Hugh the Drover @ Cadogan Hall

by Lottie Greenhow

“I want to set a prizefight to music” was the statement that led to the composition of Vaughan Williams’ much-overlooked opera, Hugh the Drover. It is strange, then, that something so aggressive could lead to an opera so charming. The plot is a simple love story, set in a Cotswolds village during the Napoleonic wars, and the music is accordingly uncomplicated – simple interwoven English folk-song melodies set above complex but interesting tonalities.

New Sussex Opera is currently touring an engaging and intimate production of this underperformed masterpiece, taking it to a variety of institutions from theatres to concert halls. To accommodate this wide range of venues, designer Yann Seabra’s set is relatively simple, with all the scene changes manipulated smoothly by chorus members, and this matches Vaughan Williams’ folk-song style, and is also beautifully complemented by Giulia Scrimieri’s charming costume designs.

Director Michael Moxham overcame the daunting task of creating a production that works well in these different settings, and his interpretation maintained its visual and dramatic interest throughout the performance. Highlights included a superbly choreographed fight scene between Hugh the Drover and John the Butcher, and an excitingly tense portrayal of Mary’s efforts to free Hugh from the stocks.
Soprano Celeste Lazarenko as Mary, the country girl who longs for freedom and adventure, was a complete delight. Her silvery, light soprano, combined with a gentle confidence on stage, matched her character’s demeanour perfectly. Mary’s desire for liberation was particularly eloquent during the second act, where her lines are set against exquisite violin solos, so reminiscent of The Lark Ascending (composed around the same time), underpinned by dark harmonies that serve to heighten the sense of unattainable freedom.
In the title role, Daniel Norman gave an entirely convincing and unforced performance as the handsome yet unassuming Hugh. He produced a confident and focused sound throughout his range, with some passionate top notes, and his sensitive and heartfelt arias were exceptionally moving. The chemistry between Norman and Lazarenko was electric; their voices blended exquisitely during their duet, ‘Lord of my life’ and they both produced beautifully tender phrasing during their love scenes.

Another very strong performance came from Clarissa Meek as Aunt Jane, whose rich warm mezzo-soprano and calm confidence on stage both lent themselves admirably to her extremely touching aria in the first act, where she explains the joys of domesticity to Mary. Simon Thorpe made a confident and imposing John the Butcher, his deep baritone colouring his character’s aggressive nature. Some of the comic highlights of the evening came in the form of a fantastic double-act between William Robert Allenby as the Constable and Gareth John as the Turnkey, with John’s ringing tenor providing a fitting contrast to Allenby’s solid baritone.

Strongest amongst the principals was baritone Grant Doyle, who performed both the Showman in the first act and the Sergeant in the second act. His resonant baritone (the only voice that could always be heard above the orchestra) worked well in both roles, with some sizzling top notes lending excitement to the role. This, coupled with excellent diction, made him truly captivating throughout the performance. Whilst he made a solid and confident Sergeant, it was in the first act as the Showman that he really excelled himself. Dressed as Napoleon Bonaparte, complete with an oversized hat and flamboyant purple cravat, he performed the Showman’s francophobic aria with terrific burlesque energy and panache, commanding the stage and projecting genuine enjoyment.

For a company that considers its amateurs to be at its heart, it was a shame that New Sussex Opera made so little of its ‘expert and unpaid’ 32-strong chorus. Hidden behind the orchestra, the chorus performed with great energy, but too little attention was paid to blend, tuning and diction and a lot of their dramatic efforts were lost behind the band simply because it was too difficult to see them. Chorus members also took some of the smaller leads; unfortunately, they sounded all too amateur next to the professional principals, although they performed with confidence and verve.

The small NSO orchestra was present on stage behind the action, and although the balance was good within the ensemble, it repeatedly overpowered the chorus and occasionally the principals as well. However, under Nicholas Jenkins’ energetic direction, the band played with feeling and vivacity, with a particularly impressive performance from percussionist Oliver Lowe, whose dramatic snare-drum crescendo to announce the entrance of the soldiers added a tense anticipation to the action on stage.

This was a very moving and musically intelligent production of a vastly underappreciated opera, which just goes to show what can be achieved on a shoestring budget by a pro-am opera company. Whilst it has its shortcomings, overall this was a touching, heart-warming and intensely enjoyable performance, full of feeling. Highly recommended.

Hugh the Drover - New Sussex Opera

by David Gutman

Inspired by his desire to set a prize fight to music, Hugh the Drover was Vaughan Williams’s first opera and he thought enough of the piece to keep toying with it for decades. Thanks to a Harold Child libretto replete with folksy, Cotswold village archetypes, it is rarely staged by the big companies and the present revival, which plays up the neighbourhood element by deploying a children’s chorus drawn from local schools, is well worth catching. The score, always strongly melodic and hinting at more familiar Vaughan Williams, includes some radiant music for Hugh, a benign (and here bewigged) proto-Peter Grimes, sung by the experienced tenor Daniel Norman, and Mary, his rebellious love interest, a fine portrayal from the young Australian soprano Celeste Lazarenko. The professional, mainly Anglo-Australian cast also boasts rising baritone Grant Doyle as both the Johnny Depp-style showman and a stentorian sergeant.

Yann Seabra’s accessible design favours simple wooden forms, while signalling the lure of a freer natural world beyond rigid communal boundaries. The key props are a gibbet and the village stocks. The central fight is choreographed with conviction and only the show’s downbeat ending runs counter to the text. On opening night with Simon Thorpe unwell, the role of John the Butcher was bravely sung in from the side of the stage by Adrian Powter - the chorus sounded nervous. There are four more performances with which to celebrate New Sussex Opera’s commitment to indigenous music theatre without public subsidy. The orchestral texture is sensitively handled by a 33-piece ensemble under Nicholas Jenkins.

Pearl Fishers - GlamAdelaide Review

This production, originally directed by Anne-Margret Pettersson for Opera Australia and with this revival directed by Luise Napier, takes the bold move of casting four suitably young performers in the solo roles and has a young South Australian conductor, Luke Dollman, making his debut with State Opera. This has resulted in a youthful exuberance and energy that makes this production more than usually believable and certainly makes it fresh and exciting.

From the first, beautifully controlled and emotionally charged notes of the overture there is a feeling of expectation that is quickly fulfilled. Dollman’s interpretation of Georges Bizet’s texturally rich and imaginative score, superbly realised by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, is a highlight of this excellent production. The work of the State Opera Chorus cannot be faulted and the dance routines, choreographed by Rosetta Cook, add to the exotic flavour of this opera, which is set in 1860s Ceylon. Added to this is the visual side of the production, with the most beautiful sets by John Conklin, costumes by Clare Mitchell and a marvellous lighting design by Nigel Levings.

Zurga, a bitter and lonely old man, has returned from the opera, reminded by what he has just seen of the past and of his love for his friend Nadir. His memories become the opera that we are about to see. The core of the story is the love triangle of the two friends, Zurga and Nadir, and the girl that came between them, Léïla. Nadir promised Zurga that he would never see Léïla again in order to save their friendship. The two meet again some time later and Zurga is elected leader of the pearl fishers.

Nourabad, the High Priest of Brahma, engages a virgin priestess to pray day and night for the pearl divers in their dangerous occupation. He warns her of the dire consequences of any failure on her part to remain chaste and obedient, and she accepts the responsibility. Although she is veiled Nadir recognises her voice as that of Léïla. He sneaks in to meet her that night and they declare their love for one another before being captured and sentenced to death.

Zurga at first tries to save his friend but, realising that the woman is Léïla he is both jealous and furious at Nadir’s betrayal, condemning them both to death. He then realises that Léïla, when she was a small child, was the one who had saved his life. He sets the camp alight, drawing off the villagers, and allows Nadir and Léïla to escape.



