Simon Boccanegra, English Touring Opera, (Telegraph Review)

Simon Boccanegra by English Touring Opera is a brave try but a misguided choice for these testing times.

 

By Rupert Christiansen

4:51PM GMT 17 Mar 2013

No opera of Verdi’s is darker in musical colour or emotional tone than Simon Boccanegra, a convoluted tale of a pirate-turned-Doge in medieval Genoa, persecuted by his old enemy and haunted by both the loss of his wife and his failure to placate warring factions.

It’s certainly no recipe for a fun night out – there’s no grand opera flummery, no jolly drinking songs or rum-ti-tum – and although its solemn beauty and moral seriousness can make it extremely moving in a great production, it’s a work difficult to animate, and I do wonder whether it’s a wise choice for English Touring Opera’s spring season, especially at a time when we all want cheering up.

Uncluttered and unpretentious though it is, James Conway’s staging doesn’t resolve the problem of the libretto’s inherent lack of narrative clarity: setting it in the post-war period in neutrally modern costumes makes it no more credible or lucid than medieval doublet and hose, particularly when the generally low standard of acting leaves so many crucial relationships and motivations ill-defined.

Only one element of the performance truly comes alive. Elizabeth Llewellyn’s Amelia shines brightly: as well as negotiating one of Verdi’s trickiest arias with elegant aplomb and crowning the wonderful Council Chamber ensemble with glory, she also makes the girl’s hopes and fears vivid, suggesting that innocent womanhood can point the way out of the mess that men have made of the world.

Grant Doyle radiates saturnine malevolence as the churl Paolo, and Charne Rochford sings robustly as Gabriele Adorno, the coming man. But the centre does not hold: although Craig Smith and Keel Watson sing dutifully as Boccanegra and his nemesis Fiesco, neither of them radiates much vocal authority, let alone personal charisma, and their two momentous confrontations, which bookend the opera, carry little emotional impact.

Michael Rosewell conducts with a firm and sensitive baton, but the reduced orchestration inevitably drains gravitas and grandeur from the score and much of what should sound sepulchrally awesome ends up pallidly churchy. A brave try overall, but a misguided one.

Simon Boccanegra, English Touring Opera, at Hackney Empire (Telegraph Review)

James Conway has mixed success updating Verdi's Simon Boccanegra to Seventies Italy


By Peter Reed

In his first Verdi production for ETO, James Conway has chosen Simon Boccanegra, in its usual, much-revised 1881 version. He’s updated it from Renaissance Genoa to Italy in the Seventies, a decade of extreme terrorism and corruption, with the plot’s political machinations, abduction and violent death speaking forcefully over 500 years.

This is high-definition black Verdi, with four of the six main roles sung by baritones and basses, a father-daughter relationship every bit as fraught as that in Rigoletto, and a web of intrigue as knotted as in Don Carlos.

Its brutalism is reinforced by Samal Blak’s fascistic set of concrete blocks; it concentrates the mind effectively on an opera that – with few stand-alone arias – moves forward through some powerful ensembles and choruses, in particular the riot scene in Act 1 (when the mob bursts into Boccanegra’s council chamber).

Two of the cast were very good. As Amelia, Boccanegra’s long-lost daughter caught between two love rivals, Elizabeth Llewellyn continues to fulfil her promise. Although she looked ill at ease in her skirt and cardigan, some awkward acting was not matched by her powerful and lyrical soprano.

Grant Doyle’s sinuous Paolo (Boccanegra’s murderous henchman obsessively in love with Amelia) summed up the opera’s unremittingly dark character with panache, and rather stole the title role’s thunder.

This was sung by Craig Smith, who only fitfully projected Boccanegra’s nobility, with a voice that had everything except Verdian heft, and he was more at home with the older Boccanegra of the main action than his 25-years-younger self of the Prologue.

The bass Keel Watson, as Fiesco (Boccanegra’s sworn enemy and, unwittingly, Amelia’s grandfather), found the fullness of voice to match his imposing stage presence in the second half; and Charne Rochford, the opera’s lone tenor, was Amelia’s ardently sung love interest.

Michael Rosewell’s conducting had a strong feel for the opera’s headlong flight into tragedy.

Simon Boccanegra, English Touring Opera (Arts Desk Review)

A consistent and cohesive production of Verdi's problem opera

by Roderic Dunnett

Simon Boccanegra has, as English Touring Opera’s director James Conway points out, never quite made the running outside Italy amid Verdi’s output. It went through three to five different versions in a short space of time. Despite the Romeo and Juliet era setting (14th-century Genoa battling it out with Venice) there are naivetes in Piave and Boito’s plot which, despite the frenetic story’s many merits, generate more than the usual operatic implausibilities. These render some of the quickly changing political frummeries all but comic, so that Otello and Falstaff tend to make better running amid post-Don Carlo Verdi.

Conway has had a go at sharpening the opera’s dramatic and political intensity by relocating the action of Boccanegra to modern times (just as his Donizetti The Siege of Calais seeks affinities with wartime Stalingrad). This has merits, though Boccanegra’s dottier misunderstandings or non-recognitions seem even less plausible – even ludicrous - in an age of quick communications.

There is something Lear-like about Boccanegra’s dilemmas, and his failures

The era chosen is one of appalling Italian political violence – the period of Andreotti, Togliatti and the assassinated Aldo Moro; tensions between communist-socialist left and nearly neo-Fascist right; and the ruthless two-way slaughter by the Red Brigades and their rivals (Bologna station bombing, Moro’s maimed body found in a car boot).

As an evocation of that era, from the Jonathan Miller Rigoletto-like, Mafioso-style plottings of the opening scene, it does rather well. A major asset – some might disagree violently – is the immovable pillared set, with shades of Mussolini-type architecture, by the immensely gifted Faroese born set and costume designer Samal Blak, a Linbury-prize winner with a background in sculpture (it shows) and from Central St Martins.

Once Craig Smith’s Boccanegra, after a curiously unprepossessing prologue, becomes leader, he spends a lot of time stuck on a central placed curule chair, in which he finally expires, poisoned. The effect is static, almost monolithic. And I found it wholly apt, magisterial, impressive. There is something Lear-like about Boccanegra’s dilemmas, and his failures, and the grizzled Smith (unconvincingly young at the immediate postwar outset) has an isolated look - political, familial, emotional - which Conway strives to underline.

The fact that Smith has (unknowingly) lost, before the action starts, his wife or lover, daughter of his enemy (the always robust but now vocally magnificent Keel Watson) and then almost carelessly mislaid his baby daughter (the glorious Elizabeth Llewellyn, in a ghastly, ill-designed turquoise skirt that never changes and annoys at every turn - pictured above right), only underlines his comparable failure, or rocky efforts, to hold the creaking state, and its shifting allegiances, together.

The librettists spare us Shakespearian onstage battles – no Macbeth and Macduff: revolution breaks out and then simply concludes - so we never see Boccanegra with teeth bared, sword (or Kalashnikov) in hand. Smith remains a stern, angry but strangely placid leader, accepting his end (it’s a long death) a bit like Derek Jacobi’s Claudius swallowing the poisoned mushroom.

So this is a Boccanegra you will love or ridicule. A plonky prologue is redeemed by the magnificently cast Polish bass Piotr Lempa in a small(ish) role and the Australian-born Grant Doyle. Doyle is a number one performer, as Simon’s estranged former ally Paolo, who pays with his life for a collapsed coup. The opera picks up with Act I, and the story – Conway likens it to fairy tale or fable and is in many respects right – despite its twists and turns is no more complicated than Shakespeare.

Don Giovanni - Daily Express Review

REVIEW: DON GIOVANNI BY MOZART, GARSINGTON OPERA

By William Hartston

GARSINGTON Opera is only in its second year at the Getty estate at Wormsley, not far from High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, but it has really settled into its stride with imaginative productions of both old favourites and revivals of almost forgotten works.

