THE TAMING OF THE SHREW

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW

Shakespeare's Globe and the Bolshoi Ballet

03.08.2016


Two Shrews on the same day, with little in common save [some] characters and the bare bones of the plot.
The Globe's new production, set in Ireland one hundred years ago, the time of the Easter Rising, seeks to add emancipation to the mix. Stylish costumes in subdued tones; the company's shoes, untenanted, face upstage at the start – they are discarded again before the jig at the end.
Caroline Byrne's production paints a grimly patriarchal world – her Kate – a strong Aoife Duffin - begins as a rough fighter, but ends broken and bowed by Edward MacLian's rudesby Petruchio. The all-Irish cast includes many impressive performances, not least the lively servants – all played by women, including Helen Norton as a lugubrious Grumio, and superb comedy from Imogen Doel and Molly Logan, capturing to perfection the mischievous charm of the boy apprentices. Amy Conroy has a nice double as the Tailor, and the Widow, given a signficant presence throughout the piece.
An Irish band provides an atmospheric underscore.
This is an uncompromising, often darkly violent production, which is a timely reminder that the themes beneath the comedy are still sadly relevant here and now.
A very different Katherine in Jean Christophe Maillot's ballet for the Bolshoi, though she does suffer a wintry journey and a hard bed. But she is subjugated, or seduced, in that same bed, with an agitated Grumio [Georgy Gusev] adjusting the wayward sheets.
Set to a tuneful assortment of Shostakovich – Tahiti Trot for the wedding feast – Maillot's choreography is witty and slick. Impeccably danced by Bolshoi stars Ekaterina Krysanova and Vladislav Lantratov as the Shrew and her tamer, with his shaggy mane and overcoat. Olga Smirnova is a gauche, demure Bianca, with Semyon Chudin as her lover Lucentio – they have a delightful Gadfly pas-de-deux in Act One.

The design, by Ernest Pignon-Ernest – stark, geometric and white, save for Bianca's blue and Kate's green – could well have been done in Shostakovich's lifetime, rather than just two years ago. Another stylish touch is the enigmatic prologue in which the Housekeeper [!?] teasingly trades heels for pointe shoes, warming up as the large orchestra – xylophones and saxes – is tuning up.

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.

ORPHEUS

ORPHEUS

Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

30.10.2015

Rossi's Orfeo was one of the first operas to be staged in France. Like many other operatic versions, it explores the ancient myth of the musician who loves Eurydice and loses her in the Underworld.

But Orpheus's fatal backward glance is only one element in a complex plot which gives comic prominence to Eristeus, rival suitor to Eurydice. Before the tragedy of the final act there's much comic fun to be had from mortals and gods in Christopher Cowell's witty, sometimes earthy, new translation.

The intimate, candle-lit stage, despite its restrictions, sees some excellent movement and dance, as well as some stunning stage effects, all of them authentically low-tech. The wedding feast plunged into darkness, Venus flying down, the red thread spun by the Fates. Keith Warner is the inventive director.

Musically, the piece has been sidelined by Monteverdi, Gluck and others, but there is some gorgeous arioso work, as well as choruses and instrumentals – Christian Curnin and the Early Opera orchestra are up in the gallery as they were for last year's L'Ormindo. Music and drama fuse most successfully, perhaps, in Orpheus' lament, powerfully wordless at first. There's a gorgeous duet for the lovers at the end of Act One, too.

I was lucky enough to hear two Orpheuses [?Orphei]. Mary Bevan's rich tone particularly moving in the final act. For the early performances, a throat infection meant that the title role was entrusted to Siobhan Stagg, who gave an engaging performance that was remarkably polished both dramatically and vocally. The other castrato role – Aristeus – was excellently done by Caitlin Hulcup, seizing every opportunity the score and the translation offer. Both Hulcup and Bevan, in the gentle candle-light, could well pass for counterfeit counter-tenors. The boy Cupid, too, is brilliantly convincing in Keri Fuge's cheeky characterization. Louise Alder is a strong Eurydice, Sky Ingram a splendidly elegant Venus. Graeme Broadbent brings his rich bass and comedic flair to Pluto and the Satyr.