Soprano, Leanne Kenneally, and tenor, James Egglestone, make a fine pair of lovers as Léïla and Nadir. Their voices blend superbly and the emotional content of their performances is highly convincing. Baritone, Grant Doyle, as Zurga, offers an equally wide range of emotions in a third strong performance. The balance between the three excellent performances adds up to a very even production that works at every level. Bass, Pelham Andrews, is marvellously powerful and imposing in the role of Nourabad, perhaps not as large a role as the other three but just as important. This is a terrific line-up of soloists, one of the best we have seen from State Opera, and that is saying something!

This is a thoroughly absorbing and rewarding production that, if not already sold out, certainly deserves to be. If you can still get a ticket, do so as quickly as possible.

Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Arts Editor, Glam Adelaide.

Pearl Fishers - The Advertiser Review

LOVE is a very strange thing. It can strike like lightning. It can wound like a knife. It will mark you forever and, like a precious pearl, it is only gained though great risk. Dive for it; die for it. That is the challenge of this exquisitely beautiful production which will break your heart. The Pearl Fishers is handsomely cast, and sung in French so clearly you don't need the surtitles.

There is so much more to The Pearl Fishers than Australia's favourite duet, here given a beautiful rendering by James Egglestone and Grant Doyle, and once that's out of the way the true strength of the work becomes clear.

Ann-Margret Pettersson's original conception, lovingly restaged by Luise Napier, makes the opera a series of sad reminiscences inspired by an opera production, whose images appear throughout the evening. The idea reinforces the power of music and drama to touch our hearts. Made explicit in the action, though always there in the music, is the tragedy of Zurga who loses the man he loves to another woman and Grant Doyle's great monologue is delivered with compelling passion. Always a fine actor, he reaches a new stage of his career in this role.

The relative youth of the principal cast, two fine featured men and a strikingly attractive woman add to the dramatic impact of this tragedy of lost love. Their voices are young and bright and the attractions that they feel for each other are entirely convincing. If only at their first meeting, after so long a separation, Zurga had actually kissed Nadir instead of just giving him a big manhug. Leanne Kenneally, the priestess Leila, first appears veiled and posed like a statue framed in gold but descends to Earth as a woman in love, with a clear and expressive voice.

Egglestone's bright young tenor voice has a distinctive ring so suitable for French music and his delivery of the first act serenade is almost perfect. Pelham Andrews as Nourabad, almost entirely concealed behind extravagant facial hair, has developed greater depth and warmth in his voice since Girl of the Golden West, and completes the strong principal quartet with honour.

Timothy Sexton's chorus, both off stage and on, add their own part with conviction. Luke Dolman reins in the melodrama inherent in the score to focus attention on the underlying romance of Bizet's music; and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra is as ever responsive.

The design team of John Conklin and Catherine Mitchell, sets and costumes, create an exotic series of visions, infused with magic through Nigel Levings' lighting score, and create a world of Sri Lankan beauty that entirely reflects the genius of Bizet.

Take a hanky. You'll probably need it. I did.

Ewart Shaw

Fantastic Mr Fox (Guardian)

By Fiona Maddocks

Grant Doyle as Fantastic Mr Fox

Seven of its players (City of London Sinfonia) had been hard at work earlier in the day, performing in the European premiere run of Tobias Picker's Fantastic Mr Fox (1998) a family opera based on Roald Dahl's story. Holland Park had commissioned a shorter version, performed in the magical wooded glade of the yukka lawn. A spirited young cast led by Grant Doyle and Olivia Ray as Mr and Mrs Fox held its young audience captive. Four Botticellian wood sprites, who could also sing divinely, led the promenade performance from tree to tree. It was expertly done and deserves a life beyond west London. OHP has high hopes that, with festivals such as Latitude showing interest, it will.

The Elixir of Love (What's on Stage Review)

The Elixir of Love
Date Reviewed: 16 July 2010
WOS Rating:

Blackheath Community Opera at Blackheath Halls

Following Gluck’s Orpheus last Summer, Blackheath Halls took on the perils of bel canto this year, with a production of Donizetti’s ingenious comedy The Elixir of Love, once again combining professional and amateur performers.

It proved a perfect vehicle for the chorus and orchestra drawn from the locality and a top-notch quintet of solo vocalists.

Elena Xanthoudakis was the flighty Adina, confidently spinning out the coloratura like a bird in flight, Nicholas Sharratt an ardent Nemorino, the simple village lad in love with her, while Grant Doyle blustered and swaggered as the over-weening Belcore.
Helen Bailey, currently doing post-grad studies at the Royal Academy, was a chirpily attractive Giannetta and Robert Poulton, displaying a wealth of experience and showmanship, was the spiv Dulcamara, dispensing his dodgy mixtures on the unaware and snaffling wedding presents when no-one was looking.

But what makes Blackheath Halls Community Opera so special is the involvement of a mass of local talent of all ages, here superbly deployed as villagers and orchestra.

Recent productions of the opera at Covent Garden and English National Opera updated the action of Donizetti’s 1832 opera to 1950s Italy and America respectively, while here director Harry Fehr and designer Emma Wee put it right in our own back yard. Setting it a decade earlier, we were in an entirely apt England in the grips of war-time austerity.

Performed in the round, or on three sides at least with the orchestra making up the fourth, the production brought everything up close (sitting in the front row, you could almost end up with a land girl or farmhand in your lap), with banks of tables and benches constantly on the move and a really evocative sense of the period.

A member of the chorus told me that Fehr knew each of their names and this impressive, personal approach led to a riveting engagement from each and every participant, with a wealth of detail in the crowd scenes. Home guard oldsters mixed with nubile young beauties, eager for the attentions of the US military, while ladies (a little) older sat in a knitting circle making their contribution to the war effort.

Costume Supervisors Libby Blogg and Nicola Namdjou came up with a dazzling array of costume changes. My grandma might have tutted at the range of cakes and tarts in the wedding scene, somehow conjured up in the war-time absence of basic cooking materials, but the children were less concerned with historical accuracy as they eagerly fell upon them at the end of the curtain call.

Nicholas Jenkins conducted a confident and able band of amateur players, with a gorgeous solo bassoon during Nemorino’s third act aria (“Una furtive lagrima”) deserving special mention.

But it’s the infectious enthusiasm of the whole that hit the strongest. The cast looked as though they were having a ball and the audience were too. It was another triumph for Blackheath’s annual community event - roll on next year.


- by Simon Thomas

Farewell to Figaro at Garsington

By Mike Reynolds (****)

For its final season in the garden of Lady Ottoline Morrell's enchanting Oxfordshire Manor house, the ever-enterprising Garsington Opera, established in 1989 by the late Leonard Ingrams, included the opera with which the whole venture kicked off: Figaro. In 1989 it was Opera 80 (a forerunner of ETO) that provided the production, directed by Stephen Unwin – in the years since then there have been productions by Michael McCaffery, Stephen Unwin (again) and, in 2005 a vintage production by John Cox. It was the latter which was revived for the 2010 season and a very astute choice it proved to be. A Figaro of this quality, sung and played with delightful naturalness as dusk stole over the façade of the house and its adjacent garden, made one quite nostalgic for all that has been – indeed, there were more ghosts than usual mingling with the urns and cypresses in Act Four…

To begin at the beginning: the concept. Cox is a past master of making the intricate look easy, making the inhabitants of Count Almaviva's mansion move freely and logically into their positions where something is always just about to happen. Of course in the Garsington setting it is relatively easy to make Cherubino's escape into the garden an unusually effective piece of theatre, and a drunken old Antonio can potter to his heart's delight among the geraniums and connecting pathways: but it is a greater test of the director's art to plot the onstage pathways and connecting lines between the characters. With all the elements of a mansion house scattered across the Garsington stage, Cox used every hiding place, every logical entry and exit point, every positional combination of his eight main characters. As a result this Figaro had light and space to breathe, it flowed freely, the momentum of une folle journée was never lost. Watching an opera I have probably seen more times than any other, I was enchanted by the life and energy that can be made to flow from it.

