RNCM Opera Gala

RNCM Opera Gala

RNCM Theatre, 22 January 2013

It is the Opera Olympics, no less.

The evening promised world-class arias by world-class composers and it yielded world-class performances of the same by RNCM alumni and students and the Orchestra of Opera North.  Each performance – and there were 17 all told – was a highlight.

Just as with Opera North’s staging of Wagner’s ring cycle, the orchestra were up out of the pit, the choir behind them, the singers taking their place front of stage.  A smart set-up and it worked well here.

Pure indulgence, this concert, just like eating cherries: pleasure that does you good.

Opera North’s Die Walkure

Die Walkure

By Richard Wagner

Opera North

The Lowry, 14 July 2012

Another year, another Richard Wagner offering from Opera North: we had the preamble Das Rheingold last year, and now we are into the first day proper of Der Ring des Nibelung.

As before, the orchestra took centrestage, the singers afore them, a video backdrop supplying images for the music and taking the place of a set.  Most (85% or so) of the drama of the opera comes from Wagner’s music, so it is just that it should be foregrounded in this way.  An added bonus is that the opera has become a more immediate, intimate experience: the singers seem somehow closer to you than they in actual fact are.

The great virtue of Wagner’s opera (and of the cycle as a whole, come to that) is that the gods – and above all Wotan - are not omnipotent and all-knowing.  They are compromised, corruptible, fallible, imperiled.  They are hunted and fallen.  Though Wotan may intend to do good, it is not certain that he can or will.  It makes for situations where anything can happen, everything is up in the air.

Golden storytelling, that’s it in a shellcasing.

Opera North will be staging Siegfried next year, that’s another delight to look forward to.

The Girl I Left Behind Me

The Girl I Left Behind Me

By Jessica Walker and Neil Bartlett

Opera North

The Lowry, 24 June 2012

In this show Jessica Walker performed various songs, taken mainly from the realms of music hall and vaudeville.  All were originally sung by women impersonating men.

When singing, Walker took on the character of each song’s protagonist, whether it was Burlington Bertie, down-at-heel but intent on keeping up appearances; or the young toff out on a night on the town, ‘Following in Father’s Footsteps’; or an old man recounting the tale of his lost love.  What incredible songs they were, they really held up well, and what dazzling performances!

As for the narrative that linked these songs together (a story of repressed and persecuted sexuality) it was contrived and less than convincing.  There was a definite air of preaching to the converted.  Yes, some of these women were no doubt gay and identified with men.  Yet for others dressing up as a man was simply an act that worked and a job that paid.  It drew in the crowds.

Be that as it may, Jessica Walker was wonderful, even more extraordinary than the women whom she represented: for she didn’t merely impersonate one man, but several.

Further details regarding The Girl I Left Behind Me can be read here.

Opera North’s Carousel

Carousel

Music by Richard Rodgers

Book & Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II

Opera North

The Lowry, 23 May 2012

Context is absolutely key to understanding the impact of Carousel when it opened on Broadway in 1945.

The Second World War had come to an end, but many of the men that America had sent overseas had failed to return.  There then came Carousel, a musical that’s in part about how a man returns from the grave to aid his ailing daughter.  His return being accompanied by the stirring song ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, recognised immediately as a classic.  Be in no doubt, it was powerful stuff – and it still is, as this admirable production makes plain.

Eric Greene’s central performance as Billy Bigelow is brilliant; the set and lighting design is inventive and effective, especially in the transition from heaven to earth in scene 3; and the use of Agnes de Mille’s choreography was a masterstroke.  To pick out other things to admire would be easy an’ all.

Indeed, I have only two qualms.  The first is the really rather romantic attitude to domestic abuse: ‘When a man hits you, can it feel like a kiss?’ a daughter asks her mother.  She doesn’t answer: ‘No, not really.’  The second is with that classic, hymn-like song (the two were fond of these kind of songs, recall ‘Climb Every Mountain’) and in particular with the line ‘walk on / with hope in your heart’ – for once you depend on hope, you’re already lost to God.  A true Christian has a faith that fear cannot ever touch.  Hope is for heathens, if they want it.

Anyway, it is some sweet ride, this Carousel.  It’s at The Lowry until 26 May then tours the UK thereafter.  Further details are here and here.

Opera North’s The Queen of Spades

The Queen of Spades

Music by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Opera North

The Lowry, 18 November 2011

Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts as Herman

Man, Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts has a wonderful voice.

It is a silvery, gracefully curved, beautifully proportioned, ornamental work of art.

Lloyd-Roberts takes the lead role of Herman, an ill-fated lover.  Another joy of this sterling production was the masked ball in Act Two, the costumes were very fetching indeed.

At the base of the whole thrilling drama – it’s a dysfunctional love story with a dash of darkness, not unlike Swan Lake – is Tchaikovsky’s commanding score, which is like a giant wave or a hand of God.  Those poor mortals who live and love, seemingly under their own steam, they are in thrall to this music, its passion and emotion animates their features, propels them towards each other, seals their fate.

