By Andrew Clark
Published: February 2 2010 22:31
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| 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. (
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