This early opera, originally twice the length, and conceived for a much bigger stage, fits well into the Jacobean jewel-case of the SWP. It is a considerable achievement to give 21^st century audiences a sense of what it might have been like to experience this experimental music drama back in 1647, and more importantly, of how gloriously enjoyable it might have been.

APOLLO and A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

APOLLO and A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Mariinsky Ballet at the Royal Opera House

09.08.14

This generous double bill celebrates the work of George Balanchine, who began as a dancer with the Mariinsky [then the Imperial Russian Ballet] at the age of 11.

The neo-classical Apollo, to Stravinsky's string music – the orchestra here directed by Gavriel Heine – tells of the birth of Apollo, who leads the three muses up to Mount Parnassus.

A youthful team, with the British dancer Xander Parish as the god, finding his feet, like a newborn fawn, and interacting beautifully with the three muses in the Pas d'Action. His Terpsichore is the wonderful Kristina Shapran, an engaging, playful interpretation.

The Dream, Balanchine's first original full-length ballet, is a very traditional beast indeed [compared, say, with Ashton's Dream, or David Nixon's Flying Scotsman version for Northern Ballet]. It's Shakespeare as the Victorians liked it, with Mendelssohn's music, splendid costumes, fairies with diaphanous wings and lots of tiny sprites filling the stage.

But much of the Bard's magic remains, with a Tudor “Indian Boy” and a muscular, mischievous Puck from Grigory Popov, getting a well-deserved kick up the bum from Timur Askerov's impressive Oberon. The mechanicals, each with their attribute, like a saint, get a look-in too, though their “tedious brief comedy” is axed in favour of extended tights-and-tutus wedding dances for Act II, where the lovers, colour-coded midnight blue and scarlet, join immortals, nobility and the divertissement for an impeccable showcase of classical choreography. And, right at the end, back to the text, with Robin sweeping the dust behind the door at fairytime and flying off into the star-studded Midsummer Night.

The Mariinsky – more familiar to some of us as the Kirov – are widely regarded as the keepers of the flame, global ambassadors from the home of Russian ballet. A real treat to see them – the seasoned principals, the young stars and the unrivalled corps de ballet – in this tribute to Balanchine, the first time this 2012 Dream has left its homeland.

photograph of Xander Parish as Apollo: Valentin Baranovsky

view of the Dream curtain call from our perch in the gods ...

L'ORMINDO

L'ORMINDO

Royal Opera and Shakespeare's Globe at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

28.03.2014

The latest show to road test the candelit intimacy of this new Jacobean space is a fresh new version of Cavalli's baroque panto. It boasts a new English libretto by Christopher Cowell – hard to see how surtitles could fit here – and in this ideal acoustic every syllable is clearly heard.

Every orifice of the theatre is used, including the trap and the fly-tower, from which Destiny and Music descend singing, the latter to give a witty new prologue to the piece.

Casper Holten's production has plenty of sight gags and slapstick, the Venetian period costumes are a feast for the eyes, but it's the glorious singing [though not much of the score is in the Monteverdi league] that make this such a memorable evening: the four young lovers – really young, not just in operatic terms – are outstanding.

In the musician's gallery, Christian Curnyn's period band add further authenticity, but if we're thinking original instruments, chief credit must surely go to the playhouse itself …

production photograph of Harry Nicoll as Eryka ©Alastair Muir

THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS

THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS

Royal Opera House at the Duchess Theatre

25.01.14

Covent Garden's Christmas treat transferred to the West End [a first, this, I think] and starring the inimitable Tony Robinson [in his first stage role in ages]. As last year down in the LinburyStudio, it is a magical production combining dance, music and narration.

The avuncular Robinson, as magician/author Kenneth Grahame, seems very much at home in his attic study, gesturing with his wand/pen as he sketches the characters.