This is a powerful production of an emotionally complex opera, rich in sensuality and spirituality.  Its next outing is in London on 22 November, details here.

Opera North’s Madama Butterfly

Madama Butterfly

Music by Giacomo Puccini

Opera North

The Lowry, 16 November 2011

Anne Sophie Duprels as Cio-Cio-San (Madama Butterfly)

Here’s the old, familiar story of a man who loves too little and a woman who loves too much.

It is, however, beautifully dramatised here – and so made new – right up to the final irrevocable act.  There’s a kind of compelling logic to the story, which makes it all the more tragic.  These two lovers fly high to transcend their respective cultures, but in the end misunderstandings drag them down.

Anne Sophie Duprels is absolutely wonderful in the title role, she wins your heart.  As for the set, it was spare and elegant, befitting the Japanese setting.  Yet somehow the stage seemed too cluttered with people during the wedding scene in the first part.  A sign, perhaps, that the minimalist aesthetic had burrowed its way into one’s subconscious.

Madama Butterfly is showing again at The Lowry on Saturday, details here.

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 Das Rheingold

Das Rheingold

By Richard Wagner

Opera North

The Lowry, 10 September 2011

Tolkien for grownups, that would be one way of describing Wagner’s Ring cycle.

This was a fine staging of Das Rheingold, the preliminary work in the cycle, although one small drawback was that sometimes the narrative text appeared on the screen for too short a duration.  The orchestra was centre stage yet the story was easy to follow, thanks in large part to the splendid performances all around.  For me, Michael Druiett as Wotan and Peter Sidhom, who played Alberich, stood out.

It is mainly a drama about decline and undesirable change, lust for power and unbridled ambition.  Everything has a cost and even the gods cannot bank on being immortal forever.

There is probably a PhD waiting to be written about the influence of Wagner on Stan Lee’s creation of Thor, god of thunder.  Some bright spark may even have got the gig already.

Opera North will be staging Die Walkure next year, so there is still plenty of time to get into training for that one.  Some details are here.

Opera North’s From the House of the Dead

From the House of the Dead
Music by Leoš Janáček
Opera North
The Lowry, 19 May 2011

Like Fidelio, this opera is set in a prison and, while it is based on Dostoyevsky’s great nineteenth century novel, the action has been fast forwarded a fair few years.

Here we are in a Soviet labour camp, judging by the attire of the convicts and the guards.  What we have in essence is a series of monologues: each convict tells their tale, the story of how they came to be sent to such a Godforsaken place.

Besides these parables of the soul’s degradation, which are very much Dostoyevsky’s own, there’s a fair amount of brutality, the currency of commerce in prison life.  Again (as with the production of Fidelio), the set (a vast prison yard) and the costumes, as well as here the convicts’ tattoos, added to and even created the tenebrous atmosphere.  It was a place of torment, purgatory or a circle of hell, one of Dante’s choice resorts.

By far the greatest contribution was made though, as you might imagine, by Leoš Janáček’s score: it was anxious, nerve-jangling, fear-inducing music; and it set you on edge throughout, preparing and priming you for the dramas as they unfolded.

Not a happy, sunlit romance, then; in fact, quite the reverse.  All of it – and not only the malicious game of Russian roulette at the beginning – proclaimed: here, in this place, human life doesn’t mean very much.

This is a must-see production of a great opera, excoriating in its power to move you to pity.

Opera North’s The Portrait

The Portrait
Music by Mieczyslaw Weinberg
Libretto by Alexander Medvedev
Opera North
The Lowry, 3 March 2011

An artist sells his soul for fame and wealth, betraying his muse in the process.

By giving up all aspirations to art, Chartkov becomes prey to fate, a buffoon to the powerful.  His meeting with a journalist to puff his reputation takes place in the Café Push Kin: a neat name for an establishment where nepotism and shady deals thrive.

Adapted from a story by Gogol, the time-frame of the opera seems uncertain.  We are in Tsarist Russia, it seems like, at the start; then Chartkov is confined to a mental hospital that has a good few portraits of Stalin on the wall; and perhaps in a topical nod to events occurring in Libya, a sunglasses-clad Colonel Gaddafi makes an appearance: he is a convenient tyrant.

There were many things to admire about this Opera North production:

• Paul Nilon gave a moving performance as Chartkov, the artist for whom matters do not end well. 
• The sets and costumes, courtesy of Dan Potra, were quite spectacular: magical and transporting, full of vivid colours. 
• As well, David Poutney’s decision to film Chartkov close up – his muse Psyche (the delectable Hedda Oosterhoff, pictured above) held the camera and his image was projected onto the screen behind - justified itself due to Paul Nilon’s stature as a performer.  He is a fine actor as well as a fantastic singer. 
• What Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s score conveyed most of all was an eerie, perilous ambience, quite in keeping with the story.  For very many moments, the stage became a portal into another world, quite as contingent as this one.

The Portrait is a terrific theatrical experience.