In the pit, Douglas Boyd proved to be a natural Mozartian. His tempi were broadly on the fast side, but with no loss of detail, and the playing he got from the Garsington Orchestra was accomplished throughout. Boyd also proved to have a natural rapport with his singers, and there were no signs of awkwardness between pit and stage, as there often can be: ensembles went with a swing, solo numbers and duets were nicely judged, sforzandi and dynamic contrasts abounded – delightful.

Delightful too was the Susanna of Sophie Bevan – warm-toned, assured, full of spirit and effortlessly in control of her Figaro (James Oldfield) from the word go. She schemed as he counted and measured, she also bloomed vocally a while before he got going. Bevan's voice is attractive, much more than a soubrette, with plenty of power whenever needed. I liked her performance enormously. Oldfield was a reliable, dependable Figaro and once or twice he flashed into real life – particularly when brushing with Count Almaviva.

Grant Doyle was the Count. He had the greater stage experience, and it showed: this Count was lithe, energetic, a dangerous man to cross. But thankfully – as he is indeed crossed, time after time as the opera progresses – Doyle found the happy medium between grand seigneur and comic dupe. His voice is on the light side, but the timbre is attractive and Doyle sang cleanly and crisply throughout.

Garsington made an interesting choice of Countess – Kishani Jayasinghe, a Sri Lankan soprano who was in the ROH Jette Parker Young Artists Programme until 2008. Younger then many a Countess I have seen, Jayasinghe made an immediate impression with a dark, velvety vocal timbre in the cruelly exposed number that begins Act Two, Porgi, Amor. But she did not really develop any personality onstage, vocal or representational, and although her interplay with Susanna and with Cherubino was deft and assured in the succession of great numbers that make the end of Act Two one of opera's supreme experiences, Jayasinghe under-characterised her part. The voice is often lovely but the face and body lack dramatic energy and, as a result, action around the Countess sometimes flagged. I would rate her a near miss in the part for now – and would enjoy hearing her again in five years time.

Cherubino was played by the young Swedish mezzo Anna Grevelius. Deft and knowing, she made the most of the mischievous aspects of Cherubino's character and gave us some lovely singing. 'Non so piu' was taken at medium tempo, allowing Grevelius to phrase the lines and float the endings, instead of snatching at the notes as so often can happen. She made a strong impression in all the right ways.

And the strength in depth of this Garsington Figaro extended to Jean Rigby as Marcellina – what a joy to hear this role so well sung (and for once it would have been great to hear her Act Four aria) – and to Conal Coad as Dr Bartolo, who relished his showpiece aria 'La Vendetta', and who underpinned all his ensemble pieces with a sonorous bass line. And taking the production as a whole, it was the ensemble playing at its core that made the work come alive, one last time, in its unique setting. What a way for Figaro to take its leave of Garsington! What a joy to have been there!

Photos: Johan Persson

Le nozze di Figaro, Garsington Opera (the Arts Desk)

Written by Igor Toronyi-Lalic

John Cox's production: 'Its dogged wigs-'n'-breeches line did what many more daring productions fail to do, namely, elucidate the story'

The sun rode high, the gardens glowed green, my lemon berry pudding bulged proudly and, on stage, the familiar 24-carat farce that is Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro was working itself out to perfection. It was Garsington - and my baking - at its very finest, a fittingly triumphant opening to the final season at Garsington Manor (they move down the road to Wormsley Estate next year). Sets, direction, singing - two young standouts in particular - all had a part to play, as did the conducting of Douglas Boyd. The country house conductor (an unsung role) has the singular task of somehow warding off the inevitable, scientifically inescapable consequences of a beating sun and a vat of wine on an ageing audience - namely, the catnap. Boyd proved himself the catnap-vanquisher par excellence.

Musical excitement came not just in the exercise of dynamic muscle and speed - underpinned by strong beats and secure corners. It came also with the squeezing of every drop of dramatic colour and narrative interest from this extraordinary score. Boyd's attention to detail, inner voicing, tremolo colour and musical phrasing - that was at times so buxom in its peaks as to compete for attention with our curvaceous young Susanna, Sophie Bevan - meant the musical evening never flagged. All of which attention to instrumental finery had its impact on the orchestra, who played out of their skins.

On stage, there was far less re-inventive flash. John Cox's production could just as well have been a revival from 1805 as 2005, such was its dogged wigs-'n'-breeches line of thought. Not that any of this mattered to any of us in the audience; it did what many more daring productions fail to do, namely, elucidate the story. Le nozze is a Feydeau-like play, where assignations and accidents set off jack-in-the-box denouements in each act. The mechanics need to be oiled properly, set off efficiently and allowed to run their course unimpeded, with only the slightest and subtlest of guidance, and Cox knows it. With the help of Robert Perdziola's clever, efficient sets - whose angles and corridors and Lego-like action drew applause every time they changed their configuration - and the real gardens coming into play in the Act Two "who-fell-into-the-garden" japery, everything - comedy, tension, denouement- unfolded like clockwork.

The real rise in temperature, however, the two teaspoons of baking powder in this golden operatic sponge, let's say, came from two young singers: Bevan and Anna Grevelius (Cherubino). Grevelius made the first big impression by leaping head-first into her breathless opening aria. Her tone was sweet, windy, air-borne, full of a deliberate nervous energy; it's what one imagines a young Mary Garden might have sounded like in her day. Bevan was even more extraordinary as Susanna, filling this character's many roles (accomplice, wronged lover, mothering-figure, flirt) with exceptional ease. Her solo stints were as stunning as her ornamented contributions to ensemble.

Next to these two fresh daisies, Kishani Jayasinghe's thick, creamy voice, which always hung back from the beat for extra emotional attention, was less interesting. Her musical instinct and dynamic urge never quite made as much sense as the others. James Oldfield's cerebral, brooding Figaro was finely - perhaps too finely - drawn. Grant Doyle's hairy-chested Count was nicely poised between the greaseball and the cad. Conal Coad's Doctor Bartolo delivered some lovely low sounds, full and clean, through passages of pianissimo and forte. Daniel Norman (Don Basilio) was more engaging when in full flow than when attempting to wring comedic effect from the recitative. But the sun-kissed evening belonged to the two girls, Bevan and Grevelius, both of whom should hit the big time pretty damn soon.

Le nozze di Figaro, Garsington (Observer Review)

by Fiona Maddocks

Garsington Opera launched its final season in its Oxfordshire home, before moving next year to Wormsley, home of the Getty family, with the opera that launched the enterprise 21 years ago: Figaro. This was a revival of John Cox's enchanting 2005 staging, with a fine young cast and a small, accomplished orchestra, the sound brightened with imaginative and prominent fortepiano-led continuo.

Douglas Boyd, a top oboist as well as a conductor, brought a player's sensibility to instrumental detail and chose unrushed, sympathetic tempi in a fresh interpretation that will deepen. James Oldfield's quizzical and unshowy Figaro has promise in a cast headed by Sophie Bevan as a perky Susanna, Anna Grevelius touching and funny as Cherubino and Grant Doyle as a reliable, attractive Count.

It was fascinating to compare, 48 hours apart, the ROH's deluxe staging and larger-scale performance with Garsington's robust intimacy and divine garden setting. Yet the chief revelation was not differing aspects of interpretation but the inexhaustible treasures of Mozart's flickering, glittering score, which leave quite enough over for the next production, and the production after that.

