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