The setting is glorious, with a temporary, but comfortable opera pavilion (whose heating problems are beginning to be solved) situated next to the most beautiful cricket ground in the country.

As if to emphasize its commitment to civilised values, there is even a road sign saying: "To the cricket and opera". With sheep, deer and a horse with baby foal all wandering contentedly over the estate's vast fields, complimentary coach rides to a beautifully laid out walled garden, and a long interval to enjoy a picnic, this is an idyllic setting for a relaxing afternoon. Or it would have been if the sun had come out and the rain stopped.

This year's season began with a new production of Don Giovanni for which an impressively talented cast of young singers had been assembled. The Australian baritone Grant Doyle was perfect as the dastardly Don, combining a fine, powerful voice with a splendid swagger and confident and energetic movements around the stage that emphasised his irresistibility.

The many women in his life were led by the marvellous Sophie Bevan, pouting perfectly as Donna Elvira, while Sophie's sister Mary Bevan played Zerlina. With Natasha Jouhl as Donna Anna, this added up to as perfect a trio of conquests, in voice, good looks and acting ability, as the Don could wish for. The other male roles were also well sung and acted, particularly Jesus Leon as Don Ottavio, whose rendition of the lovely 'Il mio tesoro' aria was one of the high points of the opera.

So far, so good, and for the opening acts, this new production directed by Daniel Slater displayed a wonderful energy and delicious bits of humour that perfectly matched the venue and the youthful cast. But then it all went haywire at the end.

The plot of Don Giovanni starts with him killing the Commendatore whose daughter he has just seduced. At the end, in conventional productions, a statue of the Commendatore comes to life, accepts a dinner invitation from Giovanni, and drags him off, unrepentant, to Hell. In Slater's production, it's not quite clear what happens at the end at all, but it seems that the wicked seducer is injected with something by Don Ottavio that renders him helpless and brainless and he is consigned to a lunatic asylum.

The connection of this with the Commendatore's icy handshake is unclear, and the lyrics, which clearly talk about him being dragged into the flames of Hell, do not match the actions. It is not even clear if the Commendatore is dead or on life support, as he seems to be singing from a hospital window, while his cadaver is on stage being addressed by Don Giovanni and his servant Leporello. All a bit of a mess really, which was a great shame as the whole performance was unmitigated joy until the silly ending.

Don Giovanni- BachTrack

Ottavio's Revenge: Don Giovanni at Garsington Opera

Saturday 2-Jun-12 17:50

Grant Doyle, Baritone: Don Giovanni
Joshua Bloom, Bass: Leporello
Natasha Jouhl, Soprano: Donna Anna
Sophie Bevan, Soprano: Donna Elvira
Mary Bevan, Soprano: Zerlina
Jesus Leon, Tenor: Don Ottavio
Callum Thorpe, Bass-baritone: Masetto
Christophoros Stamboglis, Bass: The Commendatore



A trip to the opera at Garsington in its new, idyllic setting at Wormsley Estate, Buckinghamshire, is a fine treat even in the rain. And with a Don Giovanni production which, despite plenty of oddities, is light-hearted and often witty, an excellent evening of high-class entertainment is guaranteed.

The estate’s beautifully designed opera pavilion housed a compact and efficient open-plan set, replete with Macs, iPads and a glossy minimalist feel. There were very few changes of scenery, and so director Daniel Slater had clearly taken great care to make the singers’ movement on stage as varied as possible: the production exuded a sense of motion at all times. While I wasn’t convinced of the necessity to ‘stage’ all the arias – especially with an experienced opera crowd such as this, there’s no real need to force that much extra momentum from the piece – the effort and inventiveness of this production were beyond doubt. There were plenty of great gags as well, from a hilariously deployed printer in Leporello’s ‘Catalogue aria’ to a vigorous tug-of-war between Giovanni and Donna Elvira over Zerlina. The comic acting of Joshua Bloom (Leporello) was a particular delight all evening, and there was a gentle, summery air to most of the proceedings.

But Slater’s vision for Don Giovanni also involves a reinterpretation of the work which throws up a good deal more questions than it answers. During the overture, Giovanni and Donna Anna passionately and consensually flirt over dinner, and soon after, Giovanni only wounds and doesn’t kill Anna’s father, the Commendatore – these are both ‘tweaks’ which run up against flat contradictions in the libretto. But strangest of all is the elevation of Don Ottavio to hero status. Ottavio, Anna’s fiancé, is generally pilloried as a bland and ineffectual character, unable despite good intentions to compete with Giovanni’s charisma and fascination as the male lead – but in this production, he is presented as the mastermind behind the Commendatore’s visit to Giovanni which leads to the rake’s downfall. Ottavio then plays dumb to what’s just happened in the final scene – as the text demands he must – and the overall moral of the piece hence shifts, somewhat bizarrely, from ‘Sinners will be punished’ to ‘Watch out for the quiet ones’.

A further issue in direction is the treatment of Masetto, Zerlina and their friends, whom Mozart and Da Ponte created with copious affection and good will as peasants, but who are recast here as Essex girls, chavs and hoodies. As if that wasn’t enough, Masetto is also made to act on Zerlina’s invitation in her aria ‘Batti, batti o bel Masetto’ to hit her (moments before she sings ‘Ah, I see you don’t have the heart’). Masetto later makes a conspicuous show of regret, but the question remains as to whether this was intended as some sort of comment on the state of society, or whether it was all meant in good humour. Either way, it’s a very big miss.

Callum Thorpe and Mary Bevan played Masetto and Zerlina well, however, and both were in good voice within a generally strong cast. Bevan’s was the female voice which blended best in the ensemble numbers, Natasha Jouhl’s Donna Anna being overpowering at times – even when singing solo, her voluminous, heavy sound didn’t fit easily with what was generally quite a restrained vocal effort from the other singers. Restraint was the characteristic with which Sophie Bevan impressed most as Donna Elvira: improving rapidly over the course of the first act, she produced some gorgeous quiet tones at climactic points in her arias which suggested confidence as well as talent.

In the title role, Grant Doyle sounded appropriately virile and was a strong stage presence as well as a convincing lead. His serenade ‘Deh vieni alla finestra’ was a highlight, with the most delicate of plucked, mandolin-style orchestral accompaniments miraculously audible above the sound of heavy rain outside. Joshua Bloom was strong vocally as well as dramatically as Leporello, and Jesús León sang Ottavio with enough power that had his character’s transformation been believable at all, I would have believed it. The standout singer, though, was Christophoros Stamboglis, the Commendatore, who made a big impression in Act I and then redeemed the ending from the perplexities of its production with a stone-solid and powerful display.

The Garsington Opera Orchestra were on good form, and while Douglas Boyd’s conducting occasionally bordered on the efficient, he brought out some excellent phrasing from the strings in particular. The orchestral sound was light and sensitive and never overly Romantic.

A mixed production, then, but enough quality to enjoy both visually and musically to make this as special an evening’s entertainment as its stunning setting merits.

Submitted by Paul Kilbey on 6th June 2012

Link to original review here

Don Giovanni - The Stage

Don Giovanni

Published Wednesday 6 June 2012 at 11:33 

by Edward Bhesania

Launching Garsington Opera’s second season at its new home - the airy, Japanese-inspired pavilion set in the Getty family’s 2,500-acre Chilterns estate - this Don Giovanni, directed by Daniel Slater, is both refreshingly modern and occasionally lacklustre. Leslie Travers’s designs take the form of chic cubicle-type rooms, all white panels and aluminium trim, with equally minimalist white furniture to match. But the rooms are confusingly multi-use: the Commendatore’s bed is later appropriated by the serial philanderer Giovanni to seduce Zerlina; and though Ottavio is sitting at a computer in another room before the action begins, Leporello later occupies it to print out the famous list of his master’s conquests.