Le nozze di Figaro at Garsington Manor (Times Review)

The production’s trump cards are old-fashioned honesty and good sense. Nothing is showily updated. No directorial concept grinds away to obscure the characters’ foibles

Geoff Brown

Twenty-one years of heaven. That’s how Garsington Opera’s general director, Anthony Whitworth-Jones, phrased it on this first night of the company’s final season at the late Leonard Ingrams’ Oxford manor, where the Bloomsbury set once disported under the patronage of Lady Ottoline Morrell. Heaven certainly gave us marvellous weather. Had Le nozze di Figaro opened the previous night, Mozart’s marvel would have been snivelling in the rain. As it was, John Cox’s 2005 production basked in the evening sun.
Whatever the future pleasures of the company’s next home at Mark Getty’s Wormsley estate, designers will be hard-pressed to duplicate Garsington’s special interplay between artifice and nature. No need to imagine Cherubino jumping from the balcony into a garden near the close of Act II: the garden is there at stage left, green and trim.

There have been funnier and flashier Figaros than Cox’s. Its trump cards are old-fashioned honesty and good sense. Nothing is showily updated. No directorial concept grinds away to obscure the characters’ foibles as they flitter, hide and disguise themselves among Robert Perdziola’s flexible sets. There is nothing overly fancy, either, in Douglas Boyd’s taut conducting, or the sprightly continuo of fortepiano and cello driving forward the recitatives.

It’s a production, too, that’s highly welcoming to the young talent on fizzing display. Susanna had already been in Sophie Bevan’s repertoire at the Royal College of Music; fresh as a daisy, she darts around as the Countess’s maid, all assets sparkling, vocal and physical. Note her younger sister Mary too, tenderly moving in Barbarina’s little aria. Anna Grevelius’s silver-gleam mezzo gets a good outing as Cherubino, nicely naughty. The ideal Figaro should probably have more impishness than James Oldfield, but this young professional grew more mobile with each act, and you can’t deny the promise of that robust bass-baritone voice. Up at the top of the Almaviva household, Grant Doyle shades the licentious Count with plenty of dark virility. As the long-suffering Countess, Kishani Jayasinghe wields a soprano voice with the constricted feel of a ship in a bottle; but there’s a big benefit in her dazzling smile, watchful eyes and general physical charisma.

Older hands in the ensemble easily slot into place. Stripped of her Act IV aria, Jean Rigby has relatively little to do as Marcellina, but she’s worth every look and twirl in her gaudy make-up and costume. Solid delights on offer too from Conal Coad’s Bartolo and Daniel Norman’s conniving Basilio.

The Marriage of Figaro - Garsington Opera

by Edward Bhesania

Garsington Opera’s 22nd and final season at Garsington Manor, prior to relocating to the Getty family’s Wormsley Estate in the Chiltern Hills, could hardly have got off to a more joyous start.

John Cox’s Marriage of Figaro from 1995, boasts elegant period costumes, with sets (ingeniously flexible in their modular, reversible design) to match. Portraits of Count Almaviva’s distinguished antecedents loom from the walls of his castle, as if frowning upon his desire for extramarital bliss. Taking full advantage of the terrace stage’s situation, when Cherubino (Anna Grevelius) jumps from the Countess’ window, he actually lands in the adjacent parterre garden - for once, visibly in view of the gardener Antonio. And just as dusk settles over the stage, the Act IV sets turn to reveal the foliage of the garden scene, magically blending the stage into its crepuscular surroundings.

This would count for less if Cox’s direction were less assured. The web of secret desires, deceits and mockery is cleanly spun. The comic tension in the scene where Cherubino and then the Count are forced to hide (unknown to each other) as Susanna (Sophie Bevan) receives her unexpected visitors is a model of ratcheting comic tension. And, while sending Cherubino off to his military commission, Figaro shaves him, picking up on his former self in Beaumarchais’ The Barber of Seville.

Kishani Jayansinghe needs a smoother vocal line to give expression to the role of the abandoned Countess, but James Oldfield is a confident Figaro and Grant Doyle is a rich-toned Count, while Jean Rigby and Conal Coad bring a whiff of (classy) pantomime to the roles of Marcellina and Dr Bartolo.
To round things off, Douglas Boyd extracts beguiling balances and stark colouring from the Garsington Opera Orchestra. This is a production as thoroughly distinguished, yet engaging, as you could expect to enjoy.

Ruddigore - Gramophone Review

A terrific, horrific Ruddigore

Gilbert and Sullivan’s flopera is restored to its rightful place

James Inverne 

Opera North's new production 

of Ruddigore. 

Grant Doyle as Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd 

[seated] with ghosts (photo: Robert Workman)

Good Lord, was I looking forward to this. By which I mean, I drove the four hours to Nottingham for it and the four hours back and I did it gladly. Because for as long as I can remember, Ruddigore, that satire of the Victorian melodrama complete with spectres, curses and witches burnt alive, has been my favourite of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. A resounding flop at its first appearance, largely (if legend is to be believed) because of the sweary title, which first appeared as Ruddygore, the reputation of this ghostly comedy has never quite recovered. Delicate bunch, the Victorians.

In my lifetime I only remember one professional British production, by New D’Oyly Carte, which I (inexcusably) missed. But my admiration survived even the distinctly dodgy amateur staging which graced Poole in my childhood, and was fanned by the wonderful 1982 television film starring Keith Michell, Sandra Dugdale, Donald Adams and – unforgettable as the macabre bad baronet Sir Despard, Vincent Price (yes, that Vincent Price).

So the news that Opera North had revived this skeleton in the G&S closet was enough for me to hotfoot it (albeit late in the run) to Nottingham’s Theatre Royal, four year-old son in tow for his first opera (yes, I’m afraid he is also being weaned on that 1982 film and is already a convert). Neither of us were disappointed.
Director Jo Davies has updated the action to post-World War One, when silent movies were the thing (an apt substitution for the similarly overheated Victorian stage). It’s a brilliant move, a shift forward that allows today’s audiences to easily connect with vampy femmes fatales (Heather Shipp’s terribly tragic Mad Margaret), over-eager sailors (Hal Cazalet’s thigh-slapping Richard Dauntless) and upstanding heroines who positively ooze decency (Amy Freston’s hilariously prim yet spunky Rose Maybud).
Davies even begins the opera with a silent film depicting the early courtship of Sir Roderick Murgatroyd and Dame Hannah, who are due to be married until (as the captions inform us) Roderick’s brother, the baronet Sir Ruthven, is supposedly drowned and his sibling must take the title with its attached curse – by which he must commit a bad deed every day or die in agony. Roderick, here a beefy Great War officer, shoots himself with his service revolver. Trust me, it’s very, very funny and the evening is off to a wonderfully over-the-top start.

The cast has clearly watched a lot of silent films. Every movement was filled with an awareness of the various swoons, semaphore gestures and character-defining walks that used to fill the silver screen (my favourite was Shipp’s decidedly unbalanced, jerky pushing of a pram along the boulevard, in time with the staccato music).

One reason that Ruddigore has never previously caught on, I think, is that the traditional comic baritone’s role doesn’t really exist here. The baritone is actually the romantic lead, the bashful Robin Oakapple who is later revealed to be – gasp -Sir Ruthven in disguise. In the past the role was often nabbed by the reigning G&S comedian, John Reed and the like, who tended to be (or anyway, to sound) too old for the role. It’s a tricky one, because the shy young hero of the first half must, once his secret is out, become the cackling if cack-handed bad baronet of the second. Grant Doyle manages the balancing act perfectly; sweet, funny and warm of voice throughout it all (loved the stick-on villain’s moustache).

