience I've joined in 2012, and a special treat, the chance to catch up at last with Will Tuckett's enchanting Wind in the Willows deep under the Royal Opera House in the Linbury Studio.

Loads of very young children in the audience, and they loved it, despite very few concessions being made to tender years. There was a literate, poetical narrative [written by Andrew Motion, no less, pastoral often, but with urgent Night Mail rhythms for the exciting dénouement] and plenty of theatrical magic – butterflies on mittens, snowfall on the stalls for the carol singing, and a wardrobe which disgorged the river. And through the wardrobe, not Narnia but Toad's gypsy caravan. The police pursuit of the errant Mr Toad, in his little motor, was conducted through the crowded foyer in the interval ...

The storyteller was Kenneth Grahame himself [Anthony McGill], guiding us through the story and watching it unfold from his favourite armchair in the attic.

The music, played by a chamber ensemble, was inspired by George Butterworth, composed by Martin Ward and conducted by Tim Murray. There were songs, as well as dance, a pantomime dame for the Gaoler's Daughter, even some Morris Dance work with handkerchiefs, and all the unforgettable characters from the riverbank.

Will Kemp was a superb Ratty, pipe clenched between his teeth, nicely contrasted with Clemmie Sveass's modest, myopic Mole. Tom Woods made a wise old Badger, and Cris Penfold's Toad was an amazing creation, assuming a brilliant physical persona which exactly matched the character Grahame's created. All the creatures were much more human than animal; just a hint of make-up, a suggestion of fur. The weasels were strutting teddyboys, the stoats, and the judge, beautifully animated puppets.

The whole experience held us all – from the tiniest to the most cynical – enthralled, captivated by this Edwardian fantasy fable – "a world at once impossible and true".