Some of the ideas - such as reversing Giovanni’s and Anna’s roles at the beginning, so that Anna becomes a teasing dominatrix, cuffing Giovanni to the dinner table - are hard to incorporate seamlessly into the drama; others, such as Giovanni’s serenade to (traditionally) Elvira’s maid, are weakly handled. But Elvira, Anna and Ottavio amusingly gatecrash Giovanni’s party in the guise of Wonder Woman and an S&M couple; Zerlina and her bridesmaids are colourfully blingy and scantily clad; and in the final scene Giovanni controls his huge LCD TV via his iPad while awaiting his guest. His punishment is not to descend into hell, but instead to languish in a lunatic asylum.

Sophie Bevan is dramatically expressive as Elvira, though sometimes sounds laboured. Grant Doyle and Joshua Bloom convey a macho camaraderie as Giovanni and Leporello, and Jesus Leon stands out for his Italianate Ottavio, as does Mary Bevan for her agile Zerlina. But the Garsington Opera Orchestra’s playing, under Douglas Boyd, is the biggest draw. Boyd coaxes exquisite balance from his players, and is passionately attuned both to the music’s turbulence and intimacy.

Link to original review here

Don Giovanni - Oxford Times

Don Giovanni: Garsington Opera at Wormsley

2:34pm Wednesday 6th June 2012

By Christopher Gray

Don Giovanni’s catalogue of conquests — including, of course, the famous “mille e tre” in Spain — is removed from Leporello’s fat little book and reproduced as a computer print-out in Garsington’s modern-day staging of Mozart’s great opera. So long is the list that yards and yards of white paper are spewed from the machine and draped across the wide spaces of Leslie Travers’s swish silver-and-white penthouse set, to the astonishment of Donna Elvira, the dirty Don’s rejected lover

Don Giovanni (Grant Doyle) and Donna Elvira (Sophie Bevan)
fight over Zerlina (Mary Bevan).

Photo: Mike Hoban

A rival to this richly comic moment comes later as the furious Elvira (Sophie Bevan, in superb voice) — in an effort to prevent an addition to the lothario’s list — becomes involved with him in a tug-of-war in which the sexy Zerlina (Mary Bevan, sister of the above) doubles as the rope.

Mind you, one suspects that the chavvy gum-chewing minx would far rather victory went to the Don. As portrayed by Aussie, Grant Doyle, he is a gentleman to whom women willingly submit — as in the opening moments when we find Donna Anna (Natasha Jouhl) complicit in her rape to the extent of chaining her attacker to a table. 

Sado-masochism rears its head more than once in a version of the opera that comes across as relentlessly sexy — understandably so, perhaps, in view of its subject matter.
Jesús León as Don Ottavio — ever the poodle of Anna — becomes more than usually her creature here, submitting to the indignity of being dragged in on a lead when the masqueraders visit Giovanni’s dance. Other outfits, including a fetishistic black plastic number, are plucked from the well-stocked wardrobe of Zerlina’s muscular fiancé Masetto (Callum Thorpe), who appears to run a fancy dress hire business when not working (as his own garb suggests) as a circus ringmaster.

So far, so good. Where one does take issue with Daniel Slater, though, is over the scenes involving the ‘slain’ Commendatore (Christophoros Stamboglis). When he accepts a dinner date with the Don, he arrives not as a statue gifted with speech and movement but as a hospital patient who might not even be dead.

And the ‘hell’ to which his host is delivered, by means of a lethal injection from Ottavio, appears from the look of the white-shrouded figures in various uncomfortable poses around him to be some sort of mental institution. Equating hell with such an establishment borders, to me, on the offensive.

Much will be forgiven, though, in a production so richly rewarding musically, under conductor Douglas Boyd.

With so many big voices around — occasionally too big in the case of Anna — Mr Doyle holds his own throughout in the title role. He is well matched by his sidekick Leporello, played by fellow Australian Joshua Bloom — and, mentioning matches, how unusual to find in a production of this opera a master and servant actually able to slip comfortably into each other’s clothes. 

Link to original review here

Don Giovanni - Bucks Free Press

Review: Don Giovanni at Garsington Opera

6:42pm Tuesday 5th June 2012

By Neil Phillips

AFTER a successful opening season in 2011, Garsington Opera’s second year at the stunning Wormsley Estate, near Stokenchurch, kicked off with one of the most famous productions of all – Mozart’s Don Giovanni

I must confess I’m a novice to the opera. I’ve certainly never seen a live show before and as keen as I was to try it, it was with some trepidation that I sat in my seat, fearing the whole thing might be a hard evening’s work.

There was no need to worry, though. What followed was a thoroughly enjoyable, often spectacular production that was easy to follow and a pleasure to see performed.
Don Giovanni tells the tale of a serial philanderer – a user and abuser of women, whose wanton antics come with a price. After killing the father of one of his would-be conquests (or possibly victims) in the opening scenes, the predatory Giovanni finds a growing list of people out to wreak their revenge upon him – even as his own passionate approach to life threatens to seduce them.

This quality production, directed by Daniel Slater and conducted by Douglas Boyd, impresses right from the moment you take your seat in the pavilion. This version has been given a contemporary makeover, using crisp, modern sets with minimalist décor.
And when the music starts it becomes a hair-raising experience, the score playfully telling the story and the cast’s powerful vocals bringing the characters to vivid and often comedic life. The pavilion’s acoustics were excellent, making it easy to appreciate the quality of both the singing and the orchestra.

This particular opera is a humourous morality tale – as such it perhaps doesn’t pack the emotional punch that many who are not terribly familiar with the form might expect. But it is consistently funny and involving, with plenty of drama to keep the pace from flagging.
The performances were, to my admittedly untrained eye, faultless. Every member of the cast had an abundance of charisma and delivered amazing vocals. As Giovanni himself Grant Doyle was a perfect mix of arrogance and sleazy charm, while Joshua Bloom as his servant Leporello made a fine comic foil. The females of the company were equally good, particularly Sophie Bevan as the scorned Elvira and Mary Bevan as the flighty Zerlina, Giovanni’s latest target who is both fascinated and eventually repelled by his behaviour.

The contemporary setting – complete with iPads and the occasional sado-masochistic overtones - works well, although you have to wonder how Giovanni has escaped the attention of the law for so long. He might have been able to get away with his form of sexual predation in 18th century Italy, but you'd hope the police would be paying a bit more attention these days.

While I was won over right from the start, I found the second act slightly more urgent and absorbing – though that may simply be that my brain had fully clicked with the mechanics of the opera by then. But either way, the show was a superb evening of entertainment, and left me eager to see more.

But at Garsington the opera itself is only part of the attraction (admittedly a major one). The opera pavilion is set within the beautiful grounds of the Wormsley Estate, surrounded by lush greenery, and a beautiful lake which makes a perfect picnic spot.
The show is structured with an extended interval so the audience has plenty of time to take dinner in between Acts. This really adds to the experience, transforming it not only into a great trip to the opera, but a wonderful evening out in its own right.

Garsington’s 2012 season runs until July 3, featuring rotating performances of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Vivaldi’s L’Olimpiade and Offenbach’s La Perichole.

Tickets range from £95 to £170 and include a suggested but non-obligatory donation of £60. To book call 01865 361636 or go to www.garsingtonopera.org

Link to original review here

Don Giovanni - The Arts Desk

Exceptional night of realism from director Daniel Slater

by Igor Toronyi-Lalic

Thursday, 07 June 2012

 

For all but two of its 30 years in business, Garsington Opera has had Mozart in each and every season. He's the nearest this company gets to a resident composer. While everything else at the seasonal operation is in flux, their Mozart is a constant. And as with any long-running relationship, there is a confidence in the coming together of the two of them that usually makes any new Mozart production at Garsington one of the Summer highlights. This year was no exception.