Richard Angas as Robin’s long-suffering manservant Adam takes to his latter role as dead-eyed, axe-wielding henchman with gusto. Steven Page clearly has a whale of a time as Roderick, barking out commands to Ruthven and to his fellow ghosts as though still on the parade ground – though he and Anne Marie Owens’s formidable Dame Hannah manage a truly touching moment amid the knockabout for their second-act reunion.
The mostly young cast pay dividends in energy and enthusiasm. Though in terms of G&S vocal style the veterans tended to show the young bloods the way – Page strutting through ìThe Ghost’s High Noonî, Owens summoning exactly the right Verdian chills as Dame Hannah – there were no weak links. Conductor John Wilson made a great splash at the Proms last year with his MGM musicals night and here was similarly driven – his passion for this work was clear and infectious enough to overcome the odd lapse in coordination between pit and stage.

This was, in fact, as enjoyable an operatic comedy night as I can remember and a reclamation of a satirical masterpiece. I hope it comes home, as it were, to London (the Savoy Theatre, perhaps?). I hope it is filmed for all to enjoy. I hope I get to see it again. Oh, and my son now wants to see another opera. Which is safe to choose at that age, I wonder? My first, aged five, was Il Trovatore. Which is basically Ruddigore without the laughs.

James Inverne

James Inverne is the Editor of Gramophone

Ruddigore: Lancashire Telegraph Review

Opera review: Ruddigore @ Lowry, Salford

For long in the shadow of its immediate predecessor The Mikado, Gilbert and Sullivan's Ruddigore has never had the success it surely deserves. That situation should now change after Opera North's new production at The Lowry.

Gilbert's plot is set in the Cornish town of Rederring where the Murgatroyd family, baronets of Ruddigore, have been cursed to commit a crime a day.
It is a wicked satire on the Victorian fascination for gothic melodrama and all things supernatural.

On the surface there are the stock characters of melodrama: an innocent maiden, the jolly seaman replete with mummerset accent and a kitbag of nautical cliches, apparitions a-plenty not forgetting the obligatory cape swirling villain. But all is not what it seems in this topsy turvy world. Gilbert invests his characters with most disturbing signs of insanity. There are multiple changes of prospective spouses preceded by the chasing of any eligible (or ineligible) female and a visitation by long dead ancestors.

Updated from the early 19th century to sometime after the Great War Jo Davies' terrific production is enhanced by Richard Hudson's superb sets that are evocatively lit in sepia tones by Anna Watson.
The first of many laughs of the evening comes during the overture when a flickering sideshow sets the scene for the events that are to unfold.

Sullivan's music is some of the finest he wrote for the Savoy operas and it fizzes along under John Wilson's direction, especially in the Act 2 ghost scene where Steven Page's marvellous Sir Roderic is on commanding form. Grant Doyle's suave Sir Ruthven together with Amy Freston's svelte Rose Maybud are gorgeously sung and acted. Anne Marie Owens' authoritative yet tender Dame Hannah and Richard Angus' towering hulk of a servant are consistently fine. As the randy skirt-chasing jack tar Hal Cazelet brought boundless energy and brio to the not particularly likeable Dick Dauntless. But then, in this probing production which also explores the ambiguities in Gilbert's masterly libretto, are the protagonists really likeable?

Heather Shipp's Mad Margaret was curiously unsettling yet often hilarious especially when partnered with the excellent Sir Despard of Richard Burkhard in the second act duet. This production must surely restore Ruddigore to its rightful place as one of the great Savoy operas. Set to become a classic, it is a ruddy good show.

Don't miss it!

Ken Bayliss.

Ruddigore, Grand Theatre (Independent on Sunday)

Spared some creaking old traditions, a bright new production of a Gilbert and Sullivan oddity comes up roses.

Reviewed by Anna Picard.

There was a mild kerfuffle over the breakfast tables of Middle England in December when Peter Mandelson was mystified by a mention of Pooh-Bah on Radio 4's Today programme.

The reactions of the political commentators were interesting. While some took the opportunity to riff on Mandelson as a sophisticate – inclined to Verdi, if not verismo – most found it barely credible that a middle-class man in his mid-fifties would not catch a reference to the "Lord High Everything Else" of Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta, The Mikado.

Is it reasonable to assume that the patter songs of G&S are hard-wired into the national consciousness? Not any more. Boosted by Mike Leigh's film Topsy-Turvy, Jonathan Miller's 1986 Mikado has performed well for English National Opera in revival, yet neither The Pirates of Penzance nor The Gondoliers has repeated its success. For the most part, Gilbert and Sullivan has become a heritage industry, something for nostalgics, rarely played or sung at home. How intriguing, then, that Opera North should choose to stage Ruddigore now.

Often dubbed the most operatic of the Savoy operettas, Ruddigore 's subject is not class, bureaucracy, the weather or anything that can be labelled a characteristically British preoccupation, but Gothic melodrama, lovesick insanity and the moonstruck instrumentation of Lucia di Lammermoor. Opportunities for inserting topical jokes are happily few in this tale of a family cursed to commit "one crime a day". There is an obligatory reference to MPs' expenses, however, in Jo Davies's tender, witty staging, which heeds Gilbert's warning that "directly the characters show that they are conscious of the absurdity of their utterances the piece begins to drag".

Opera North has a tight, neat and sweet hit on its hands. Having sassed its way through Weill and Gershwin, the orchestra brings charm and delicacy to Sullivan's pastel apparitions and "blameless dances" under conductor John Wilson. Styled after hand-tinted postcards by designer Richard Hudson, the production is set in the aftermath of the First World War. Though there are shades aplenty in Ruddigore Castle, the ghosts of G&S past are largely exorcised in this brisk tangle of concealed identities, inherited tragedy and love-beyond-the-grave. Instead we have young voices, pertly clipped spoken dialogue, ensembles of madrigalian precision, delightfully agile choreography (Kay Shepherd), and a series of sparkling star turns from Amy Freston (Rose Maybud), Grant Doyle (Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd), Richard Burkhard (Sir Despard Murgatroyd), Heather Shipp (Mad Margaret), Hal Cazalet (Richard Dauntless) and Steven Page (the late Sir Roderic Murgatroyd). Can one production revive a dying genre? The music is too slight to matter, matter, matter. But I'll be smiling next time anyone mentions Basingstoke.

Ruddigore: Aren't they just darling? (Sunday Times review)

From The Sunday Times

February 7, 2010

Opera North’s 1920s opera is an inspired revival that merrily papers over the cracks of Gilbert and Sullivan’s first flop

by Hugh Canning

In January 1887, Ruddigore followed Gilbert and Sullivan’s smash hit of 22 months earlier, The Mikado, mustering only 288 performances compared with its predecessor’s 672, then the second longest run in British theatre history. The New York Times declared it “Their First Flat Failure”, adding portentously that the operetta’s name “is decidedly against it”. Originally entitled Ruddygore, it — hilariously — became acceptable for the Victorians by the substitution of the offending “y” with an innocuous “i”. Gilbert must have been chuckling all the way to the bank.

Ruddigore has remained on the margins of the Savoy Opera repertoire, which makes Opera North’s production all the more welcome. At Leeds’s Grand Theatre, the director Jo Davies and the designer Richard Hudson have achieved the near miracle of concocting the most original and convincing G&S revival since Jonathan Miller’s “Roaring Twenties” Mikado for English National Opera in 1986.

Davies and Hudson also opt for the 1920s, evoking the melodrama of the silent-movie era during the overture — Sullivan’s atmospheric and operatic original, rather than Geoffrey Toye’s usually recorded potpourri of the operetta’s hit tunes for the 1920 D’Oyly Carte revival — and screening the back story of Dame Hannah’s abortive engagement and marriage to Sir Roderic Murgatroyd, 21st Baronet of Ruddigore, who succumbs to the Witch’s Curse of a violent death for failing to commit at least one crime a day. In one of Gilbert’s most contrived denouements, his ghost, having emerged from his portrait to spook the incumbent baronet, is brought back to life to be reconciled with his former betrothed, now the guardian aunt of the operetta’s ditzy heroine, Rose Maybud, whose fast-shifting morals are guided by a book of etiquette.

