Opera North’s Ruddigore

Ruddigore

By Gilbert and Sullivan

Opera North

The Lowry, 15 November 2011

It is terrific fun, this production.

Arthur Sullivan’s gorgeous melodies are one pleasure, William Schwenck Gilbert’s wittily subversive lyrics are another.  The performances are tip-top, and of these I’d pick out Richard Burkhard as the bad, bad baronet (no one can swish a cape as he can) and Heather Shipp as the deliriously Mad Margaret.  Perhaps it is just my imaginings, but as a couple they seem to enjoy one of those relationships that require a safe word (‘Basingstoke’ seems to be theirs) in order for them to work smoothly.

At times, the lyrics have been updated and made topical, something that Opera della Luna have done with several of their recent Gilbert and Sullivan productions too.  I approve heartily, or at any rate am unconcerned, though purists may object.  As always with Opera North, the sets and lighting are simply stunning.

Ruddigore is at The Lowry again tomorrow, details are here.

Opera North’s Carmen

Carmen
By Georges Bizet
Opera North
The Lowry, 1 March 2011

Photo: Tristram Kenton

An intriguing production of Carmen from Opera North, set in modern Seville.

Full of wonder and spectacle, the emphasis was squarely on female sexuality: a sun-bathing beauty, her legs and feet oiled by an attendant, who was perhaps the foot fetishist stepbrother from Matthew Bourne’s Cinderella; a scrumptious siren wheeled in on a cake trolley, as pictured above; a pair of flouncy cheerleaders.  And there, looking right at home, we see Carmen herself, the role played admirably by Heather Shipp, a fatal flame to the moth of myriad men.

We got the sense, what with such an opulence of feminine glamour being on show, that the guardsmen were policing women themselves (or Woman in the abstract) and the dangerous desires they give rise to.  Love managed without great difficulty to infect Jose (the very fine Paul Auty), but then again he was a rookie guardsman.  He had not yet been able to build up a resistance.  His heart was vulnerable.

There’s no escaping the unfortunate ending, but for much of this production the stage became the scene of a magnificent riot, an unruly vertiginous celebration of the cult of Woman.