We began the night, however, with a cliche. Like many a director before him, Daniel Slater chose to relocate the 18th-century lothario to an American Psycho-type context: Don Giovanni as a high-flying solipsist, Leporello as his chauffeur. But cliche doesn't accompany deja vu. For this very familiar updating is sculpted in the most unusual and brilliant way. Grant Doyle's property developer Don Giovanni is in control - of the women, the men, the music and the mains. The night opens with him flicking on the lights to this swanky block of minimalist apartments. In one flat, the aspirational chavs: gum-chewing Zerlina and lycra-clad Masetto, ready for their big fat gypsy wedding. In another, the city boy, Ottavio, a Giovanni wannabe, and Anna, whose twisted sexual habits sets off this cascade of rape and murder. In another minimal box, Sophie Bevan's Elvira, a snivelling wreck, but ready to return to her brute at the drop of a hat.

Not a single scene, sentiment or word was stranded in the 18th century

Innocence is no where to be found. Good and bad are intermingled. Mozart's score (given a bracing outing by Douglas Boyd and the Garsington Opera Orchestra) does the same; it makes no judgements. In fact, it skewers you with counter-intuitive messages. Just as you think you've got the measure of a character, it confounds you: Zerlina the low-grade tart becomes Zerlina the paragon of love and forgiveness. Slater makes the most of these psychological complexities and finds 21st century homes for all of them.

Not a single scene, sentiment or word (the libretto translation had been neatly tweaked) was stranded in the 18th century. Everything had been thought of, thought through and brought into the the present day. The lover's list became a spread sheet on a computer print out. The musical quotations become opera DVDs that Giovanni flicks through over dinner. Finicky updatings of this kind can come across as contrived. But Slater's analogies are too clever and too well choreographed. Most clever and well choreographed was Giovanni's descent into hell. Slater brings a brilliantly rational sense to bear on this supernatural ending. Don Giovanni's penalty for a life of greed and obsession is a living death, sedated and wheelchair-bound, the white walls of his swish, sinful world morphing into the white walls of a mental institution.

There was a vocal and theatrical strength in the cast that made Slater's job easier. Grant Doyle (pictured with Mary and Sophie Bevan right) and his aggressively floppy hair were made to play Mozart's semi-seductive baddies. As with his Figaro a few years back, his Giovanni was laced with a compelling menace throughout, a rendition that had just enough charm that you could understand why Elvira would return to him. Casting the piercing and powerful voice of Natasha Jouhl as the twisted, S&M-loving feminist Anna was a stroke of genius. She deserved a medal for her sotto voce in "Non mi dir", delivered half-naked and in the freezing cold.

Callum Thorpe was a strong Masetto and Mary Bevan a characterful Zerlina. Joshua Bloom's Leporello was excellently slimy. Accompanied by the fantastic young Garsington chorus, Christophoros Stamboglis's dying but not quite dead Commendatore, a Harvey Weinstein figure, re-emerged from his hospital bed in the final scene and electrified the evening. Only Jesús León's casual Ottavio disappointed. But the night belonged to Sophie Bevan's Elvira. Unlike most great operatic actresses who develop their stage presence to compensate for vocal failings, Bevan really can sing. She starts with a meaty and technically assured vocal sound and uses it to paint extraordinary psychological portraits. The journey her rendition of "Mi tradi quell'alma ingrata" ("That ungrateful wretch betrayed me") took from shouty anger to exhausted self-pity was a thing of bitter wonder.

In one final clever move, Slater gives Ottavio a central role in Giovanni's downfall. One that leaves Ottavio free to take over his empire. It will soon be another poor girl's turn to sing Elvira's song.

Link to original review here

Don Giovanni - Wall Street Journal

"A Fresh Take on the Dirty Don"

By PAUL LEVY

WORMSLEY PARK, England—Garsington Opera kicked off its second season at Wormsley, the enormous Getty estate with its enlarged auditorium and stage, with a special Mozartian arrangement of "God Save the Queen" to mark that this was also the beginning of Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

Director Daniel Slater's production of "Don Giovanni," though, is more subversive. The first scene, the rape of Donna Anna, is portrayed—in a dumb show involving most of the contents of a Soho sex shop—as a sex game gone wrong.
Mike Hoban

The complicity of Anna (beautifully acted and sung by Natasha Jouhl) raises dramatic problems: it means she is cheating on Ottavio (Jesús León), which confuses the issue of her asking him to wait a year to marry. But Leslie Travers's contemporary sets and costumes made the rethink plausible.

I found this radical take on the libretto consistent and refreshing, splendidly cast, with outstanding performances by a wonderful-looking Grant Doyle as Giovanni, Joshua Bloom as Leporello, the Bevan sisters—Sophie and Mary—as Elvira and Zerlina, respectively, and Callum Thorpe as Masetto. Conductor Douglas Boyd's tempi sometimes pushed the singers to keep up with him, but the pace was bracing.

'Don Giovanni,' until July 2; 'L'Olimpiade,' until June 29; www.garsingtonopera.org

Don Giovanni, Garsington - Financial Times

By Andrew Clark

The staging of Mozart’s ‘dramma giocoso’ is right on the button.
 

Leporello and the Don: Joshua Bloom, Grant Doyle

Donna Anna likes kinky sex. Masetto beats up his fiancée. Don Ottavio prefers the computer screen to a private life. Another cheap operatic update? No, living testament to Don Giovanni’s many-sided appeal. If Mozart’s dramma giocoso is about youth and élan vital, then Daniel Slater’s staging for Garsington Opera is right on the button.

We tend to think of country house opera as a dainty dance of picnics and parkland but this Don Giovanni is edgy, risqué and witty – with a serious undertow. Giovanni pays for his anti-social behaviour by being consigned to the life of a vegetable in an asylum. For “fires of hell” read sedatives and a wheelchair.

It’s the kind of show that would click with young metropolitan audiences if only they could see it at their neighbourhood theatre at an affordable price. But country house opera is not a social programme for the inner city masses. It is too exclusive to receive a subsidy. It may pay lip service to education but it survives and thrives on a mix of fundraising flair, social elitism and artistic acumen, conjuring high-quality opera from the begging bowl.

On that reckoning you would think the likes of Garsington and Grange Park would be recession-hit but this summer’s opening shows tell a different story. Despite a 15 per cent drop in private giving, the programme at Grange Park in Hampshire is as enterprising as ever and Garsington, which relocated last summer to the Getty estate on the Oxfordshire-Buckinghamshire border, has suddenly hit its stride.

The pagoda-style temporary home it built there has become permanent and it is on the verge of appointing its first artistic director – a sign of healthy ambition.
Don Giovanni demonstrates that country house audiences don’t need to be patronised. The show – built on an open-plan designer-apartment set (Leslie Travers), with clean lines, multiple levels and minimal accessories – is as good an updating of Mozart’s opera as I have seen.

Garsington goes one better, with a beautifully matched line-up of singer-actors in which there are no weak links: hats off to the casting director.
Grant Doyle is not a physically or vocally dominant Giovanni but he has danger and allure written all over him. Joshua Bloom makes a strong foil, his stage-wide print-out of his master’s conquests providing one of the evening’s best gags. Sophie Bevan’s sexy, predatory Elvira sings her heart out. But the most arresting performances come from Callum Thorpe’s virile Masetto and Natasha Jouhl’s Donna Anna, the latter a stylish stage performer with looks, presence and a classic spinto voice that makes perfect sense of the tricky coloratura.

Douglas Boyd conducts a high-energy reading but what really tickled me on opening night was his choice of National Anthem – a delectable Mozartian pastiche by Andrew Davis. Leonard Ingrams, Garsington’s late lamented founder, would be pleased at the way his well-bred, quirky spirit flourishes at Wormsley.

Don Giovanni - The Void Magazine Review

Wormsley Estate, Buckinghamshire


Two sisters have been wowing opera audiences in South Bucks.