Even in its revised form, Ruddigore betrays the formulaic routine that was to bedevil the later Utopia Limited and The Grand Duke, and lacks the consistent musical inspiration of The (dramatically flawed) Gondoliers.

Opera North’s staging successfully pastes over the compositional and theatrical cracks of Act I, set in the Cornwall village of Rederring, where Rose can’t make up her mind between the claims of two potential bridegrooms: Robin Oakapple/Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd and his foster brother, Dick Dauntless. She is also the intended prey of Sir Despard — baronet in default of Sir Ruthven, his older brother — who plans to fulfil the dictates of the curse by abducting and forcibly marring her. The tone set by Davies and Hudson’s elegant sets and costumes hovers between EF Benson and PG Wodehouse, all tongue-in-cheek lampooning, with an ever-present band of bridesmaids eagerly showering confetti at the slightest hint of imminent wedding bells. Davies has worked hard getting opera singers to deliver the dialogue snappily, with cut-glass diction, but the first half still drags a bit, thanks to Gilbert’s convoluted plot­ting and less than side-splittingly funny dialogue. The improbabilities and characters are gently sent up rather than grotesquely caricatured — underplaying the satire nearly always yields dividends in G&S.

Hudson’s magnificent set and Sullivan’s brilliant parodies of the spook scenes of Weber’s Der Freischütz and Wagner’s Flying Dutchman bring the show into thrilling focus, however. Sir Roderic’s hit number, When the Night Wind Howls, is thrillingly delivered by Steven Page, and the other musical highlight is his duet with Anne Marie Owens’s uncaricatured, touchingly musical Hannah. Although Rose is a pale rerun of The Mikado’s Yum-Yum, Amy Freston’s light soubrette simpers and sings sweetly, while Grant Doyle is a dashing, young-Alan-Bates-lookalike Sir Ruthven and Richard Burghard manages the transition from snarling bad baronet to urbane bad baronet’s younger bro with nice eyebrow-curling urbanity. Richard Angas is a joy as Robin/Ruthven’s amiable manservant, Adam Goodheart.

Heather Shipp makes a brave stab at a silent-film tragedy-queen Mad Margaret without redeeming one of Gilbert’s most implausible creations. John Wilson, a “light opera” specialist, could have whipped up the tempo of the patter songs, but the pace should tighten during the run. When it does, it will be a classic.

Ruddigore: Opera Britannia

Twenty-four years have passed since Opera North last performed a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, but their sparkling new production of Ruddigore  was definitely well worth the wait - a real treat from start to finish.  Director Jo Davies has updated the action to the 1920s in a slick and witty staging that contains enough of the traditional-style dancing and unison hand gestures to keep G&S purists happy, while at the same time bringing a freshness and vitality to the piece, including several interpolated topical jokes about MPs’ expense claims which had the audience in stitches. 

Ruddigore  - or The Witch’s Curse was the tenth collaboration between Gilbert and Sullivan, but coming less than two years after The Mikado it inevitably suffered by comparison and struggled to live up to the success of its more famous predecessor.  The first performance at the Savoy Theatre in January 1887 was met with a somewhat hostile reception - the New York Times branded it a failure and reported hissing and shouting from disappointed audience members.  Though other critics were far less severe, the general consensus was that Ruddigore was charming but flawed, and several changes and cuts were made in order to improve the piece.  Even the original title (spelled Ruddygore) proved rather controversial - upsetting all the 19th century Mary Whitehouse types who felt that ‘ruddy’ was too shockingly similar to ‘bloody’, which is why it was quickly changed to a less ‘offensive’ spelling.
Though Ruddigore will never be as popular as The Mikado, HMS Pinafore or The Pirates of Penzance, it still boasts a delightfully tuneful score, amusing dialogue and a preposterously silly melodramatic plot.  Sir Roderic’s song “When the night wind howls” is a real musical gem and displays some extraordinarily imaginative orchestral writing, perfectly capturing the atmosphere of the unfurling ghost story.  But the most famous musical number is probably the brilliant patter trio from Act II  “My eyes are fully open to my awful situation” which contains the fantastic line “This particularly rapid unintelligible patter isn’t generally heard and if it is it doesn’t matter”

Set in Cornwall in a village called Rederring (geddit?) the plot is a parody of a Victorian gothic melodrama, revolving around the ‘Bad Baronets’ of Ruddigore who are condemned by an ancient curse to commit one crime each day or else perish in agony.  Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd, the rightful heir to the baronetcy, has run away and disguised himself as Robin, a simple farmer, in order to escape the curse - causing his younger brother Despard to inherit the title.  Robin/Ruthven and his foster-brother Richard (a sailor) are both in love with the virtuous, etiquette-obsessed Rose Maybud, who cannot make up her mind whom she wishes to marry and switches her affections between the two men every five minutes.  And of course there is poor abandoned Mad Margaret who enters in a disheveled state to the strains of a flute solo, an obvious little nod to Lucia di Lammermoor.  Add to the mix some ghosts, the obligatory interrupted wedding scene and several totally implausible plot twists and we reach a classic formulaic G&S happy ending where all the principals neatly pair off and marry each other.   If only real life were that simple!

During the overture we were shown the ‘back story’ of Dame Hannah and Sir Roderic as an old-fashioned black and white silent film projection – a clever means of exposition.  After staging the opening scene in Rose’s bedroom, the Act I set designs by Richard Hudson gave us a seafront promenade (complete with plastic seagull!) and the elegant interior of a village church.  Act II was set entirely inside the dark and gloomy picture gallery of Ruddigore Castle, the long latticed windows dramatically crashing open amidst some genuinely scary thunder and lightning.  Staging the scene where the ghostly ancestors come to life and step out of their picture frames is a challenge for any director, but it was brilliantly achieved here by means of translucent screens – a clever coup de theatre. Costumes by Gabrielle Dalton were elegant and mainly typical of the 1920s period.

To stage any G&S production truly successfully it is essential to have singers who are also good actors, otherwise there is a real danger that much of Gilbert’s dialogue can fall flat in the wrong hands.  Fortunately Opera North’s cast fielded some wonderful acting talent and it is hard to imagine a more ideal Robin/Ruthven than Grant Doyle.  His warm, elegant baritone was attractive in timbre and he sang with great polish and finesse throughout; making light work of the fast patter songs and getting the text across with impeccably clear and suitably posh diction.  His acting and comic timing were brilliant - obviously a G&S ‘natural’, Doyle made a very affable hero in Act I and a very sympathetic villain in Act II.

Soprano Amy Freston seemed slightly less at home with Gilbert’s dialogue, casually throwing away some of Rose’s best lines without pausing to make the most of their comedy potential.  Her bright and chirpy voice is silvery in timbre, although occasionally too piercing in quality for my taste.  However, it does not help that the role requires the soprano to sing so many higher notes on unflattering ‘e’ and ‘i’ vowels (as I discovered myself when I sang this part a few years ago in an amateur production).  A smoother legato line would have been preferable during Rose’s solo which begins the madrigal “When the buds are blossoming”, particularly in the run up to the A, but otherwise Ms Freston turned in a vivacious and winsome performance.

As Richard Dauntless (or Dick, as he is usually called), Hal Cazalet acted the part superbly and was every inch the cocky, uncouth and over-confident sailor.  His light tenor is pleasing on the ear with nice clean diction, although some of his sustained high notes sounded underpowered.  A very agile performer, Cazalet deserves special praise for his extremely impressive Hornpipe dancing skills.

Richard Burkhard makes a splendidly over-the-top Sir Despard.  Another G&S ‘natural’, he was clearly relishing every word of his text and sang with a rich, resonant bass - powerful enough to make a dramatic impact during his song “Oh why am I moody and sad?” but still possessing suitable agility to easily cope with the rapid-fire patter numbers.