Robinson's is an engaging performance, sharing the dream with his young audience; the final envoi is particularly moving.

All the other characters make their mark – Will Kemp is still Ratty, the boat-man, Cris Penfold's Toad is green with envy when he sees his first motor car, and there's a lovely Jailor's Daughter from Ewan Wardrop, hoofing it to folk tunes from A Shropshire Lad.

Like all of Martin Ward's evocative music, this is skilfully adapted from the oeuvre of George Butterworth, whose work is so redolent of the Edwardian world Grahame conjures up.

The poetical narration, by former Laureate Andrew Motion, is sometimes wordy, occasional clunky, but at its best – aping Auden for the train, say, or reaching out to the child in us all at the end – it is a superb gloss on a familiar much-loved story.

So let them rise again! Let time roll back 
And sunlight, not this graveyard-attic-light, 
But silken early sunlight ripple down! 
Let Mole peep from his burrow 
At the sudden brazenness, and Otter 
And the whole quick rabbit-clan! 
Let Ratty paddle into view, and let 
His river-currents play at fast and loose! 
Let Toad Hall stand there on its eminence! 
Yes let all this return! Return, and live 
As new and easy as the warming wind 
Which - listen! - strikes the willow-wands and draws 
A shower of music from their silver strings. 

THE FLAMES OF PARIS

THE FLAMES OF PARIS

Bolshoi Ballet at the Royal Opera House

17.08.13

An odd relic, this, first staged in Stalin's time, and revived in this century with a slightly different take on the revolutionary struggle.

On Saturday afternoon, we didn't even have the superstellar pyrotechnics of Osipova and Vasiliev to cheer. Nonetheless, there were many incidental pleasures, not least the handling of Asafiev's undistinguished score by the Bolshoi band under Pavel Sorokin [exquisite viola solo for the pas de deux].

The setting was monumental, with girdered tenements in the wings for Act Two, with acres of space for the interminable divertissements which ended each act. In the first, in the decadent court at Versailles, there was much traditional choreography, and nods to Lully in the music, with a nice minuet for Marie Antoinette [Olga Tubalova]. After the all-too-brief toppling of the ancien régime, with some of the best choreography for the excellent crowd scenes, the stage was cleared again for dances of rejoicing, including much crowd-pleasing athleticism from Valdislav Lantratov's Philippe.

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 ...

LA BOHEME

LA BOHEME

Royal Opera House Covent Garden

02.03.12

Why is John Copley's atmospheric Boheme still in the repertoire some forty years after it was created ? Could it be that, with Julia Trevelyan's sumptuous design, it is in many ways a definitive, if traditionalist take on Puccini's classic weepy ?

A packed March matinée certainly loved it. We had a good, if not stellar, cast. Anita Hartig, making her ROH début, was a wonderfully convincing Mimi, frail, vulnerable, but with a creamy, silky soprano which complemented the steely tenor of Rodolfo Teodor Ilincai. No stranger to this role [he appears on the DVD on sale in the interval] he makes a sprightly young student, singing with power and panache whether seated, standing or supine.

Musetta, striking in orange against the subdued colours of the students, was seductively sung by Sonya Yoncheva, and Marco Vinco, as Colline, made a touching farewell to his coat in Act IV.

Nicely rendered by Kenneth Chalmers' surtitles: “poets and philosophers passed through your peaceful pockets”.

The staging was unfussy but often eloquent and entertaining. The impressionist snowy morning in the Inn Yard, the split level garret for artist, musician, philosopher and poet, and the Café Momus, with its sommelier, its billiard table and the busy boulevard outside. This second act, with all its bustle and incident, was staged with a sure touch and masterly focus; Act IV, with its lively physical opening and its sombre, tragic ending, was a superb blend of music and drama.

Alexander Joel conducted with obvious enthusiasm, without a score, and brought the best out of the orchestra. Puccini seems to use all his melodic fire power in the first half hour, with familiar arias and duets jostling each other. But then those themes return to haunt their singers, and to remind us of happier days before the heartbreak.

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".