Sophie and Mary Bevan played key roles in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, staged by Garsington Opera and Chorus, at billionaire Mark Getty’s estate at Wormsley, near High Wycombe, Bucks, on June 2.

From left: Grant Doyle (Giovanni), Mary Bevan (Zerlina) and Sophie Bevan (Elvira).
Picture: Mike Hoban

Sophie, who plays jilted Elvira, says: “The amateur dramatics that we did at St Bernard’s was a great starting point for a career in professional opera. I am always grateful to the school for what they taught me.”

Mary says: “The biggest problem I had was playing Zerlina as an Essex girl. People said I was too posh. I had to chav down for the part. So I pulled a huge piece of chewing gum from my mouth just before I sang my first aria, and stuck it on the side of a table, right in the middle of the stage.

“Then I retrieved the gum after the piece, and started chewing again. That works well for the first song. But you can’t use the same gag twice. So I had to push the gum to one side of my mouth for the next big aria. It was rather awkward.”

The audience included BBC Radio presenter Melvyn Bragg and former ITN newscaster Anna Ford.

Giving Mozart’s classic opera a contemporary setting, complete with mobile phones and tablet computers, may be controversial but the staging complemented the newly completed hall in the Getty estate perfectly, giving an extra element of realism to a work more than two centuries old.

That meant some of its themes – such as domestic violence and promiscuity – were all the more relevant, and therefore shocking and disturbing.

Among the world class performers, Joshua Bloom’s incredible bass voice was both inspirational and thrilling in the role of Leporello, the sidekick of serial philanderer Giovanni, exactingly sung by Grant Doyle.

The generously sized seats meant it was pleasure rather than an ordeal to sit through the whole performance, allowing the audience to be lost in another world for a few short hours.
Many of the punters brought along picnic hampers to enjoy in the intermission. It was an extraordinary evening of magical world class opera in the sedate and sumptuous landscape of South Bucks. Truly, a night to remember.

Touring Barber of Seville Uplifts Despite Budget Restraints

Grant Doyle as Figaro, Nicholas Sharratt as Almaviva
Photo by Richard Hubert Smith

I have seen a few Barbers in my time and never a duff production. Maybe there is something about this opera that brings out the best in all the participants, getting them to raise their game as individuals and at the same time work as a team in what is essentially an ensemble piece. Both cast and audience can be carried along on waves of infectious joy, wit, and delicious farce-like plotting and, of course, a relentless succession of wonderful tunes. The credit goes, in the first place, to Rossini, who created, nearly two hundred years ago, what many people believe to be the perfect comic opera. Whilst obeying the many restrictive musical conventions of the time, he creates a stage work of superbly paced narrative in which the characters are all too recognisable human beings displaying so many of the failings and aspirations that go with that status.

This English Touring Opera production did not confound my argument above. It is one that has already been on the road for nearly a month and has had a chance, no doubt, continuously to hone itself. As soon as the overture started, one disadvantage of the relatively a low budget enterprise became apparent. The string section was of near chamber proportions with a total body of only a dozen players. This would not have been so much of a problem were it not for the fact that they were battling against the Theatre Royal’s desperately dead acoustic (a common issue with many of Britain’s main city theatres which are mostly of Victorian design), something that would brutally expose any flaws in ensemble and intonation. The players did splendidly well but they were never going to be able to produce a blooming sound with depth, and never achieve the expected climactic peaks at the end of Rossini’s trademark crescendos. Early on, tenor Nicholas Sharratt has to sing Almaviva’s serenading aria to Rosina and he also had a tussle with the acoustic. He has a fine lyric tenor sound but it is not a powerful voice and his top notes never soared as they might. Nevertheless he warmed up during the course of the evening and his difficult coloratura turn in the final ensemble was a triumph. In fact a steady gathering of momentum and improvement all round was a feature of the evening, things stepping up as each of the characters entered and settled in. After Almaviva, we get the entry of Figaro and Grant Doyle achieved a suitable sense of domination with his commanding baritone and stage presence.

In a nutshell the opera is about a plot to free a caged bird (Rosina) from its prison (guardian Dr Bartolo’s house). The singer of the part of Rosina has to convey both charming innocence and feminine guile. Kitty Whately may not have as fruity a lower register as some mezzos but she rattled through her difficult runs with silken musicality and, with her natural, engaging acting her’s was a notable portrayal. Touring opera company productions are often the place to engage in talent spotting of the up-and –comers and on this form Kitty Whately may have great things to come. Andrew Slater as Bartolo nearly stole the show with his patter numbers and Alan Fairs as Don Basilio supplied a suitably grotesque Don Basilio with his splendid bass. All the cast coped well with their rapid patter routines in the English translation, enabling us (without surtitles) to understand what was being said in all but the more complex ensemble numbers.

As a touring company on a tight budget and necessarily highly portable sets, ETO is never going to be able to deliver lavish, complex scenery. The set consisted of simple flats representing houses that were later turned round to convey Dr Bartolo’s residential interior. This worked perfectly well in a production that, mercifully, was set in its correct 18^th century period as we could tell from the fine costumes.

Timothy Carey both conducted and accompanied the recitatives from the keyboard, and, apart from some odd slumps in tempo, kept the score moving.

The premiere of IL Barbiere in Rome in 1816 was famously booed. This was partly because the story had already been set by a more favoured composer, Paisiello. Without football in those days, opera was the nearest thing to a competitive sport in Italy. Two centuries on, history has judged the outright winner to have been the 23 year old upstart, Gioacchino Rossini.

Audiences are a lot less demonstrative nowadays, although by all accounts the London premier of this production at the Hackney Empire had each musical turn greeted with whoops and whistles. Things are more staid up in the Northern Shires (I spotted quite a number of tweed jackets) but in their own way the audience was highly appreciative. People were leaving with spring in their steps.

This was the first opera I have ever attended where the singers did not take individual bows at the end. They all resolutely remained in line, holding hands. I assume this was a statement that without real team work the enterprise simply wouldn’t work. Very fitting.

John Leeman

link to original review here

The Barber of Seville, ETO

English Touring Opera's new production of Barber of Seville is traditional with a twist

Style and grace: Kitty Whately as Rosina Photo: Alastair Muir

By John Allison

English Touring Opera’s spring season for 2012 is one of its strongest in recent years, consisting of two fine yet simple operatic roadshows. Alongside a revival of James Conway’s Eugene Onegin, memorable for its haunting symbolism, there’s a new and refreshingly straightforward Barber of Seville in which the director Thomas Guthrie aims for eye-catching clarity.

Traditional with a twist – bearded “ladies” suggest that Figaro will never lack for customers – the Rossini is costumed in period. Yet for all the attractive airiness of Rhys Jarman’s mint-green sets, it is the panache of the performers that will doubtless win new audiences on this long national tour.

A strongly communicative cast makes the case against surtitles by delivering David Parry’s translation with a clarity that compels the audience to sit up and listen.

Kitty Whately, last year’s Kathleen Ferrier Award laureate, is winningly cast here as a feisty Rosina. Her compact mezzo is glinting throughout its range. Nicholas Sharratt is similarly strong as Count Almaviva, with a plangent tenor capable of negotiating even “Cessa di più resistere” with pleasing ease – albeit slightly telescoped, as the long opera is wisely snipped here and there.

Grant Doyle’s Figaro, Andrew Slater’s Bartolo and Alan Fairs’s Basilio all display good comic timing. Paul McGrath’s conducting may have been a little measured on the first night at the Hackney Empire, but musical values are high.

ETO, to May 25, www.englishtouringopera.org.uk
 
This review also appears in Seven magazine, free with the Sunday Telegraph 
 
Follow SEVEN on Twitter @TelegraphSeven

Link to original review here 

OPERA REVIEW - ROSSINI’S THE BARBER OF SEVILLE, ENGLISH TOURING OPERA

Grant Doyle, Nicholas Sharratt and Kitty Whately

THIS spring English Touring Opera has made a welcome return to popular works with Rossini’s glorious crowd-pleaser The Barber Of Seville.