Mezzo-soprano Heather Shipp was a genuinely bizarre Mad Margaret; although her crazed acting was so exaggerated that it was difficult to feel sympathy for her as a tragic abandoned woman because all the emphasis was on the comic side of her character.  Ms Shipp possesses a rich and vibrant mezzo but the nature of this role gives her few opportunities to show off the voice properly – although it is heard to its best advantage in the slow section of her aria “To a garden full of posies” which was heartfelt and sung with a beautiful dark timbre.

As the ghost of Sir Roderic Murgatroyd, Steven Page almost stole the show with a stylish and powerfully sung rendition of “When the night wind howls”. Making a dramatic entrance in a long dark cloak, Page’s tall and commanding stage presence was reminiscent of Mozart’s Commendatore and he exuded the same gravitas, acting the role as a stereotypical WWI army general who likes to bellow orders and bully his subordinates.  His love interest Dame Hannah was sung by mezzo Anne-Marie Owens who settled into the role after a somewhat shaky and vocally uneven start.  Coming into her own in Act II, her feisty acting was hilarious in the scene where she threatens the cowardly Sir Ruthven with a gun.    There was also some very strong support from Richard Angas, wonderfully funny in the character role of Old Adam and Gillene Herbert (Zorah) who possesses a delightfully pure and elegant soprano.

The chorus of Opera North were on top form and clearly having just as much fun as the audience.  In the pit, the orchestra under John Wilson gave a spirited rendition of the score with some delightfully vivid and precise playing.  Wilson’s tempi tended to err on the side of caution when it came to the patter numbers – and a piece like “My eyes are fully open” loses some of its comedy potential if it is not taken at an exaggerated breakneck speed.  The version performed used Sullivan’s original, somewhat sedate and leisurely overture, as opposed to Geoffrey Toye’s revised arrangement and also contained Sir Ruthven’s Act II song “Away remorse…..Henceforth all the crimes” which is often cut.

Opera North have scored an indisputable hit with this brilliantly funny show and the audience didn’t stop laughing from the overture until the moment they walked out of the theatre.  Ruddigore will also be performed in Salford Quays, Newcastle and Nottingham throughout February and March – not to be missed!

Faye Courtney
Opera Britannia

Ruddigore: The Arts Desk

Friday, 05 February 2010 08:15 Written by Graham Rickson

A magical Ruddigore: Richard Burkhard as Sir Despard Murgatroyd (left) and Grant Doyle as Robin Oakapple Robert Workman 

The plot of this rarely performed Gilbert and Sullivan spoof melodrama is gloriously amusing. The male heirs of the Murgatroyd family suffer under a witch’s curse which forces them to commit a crime each day, or suffer an agonising death. Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd has fled the ancestral home and now lives under a pseudonym, meaning that his younger brother Despard has had to assume both the baronetcy and the duty to commit the daily crime. Unlike his older brother's dastardly penchant for stealing babies and robbing banks, he finds it hard to progress beyond forging cheques and fiddling expenses.

This Opera North production of Ruddigore is really delightful. Projecting witty silent-film footage over the overture to fill in the back story, director Jo Davies has updated the action to the 1920s. Richard Stilgoe’s lyrics bring the action even further forward, referring to duck houses and Jacqui Smith.

It’s clear from the start that this will be a delicious evening. The complicated ensemble scenes in Act One are full of imaginative detail - right down to the movements of feet and hands, tiny gestures which transform a production from the technically impressive to something magical. There is a lovely moment in the bridesmaids' recreation of a naval battle, the British fleet are defeated by Gallic halitosis. Or when Sir Despard passes on the family title to his sweet-natured brother Ruthven by carefully dressing him in a black cape, top hat and cane. The finale of the first act is stunning - musically clever as well as wonderfully funny. At times I was giggling so much I could barely see what was happening. The moment in Act Two where the ancestral portraits of the impressively solid Ruddigore Castle descend from their canvases to taunt Sir Ruthven is theatrical magic. 

Casting is uniformly successful. Richard Burkard’s Sir Despard almost steals the evening, bursting through the canvas of a Punch and Judy theatre, hollow laugh ringing out as he twirls his moustache. Grant Doyle conveys an endearing, innocent charm as Sir Ruthven, especially in his early scenes with Amy Freston’s Rose Maybud as the two of them struggle to express their feelings for each other. Hats off too to Stephen Page’s Sir Roderic. There is superb lighting by Anna Watson, particularly during some superbly realistic coastal scenes. John Wilson conducts with pace and affection. As a lifetime G&S sceptic, this production may have converted me. It’s that good.

Ruddigore continues at the Grand Theatre in Leeds until 12 February. It then tours to Salford, Newscastle and Nottingham. Details here.

Ruddigore, Grand Theatre (FT Review)

By Andrew Clark

Published: February 2 2010 22:31

Sparkling patter: Grant Doyle and Amy Freston

The UK’s Gilbert and Sullivan heritage is a blessing and a curse. The jokes find a natural home in middle England, but the D’Oyly Carte Company’s long monopoly left the operettas mired in tradition. When it closed in 1982, everyone had their pick and vulgarity took a bow. In recent years the popularity of G&S has dipped: storylines redolent of class and empire come across as old hat in a multicultural society. But when they are performed with verve and style, there’s still fun to be had. That, at least, is the message of Opera North’s first G&S for 24 years.

Written on the back of The Mikado’s success, Ruddigore has more than its share of formulaic writing, but it is a good choice for an opera company with a flair for operetta. It includes a famous ghost scene that, at a stroke, lifts the proceedings out of the frivolous. The morbid turn of Sullivan’s music didn’t go down well with Gilbert, but it has a strong dramatic quotient, giving welcome body to a work otherwise overloaded with grating bridesmaids’ choruses.

Jo Davies’ staging neither vamps up the scene nor trivialises it. What springs to mind is the Wolf’s Glen in Der Freischütz, the witches in Macbeth, the ghost-ship choruses in Der fliegende Holländer: it’s on that scale. Richard Hudson’s handsome set, lit by Anna Watson, translates the normal to the paranormal and back with a magician’s sleight of hand, while scary flutes and shadowy strings weave a chill web of mystique.

The scene brings out the best in Opera North’s ensemble, not least the orchestra under John Wilson. Steven Page creates a suitably authoritarian Sir Roderic Murgatroyd, while Anne-Marie Owens takes her overdue share of the limelight as a plucky Dame Hannah. Grant Doyle, too, plunders the psychic overtones of his surroundings to give substance to the otherwise flimsy Sir Ruthven.There is excellent support from Hal Cazalet, Heather Shipp and Richard Angas, but the 1920s tone of the production – underpinned by Gabrielle Dalton’s costumes and Kay Shepherd’s choreography – is set by Amy Freston’s Rose Maybud, all period looks and sparkling patter. ()

Opera North's Ruddigore (Telegraph Review)

Ruddigore is one of Gilbert & Sullivan's lesser-known works, but Opera North brings it to effervescent life. Rating: * * * *

By Rupert Christiansen
Published: 6:06PM GMT 01 Feb 2010

Delightful: Opera North's Richard Burkhard and Heather Shipp.

An auditorium packed with an audience of all ages was crackling with anticipation before Opera North’s new production of Ruddigore. One of Gilbert & Sullivan’s lesser-known operettas was receiving its first professional performance for two decades: the question was whether the staging might prove a smash hit to match Jonathan Miller’s Mikado or Joseph Papp’s Pirates of Penzance, reinventing a Victorian period piece in a style that could please both traditionalists and modernisers.

Even though I don’t think it quite hits the jackpot, the result is without doubt a delightful show that will give great pleasure. This Ruddigore’s minor shortcomings are much less to do with the performance than the work itself, which suffers from a protracted first act in which Gilbert plods and Sullivan seldom rises above routine.