Even better, it is set in the original time and place: Seville in the 18th century; so you can sit back and enjoy, without having to analyse some obscure directorial concept.

Rossini was only 24 when the opera was premiered in 1816, but the inventive composer was already in full flower. Nothing else he wrote quite topped this energetic comedy, based on the Beaumarchais play that was a prequel to The Marriage Of Figaro. The young heiress Rosina is rescued from a forced marriage to her guardian and, with the help of the resourceful Figaro, marries Count Almaviva, the man she loves.

Director Tom Guthrie’s production opens to Rhys Jarman’s set of four house fronts designed to swivel into an interior.

A backcloth silhouette of Seville changes colour depending on the time of day. Almaviva arrives with a ragbag band of musicians to serenade Rosina, incarcerated in her guardian Dr Bartolo’s house.

The comedy thereafter is fast and furious. Andrew Slater’s Bartolo is a monstrous sawbones of a doctor who terrifies his patients. He is matched by Alan Fairs’s creepy Don Basilio. In the chaos caused by the arrival of the police to arrest the disguised Almaviva, Seville’s skyline tilts as if we are on a stormy sea, a topsy-turvy moment.

Kitty Whately, winner of the 2011 Kathleen Ferrier Award, is a sparkling Rosina, with a bright mezzo voice. Nicholas Sharratt’s Almaviva sails through the coloratura and the high Cs, even having a commendable stab at the often omitted aria “Cessa di piu resistere”, though he needs to correct his forward-leaning stance.

Grant Doyle keeps up the pace as the ubiquitous Figaro, as does the orchestra under Paul McGrath. The English translation dispenses with the usual surtitles. As all the cast have clear diction, this gives immediacy to the sung words.

ROSSINI'S THE BARBER OF SEVILLE

4/5


English Touring Opera
 (This week: Exeter Northcott: 01392 493493; then touring: englishtouringopera.org.uk)

Link to original review here

Review of The Barber of Seville - Hackney Empire

L-R: Grant Doyle (Figaro), Kitty Whately (Rosina), Nicholas Sharratt (Almaviva), Cheryl Enever (Berta), Andrew Slater (Bartolo), Alan Fairs (Basilio) English Touring Opera // Rossini, The Barber of Seville Photo credit: Richard Hubert Smith

The English Touring Opera’s production of the Barber of Seville, sung in English, tunes in to modern sensibilities whilst keeping to the original context of Rossini’s opera and Beaumarchais’ play. The Hackney Empire is a wonderful venue in which to see this interpretation, with its beautiful interior and proscenium arch to frame performance, and with an audience demographic that is democratic rather than cliquey. All of which ties in nicely with the ETO’s policy to produce opera’ for everyone’. Their programme description of opera in 19th C Italy as a bawdy night out with the crowd shouting, interrupting when displeased with the performance, reminds us of a requirement and expectation to entertain.

Kitty Whately is a spirited Rosina; a beautiful orphan with a large dowry. She is a pleasure to listen to and her slightly clipped enunciation accentuates the comedy at times. Nicholas Sharratt playing Count Almaviva is dulcet in tone and aura; a winning embodiment of the aristocrat who gets his way through wealth and position, but is entirely dependent on his former servant, now the Barber, Figaro, to achieve his ends, and blindingly led by his passion for Rosina. The somewhat conceited nature of his character comes through, as with the notion that Rosina should prove her love for his personality not his money, pitched against her predicament. The assuming of disguises is executed to great dramatic effect as he moves from poor student to drunken soldier to music tutor before revealing himself as the love struck Count. Rosina is to be forcibly married to her guardian the aged Dr Bartolo; Andrew Slater conveys Bortolo’s pomposity and frustration with particular flair. Bartolo shouts at his ward, keeps her locked away and covets her wealth (certainly in this production more than her youth and beauty). Grant Doyle as Figaro has huge presence and magnetism; he out performs everyone else as Figaro should; the servant who empowers the action and controls his aristocratic masters, and so called betters. Cheryl Enever as Berta, Alan Fairs as Don Basilio, and chorus members complete the vivacity of the piece. Conductor Paul McGrath leads the orchestra with aplomb, contributing greatly to the overall rousing delivery of the production.

Tuning in to modern sensibilities the issue of money is at the heart of this production. The Count can get what he wants by means of his wealth and Figaro will achieve this for him, for money. Ultimately Bortolo gets to keep Rosina’s dowry and does not rue the loss of his bride. The ardour of ‘young love’ between Count Almaviva and Rosina is comic and impulsive – for Rosina faced with the alternative of her curmudgeonly, cantankerous aged guardian, her will and drive to escape are highly believable. Director Tom Guthrie encapsulates his feeling about the opera as ‘A love story where an old man is scuppered by young love.’

The action is presented within picture tableaux scenes. The central backdrop of looming storm clouds changes colour with the mood and context of the storytelling and the set design has a Pop Art flavour, including Warhol coloured portraits of Bortolo and Comic Strip speech bubbles. The rich colour and fabric of the costumes adds to the upbeat flavour of the production.

The English Touring Opera is on national tour until the end of May with the Barber of Seville and Eugene Onegin in theatres and three other productions for children in schools, halls and studio theatres. Look out for their Autumn season.

Bryony Hegarty

http://englishtouringopera.org.uk/

Link to original review here

Review: The Barber of Seville

Written by Julia Rank

Before Count Almaviva became a baritone and a lecher, he was a tenor and bit of a stalker. As Rossini’s The Barber of Seville is an operatic adaptation of the first play in Beaumarchais’s Figaro trilogy, it’s hard not to make comparisons with Mozart’s version of its continuation, The Marriage of Figaro, which came 30 years earlier. The Count’s courtship of his Countess-to-be is much more conventional romantic comedy territory and I couldn’t help but find it less interesting than the dizzying plotting and mind games of Figaro – it isn’t often that a (sort-of) sequel is superior.
In farcical fairytale style, the fabulously wealthy and nobly-born Count Almaviva has fallen head-over-heels for the lovely heiress Rosina, confined to the house by her guardian Doctor Bartolo, who plans to marry her himself. With the help of his old acquaintance, town barber Figaro (is the guardian-ward relationship plus barber in Sweeney Todd mere coincidence?), Almaviva is able to don various disguises in order to win Rosina’s heart and steal her away from her protector cum gaoler – unsurprisingly, things don’t go quite according to plan.

Thomas Guthrie’s straightforward production for English Touring Opera features capable, strongly-sung individual performances, but, on the first night, there was a lack of chemistry and vitality that dragged out the three-hour running time (though it did perk up in the second half). Sung in English (which doesn’t do the all the repeated phrases many favours) with a libretto by David Parry, the decision not to use surtitles proves to be a mixed blessing: it’s quite liberating to be able to focus on what’s going on onstage without any distractions, but there are several sections that are fairly incomprehensible without them. The words in Bartolo’s patter arias get lost and the police skirmish that concludes the first half is all bit of a muddle.

Nicholas Sharratt is an affable Almaviva and Kitty Whately makes a pert, inquisitive and likable Rosina; in fact, she’s very much like Susanna, Figaro’s future bride, which makes me think that she and Figaro (played with natural authority by Grant Doyle), with whom she has more in common than the Count, should have ended up together. Andrew Slater enjoys most of the broadest comedy as the doddery old Bartolo with a haphazard medical style, scolding Rosina while brandishing his amputation saw.

There’s something quite suburban (that isn’t meant in a disparaging way) about Rhys Jarman’s easy-to-tour set, which uses flat boards representing houses and shops with light-up windows that turn inwards to become interiors. Against the silhouette of a cityscape with the man in the moon looking down, it has a cosy and slightly claustrophobic small town feel.

As the tour continues, the cast should ease into playing their characters in front of the audience. It’s a pleasure to see something other than panto in the Hackney Empire, which must be one of London’s most beautiful theatres, and adds up to a solid evening, if not the most exciting.

The Barber of Seville is touring until May 25. For full details, visit the English Touring Opera website.

ETO serve up classic comedy in The Barber of Seville

The Barber of Seville and Eugene Onegin, the two operas being toured by English Touring Opera this season, share two things: they are both highly melodic stalwarts of the repertoire, and their plots both revolve around the writing of love letters. Beyond that, however, they couldn't be more different: Onegin laden with angst and regret, and The Barber the most frivolous and frothiest of romantic comedies. Rossini's characters are straight out of commedia dell'arte (the old fool infatuated with a young girl, the scheming and boastful servant, the pretty but clever put-upon girl), and the action is there to match.

Thomas Guthrie's production for ETO, which opened last night at the Hackney Empire, is uncomplicated, uncontroversial and plays it solidly for laughs. It's helped by a great performance from the orchestra under Paul McGrath, who keeps everything light, upbeat and full of orchestral colour without overdoing the crescendi or the acceleration: the singers always have space to make their notes heard, even in the fast sections. From the very first notes of the overture, I was happy that the most was being made of Rossini's tuneful score.

All the roles were well sung. The strongest performance of the show was Andrew Slater's pompously self-important Dr. Bartolo. Slater was powerful in the slower passages and with perfectly controlled articulation in the rapid-fire basso buffo numbers; he commanded the stage and the action right until the point at the end when he is finally discomfited. Grant Doyle was an engaging Figaro, and seemed to lift Nicholas Sharratt as Almaviva, who was at his best in the duets between master and servant. Alan Fairs was splendidly amusing in Don Basilio's big number about slander, and Kitty Whately was an appealing Rosina. Comic acting was excellent throughout. The production has many amusing bits of invention (I loved the conceit that the soldiers in Act I are wounded and that Dr. Bartolo is having to operate on them – incompetently, of course) and it was notable how well the singers combined with the orchestra to bring out Rossini's many musical gags.

Translating opera is an unforgiving business. David Parry's translation does an excellent job: the dialogue is in clear language which is modern without sounding forced or anachronistic and makes use of lots of rhyme to add comic effect. It does lose out in some of the word-setting: when (in Figaro's opening introduction to himself) "di qualità" is translated as "par excellence", it makes perfect sense and is thoroughly good-humoured, but the last syllable is almost impossible to sing. Broadly, the cast did well with it: surtitles were not used, but most of the words were understandable, apart from in the big ensemble pieces in which everyone is singing at the same time.

Given the constraints of requiring sets that can pack up flat into the back of a truck, Rhys Jarman's designs were impressive. Large panels shifted around the stage to produce rooms in Bartolo's house or the street; the panels and a painted backdrop of a cloudy skyline were cleverly lit to produce different times of day.

If you come to this production looking for the cutting edge of opera, you're in the wrong show. The Barber of Seville comes from a period of opera in which the conventions were well understood – recitatives, cavatinas, duets/trios and big chorus numbers are clearly delineated and easy to follow, and the different stock roles are immediately familiar. This production isn't taking any risks; rather, it renders a well-beloved work faithfully, inventively and humourously. If you want to hear classic comic opera or simply want some lovely music and an evening's escape, I can't think of better.

David Karlin

The Barber of Seville

by Graham Rogers

Rossini’s effervescent masterpiece The Barber of Seville is usually an enjoyable experience - but this new English Touring Opera production, with David Parry’s lively translation, is more fun than most.

Director Thomas Guthrie has an instinct for delicious humour. Hilarious conspiratorial touches, such as the pit orchestra striking up before the stage ‘musicians’ have begun to play, deserve all the laughs they get.

Grant Doyle’s charismatic Figaro is a delight, and Andrew Slater’s Bartolo an essay in comic timing. His tone-deaf rendition of a trite song to Rosina is priceless, and his marvellously clear patter leaves even Gilbert and Sullivan’s Major General standing. Kitty Whately displays a beautiful voice (insecurity at the very top notwithstanding) and feisty personality as Rosina, and Nicholas Sharratt is a personable Count

The orchestra is spirited, and it is great to have Rossini’s glockenspiel adding extra sparkle to tutti climaxes - gamely played by a one-man percussionist simultaneously pedalling cymbals and bass drum.

Even with Paul McGrath’s incisive conducting maintaining momentum, it is a long evening. The potential benefit of losing Berta the maid’s aria is negated by the restoration of Almaviva’s mammoth bravura showcase, which Rossini himself realised pointlessly delays the denouement (he recycled it in La Cenerentola). Even so, the time whizzes by. Hugely entertaining and highly recommended.

Link to original review here

The Barber of Seville, English Touring Opera, ETO, Hackney Empire, March 2012

Clever designs and glorious costumes by Rhys Jarman give a fine dramatic underpinning for this production of Rossini’s Barber, and Grant Doyle made a marvellous entrance as the barber, Figaro.

All images by Richard Hubert Smith

This was the first night, and after a nervous start things came together in Act II. Kitty Whately made a beautifully inspiring Rosina, mistress of the situation despite the machinations of her guardian Dr. Bartolo along with his friend and her singing teacher Don Basilio. Alan Fairs was a super Basilio, giving this amoral and ridiculous character a slightly threatening aspect in his dealings with Bartolo, and the doctor himself was commandingly performed, with excellent diction, by Andrew Slater, whose attempt at joining the singing lesson in Act II was wittily out of tune. The role of Rosina’s lover, Count Almaviva in his various disguises is not an easy one to pull off well, but after a shaky start, Nicholas Sharratt proved himself a passionate and determined fellow.

Direction by Thomas Guthrie gave perhaps too much humour to the stage action at some points, but this might settle down later in the tour. For instance in late Act I when Almaviva surreptitiously shows the police chief his identity the entire police squad is utterly cowed, but then rather strangely a moment later they grab hold of him without the least hesitation. The orchestra under the direction of Paul McGrath was a bit ragged in parts, and I would have liked to see more lightness of touch in the overture where the Rossinian bounce was lacking.

But in terms of sets, costumes and lighting this is a lovely production, and the singing was very fine. Kitty Whately is someone to watch out for, and Grant Doyle is a superbly versatile performer who played the lead role in a new opera at Covent Garden’s Linbury Studio, which was arguably the best new production the Royal Opera House put on in 2011. He continues in the role until April 13.
After a second performance at the Hackney Empire on Saturday, 10 March, this production tours to: Exeter Northcott, 20, 22, 23 March; Hall for Cornwall, Truro, 26, 28 March; Lighthouse, Poole, 30 March; York Theatre Royal, 3 Apr; Norwich Theatre Royal, 10 Apr; Snape Maltings Concert Hall, 13 Apr; Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield, 16, 18 Apr; The Hawth, Crawley, 20 Apr; G Live Guildford, 23 Apr; Buxton Opera House, 26, 28 Apr; Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham, 1, 3, 4 May; Warwick Arts Centre, 9, 12 May; Gala Theatre, Durham, 14 May; Perth Festival, Perth Theatre, 17, 19 May; Cambridge Arts Theatre, 22, 24, 25 May — for details click here.

Mark Ronan

Link to original review here

Review: Ruddigore, Opera North, Theatre Royal, Newcastle

by Sarah E Scott, Evening Chronicle

IF you have an aversion to all things operatic may I heartily recommend this glorious portal.

Ruddigore is super-silly late Victorian Gilbert and Sullivan melodrama entranced into the 20s. The era of silent film goes beautifully with a story as subtle as a pair of fluorescent jodhpurs.