I felt that the director, Jo Davies, had struggled to know what to do with it. Translating a Cornish village during the Napoleonic wars to a vaguely Wodehousian 1920s ambience provides a bit of incidental fun (the overture is accompanied by a pastiche silent movie and Mad Margaret is vamped up like Theda Bara), but the updating is otherwise pointless: it brings nothing into sharper focus and doesn’t have the topsy-turvy logical inevitability that made Miller’s “Grand Hotel” Mikado so piquant.

Richard Hudson’s photogravure-toned designs look washed-out, and you wonder why some of the characters are talking “thee” and “thine”. The dialogue goes at a fair lick, and it’s all tuneful and amusing enough, but it doesn’t lift off. A 10-minute cut might have helped.

The second act is another story: it’s absolutely terrific. Hudson has conceived a magnificent interior for Ruddigore castle, and the animation of the ancestral portraits is a dazzling coup de théâtre. Sullivan suddenly wakes up and produces a tremendous Gothic ghost scene, and Gilbert does some of his most virtuosic patter (“My eyes are fully open”), as well as a spot-on satire of moral snootiness in Mad Margaret and Sir Despard’s duet.

The cast is top-notch, and Davies has clearly directed every member with sensitivity. The always likeable Grant Doyle blossoms with star quality as Robin Oakapple, nicely pitted against Amy Freston’s simpering Rose Maybud.

Heather Shipp has great fun as a tragedy queen of a Mad Margaret, with Richard Burkhard as the sly, dry Sir Despard. Steven Page, kitted out like Field Marshal Haig, sings Sir Roderic’s “When the night wind howls” with bravado, and Hal Cazalet (Richard Dauntless), Richard Angas (Old Adam) and Anne-Marie Owens (Dame Hannah) are excellent, too.

John Wilson conducts with a light touch, allowing everyone to get the words across without mikes or surtitles – even Gilbert himself would have applauded their virtually impeccable diction. Oh, and Richard Stilgoe has added a witty verse about the expenses scandal for Robin’s Act 2 number.

Whatever my reservations, this is operetta bliss. A must for all G&S fans.

Ruddigore, Opera North (Guardian review)

Grand, Leeds

*****

by Tim Ashley

Sunday 31 January 2010 21.30

Cheered to the rafters ... Hal Cazalet and Amy Freston in Ruddigore.

Photograph: Tristram Kenton

It was once fashionable to be rude about Ruddigore, Gilbert and Sullivan's ­complex take on gothic melodrama and Victorian morbidity. Before its premiere in 1887, Gilbert expressed perplexity over the apparently heavyweight nature of Sullivan's score and it subsequently became a cliche to state that the work was "too operatic" for its own good. Nowadays of course it's those same uncertainties of tone that appeal to us. Ruddigore is part social satire, part ­horror story and its greatness lies as much in its ability to move and scare us as in its potential to make us laugh.

Jo Davies's terrific new ­production for Opera North is strong on the work's ambiguities. The basic premise – that the aristocratic Murgatroyds are cursed to commit an evil deed a day – allows ­Gilbert to focus his satire on the ­criminality of the powerful. ­Davies updates the operetta from the ­Napoleonic era to the aftermath of the first world war. The ghost of Sir ­Roderick (Steven Page) stalks his ­successors in full military rig, which hints at his ­family's involvement in the carnage. Sir Ruthven's (Grant Doyle) often-cut aria about "all the crimes one sees in the Times" acquires an extra verse about MPs' expenses, which was cheered to the ­rafters by the first-night audience.

Davies's understanding of ­Gilbert's attack on moral hypocrisy is also ­marvellously acute. Sir Ruthven (Grant Doyle) and Sir Despard ­(Richard ­Burkhard), like Jekyll and Hyde alter egos, swivel between amorality and cringe-making ­respectability. Rose ­Maybud (Amy ­Freston) looks like the young Wallis Simpson but glides from man to man motivated by the ­prissiest ideals of ­etiquette and ­decorum. Heather Shipp's Mad ­Margaret, wheeling the detritus of her life about in a pram, is the victim of a world only fractionally less crazed than she is. Wickedly funny yet unsettling, Shipp's ­performance is typical of the evening as a whole.

The singing is consistently fine: Doyle, gauchely attractive, and the ­glorious sounding Freston are ­outstanding. The occasional lack of panache in John Wilson's conducting will probably vanish during the run. Davies's treatment of the hauntings leaves you open-mouthed, though someone should do something about the over-amplified thunder that ­obliterates the altogether creepier goings-on in the score. That apart, however, this is one of the great Gilbert and Sullivan stagings – on a par with Jonathan Miller's famous production of The Mikado and just as worthy of cult status in years to come.

Ruddigore (What's On Stage review)

Venue: Grand Theatre and Opera House
Where: Leeds
Date Reviewed: 30 January 2010
WOS Rating:

by Ron Simpson

Apart from its intrinsic merits, Ruddigore has much to recommend it for a mainstream opera company tackling Gilbert and Sullivan. Nearly 30 years after the demise of the original D’Oyly Carte Company brought an end to Gilbert’s canonical productions, the war between the guardians of the true faith and the barbarians at the gate has not fully abated: after all, no one except Richard Wagner left such a definitive guide to authentic opera production and, even in Bayreuth’s, the revolution came from within – and much earlier.

But Ruddigore has always been a little off-centre from the great Savoy tradition. Along with Princess Ida, it never had the sparkling success of every other opera from H.M.S. Pinafore to The Gondoliers. It’s almost unique in not having a crusty/pompous old gent of a certain age who tells us his life story before doing a funny little dance. Instead it has such oddities as a gloriously harmonised ghost chorus and aria, the definitive anti-patter song in the trio "My eyes are fully open" and a genuinely funny heroine.

Jo Davies’ terrific production sides neither with traditionalists nor subversives. Instead it is fresh, original, splendidly detailed and unfailingly witty. It helps, of course, to have a cast of outstanding singer/actors and a conductor as idiomatic as John Wilson. Traditionalists may find the mildly updated costumes (Gabrielle Dalton) disconcerting, but they mesh perfectly with the cod silent screen introduction and provide such joys as Rose Maybud looking every inch the Agatha Christie innocent and the late bad baronet, Sir Roderic, modelling for Douglas Haig. The old tradition of updating one verse of a patter song remains, very clever, too, and attached to a song newly restored to the opera. For, in at least one respect, this performance is more authentic than the D’Oyly Carte productions which over the years had whittled down Act 2 to a bare half hour of music.

Vocally the cast is universally impressive (Anne-Marie Owens’ Wagnerian mezzo a fine replacement for those fondly-remembered, very British contraltos) and all display impeccable comic timing. Amy Freston and Heather Shipp play the sub-text to hilarious effect, Freston’s Rose bursting with passion and joie de vivre beneath the veneer of correct etiquette, Shipp’s Mad Margaret switching alarmingly from sentimentality to dangerous lunacy. Grant Doyle and Richard Burkhard are excellent as the role-swapping brothers, Doyle an engaging young hero and the most tormented of bad barts, Burkhard playing every last cloak-twirling moment to the hilt while longing for nothing more than a comfortable chair and the evening paper. Hal Cazalet’s relentlessly energetic Dick Dauntless is ready to dance a hornpipe at the drop of a cliché, Steven Page, an oddly sympathetic Sir Roderic, delivers his great set piece beautifully, Richard Angas’ devoted old servant finds lip-smacking relish in the transformation into evil steward and Gillene Herbert’s pert Zorah leads an uninhibited troupe of bridesmaids.

In fact, the whole production’s a joy, from Richard Hudson’s period designs with footlights and front-cloth to the inspired use of the chorus, precise, individualised and seldom predictable.