This is gothic sublime, melodrama fabulous. Forgive the over-long first act, with its clunky, archaic spoken words. Revel instead in the gorgeous, delicately seasoned overture (polite but heartfelt clapping for the orchestra under conductor John Wilson) with a witty silent, flickering film which firmly sets the 20s tone.

It is the men who get the best parts. We have the utterly winsome Grant Doyle as hero/antihero Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd, who has understandably skittered away from his responsibility as a naughty Baronet of Ruddigore.

This doomed aristocrat must commit, every day a crime in a ‘conscientious and workmanlike fashion’, or risk an unbelievably painful death.

So Sir Ruthven has become Robin Oakapple and left his put-upon brother (a revellingly moustachioed Richard Burkhard as Sir Despard Murgatroyd) the daily burden of bad. Both performers are masters of lightning-quick enunciation and are gloriously funny. Their performances are an utter joy.

Ruddigore, at its best, is seriously wicked and heaps of fun despite the fact that the plot’s resolution has more holes than a spider’s boudoir. And let’s sweep over the fact that the most desirous female on stage is obviously a nutter – Heather Ship works wonders with the seemingly impossible role of sexy lunatic Mad Margaret.

The production values of this are particularly fine, what with all that subtle contrasted lighting and the portraits coming to life. The resurrected paintings represent the main reason this Gilbert and Sullivan gem has been shunned for so long.


Original review click here

Ruddigore: Opera North, 30th September 2011

by Geoffrey Mogridge

Ruddigore - or the Witch's Curse - originally spelt Ruddygore and dubbed by W.S Gilbert himself as "Bloodybore", received mixed reviews by leading critics of the day. There can be little doubt that the piece suffered by comparison with the sustained brilliance of its immediate predecessor, The Mikado. Gilbert's dialogue for Ruddigore was dismissed by the New York Times critic as "amusing here and there" in the first act and as "slow and tedious" in the second.

Composer and librettist made adjustments and some cuts in the days following the 1887 premiere at London's Savoy Theatre before Ruddigore was taken off after a relatively short run of 288 performances. The piece was never revived during the lifetimes of its composer or author and did not return to the repertory of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company until December 1920, remaining in the Carte's touring repertory until the company's sad demise in 1982.

Opera North's production directed by Jo Davies and premiered last year under the baton of light music crusader John Wilson recreates the version of the musical score which both Gilbert and Sullivan finally settled upon. The company reckons that it is 120 years since this "definitive" version restoring Sullivan's orchestrations which had been tampered with prior to the 1920 revival, has been performed. Amongst re-instated musical numbers are the lovely duet for Rose Maybud and Richard Dauntless "The battle's roar is over", and "For happy the lily" (the "Basingstoke" patter finale) in the original 9/8 time.

Although the action has been updated from the period of the Napoleonic Wars to the aftermath of the First World War, the Victorian critics who slammed Gilbert's libretto would probably spin round in their graves to discover that it remains untouched more than 120 years later - save for the insertion of an additional verse in Sir Ruthven's song "All the crimes I find in The Times". The new text amusingly parodies the MPs' expenses scandal, tabloid journalism hacking, and the recent appearances of the wife of the Speaker of the House of Commons in Celebrity Big Brother!

Every syllable of the libretto, whether spoken or sung, is made to sound as fresh and witty as if the ink had barely dried on the manuscripts. Davies infuses her production with boundless energy and movement to counter any sense of dragging or slackening off, during the singing of musical numbers or protracted sections of spoken dialogue. For example, during her charming song "If somebody there chanced to be" the demure Rose Maybud sung by the delightful Amy Freston is required to up-end her bed to retrieve the precious Book of Etiquette from where it has been concealed by Rose's aunt, Dame Hannah. The critics who considered Act II to be slow and tedious would be delighted by the synergy which Davies has created; the scene in which the ghosts of the baronets of Ruddigore inquire into the crimes that the current Bad Baronet has committed is one of hilarious pandemonium as the ghosts, with much noise and bustle, re-arrange the furniture on stage to clear the space for the "inquiry". Davies also extracts abundant energy and humour from the repeated interventions of the corps of professional bridesmaids led by Gillene Herbert's feisty Zorah with the sopranos and altos of the Opera North Chorus. The ladies are required to rush around with predatory yelps and handfuls of confetti, besieging every potential bride and groom.

Conductor John Wilson and every member of the original cast have returned to reprise their performances: Grant Doyle's warm and well nourished baritone is a revelation to those of us brought up on much lighter voices in the dual role of Robin Oakapple and Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd. Doyle's delivery of the patter songs is just as razor sharp as the classic D'Oyly Carte principal comedians of yesteryear. Sir Despard Murgatroyd is sung by the wonderfully saturnine Richard Burkhard who with white face make -up, top hat and swirling cloak epitomises the villain of Victorian melodrama. His Act I entrance amidst the 1920s seaside paraphernalia of a Punch and Judy theatre is a masterstroke.

The nimble Hal Cazalet presents Richard Dauntless, the Man O' War's Man and foster-brother to Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd as a macho, tattooed lothario. Cazalet has a lovely lyric tenor, quite ravishing in The battle's roar is over" - effectively a love duet with Rose - and agile and flexible in his introductory number "I shipped, d'ye see, in a revenue sloop". This is vigorously choreographed by Kay Shepherd with some brightly dressed sailors turning cartwheels and Cazalet proving that he can dance a hornpipe with the best of them. The multi-tasking Amy Freston as Rose is in beautiful voice throughout, her phrasing is supple and the top notes immaculately placed. Richard Angas plays Robin's faithful retainer Old Adam Goodheart. The towering and sepulchral-toned Angas and Sir Ruthven open Act II in the heavy gothic atmosphere of the oak panelled baronial hall dominated by the ancestral picture gallery and a huge writing desk where they map-out the daily crime which Sir Ruthven is now cursed to commit. At one point, Angas staggers on wielding a huge axe and looking as though he's stepped from the pages of Edgar Allen Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher.



Heather Shipp creates a beautifully studied and spidery portrayal of Mad Margaret, not really mad but just a smidgeon unhinged and slightly unsettling. We first encounter Margaret wheeling her worldly possessions in a pram before singing her dramatic and poignant "mad" scene "Cheerily carols the lark" heralded by a beautiful flute solo. Anne-Marie Owens' plum pudding contralto voice is perfect for the "gorgon" role of the redoubtable Dame Hannah who becomes "Little Nannikins" in the touching duet "There grew a little flower and a great oak tree" with the fearsome ghost of Sir Roderic Murgatroyd sung by Steven Page who is dressed in army khaki as a First World War General. Page initially appears (and disappears) heavily robed and hooded like the Monk in Don Carlos and there's a clever illusion when he seems to vanish into thin air and the terrified Sir Ruthven is left holding the empty robes! Page's dark baritone and impeccable diction superbly intones "When the night wind howls" with the chorus of ghostly ancestors and cushioned by some of Sullivan's most vividly descriptive orchestral writing.

Sepia-tinted sets and costumes respectively created by Richard Hudson and Gabrielle Dalton with muted, atmospheric lighting designed by Anna Watson contribute to a production that is ravishing to behold. The silvery grey sea and pale blue sky for the Cornish coastal village in Act I imbue the scene with the quaint charm of a 1920s picture postcard resort. This, with the flying-in of oak pews and screens becomes the church for the extended finale to Act I. The picture gallery of Act II fills the full height of the proscenium and tapers to a point at the back of the stage inducing a feeling of claustrophobia as the ghostly ancestors of Ruddigore appear as if by magic behind the portraits amidst the obligatory lightning flashes and amplified rumbles of thunder.



Everything gels under the baton of John Wilson who clearly has the measure of Gilbert & Sullivan, like the great Sir Charles Mackerras before him. Wilson takes things at a brisk pace but is careful to shine light on detail and he meticulously delineates orchestral and vocal textures. I don't think that I have ever heard the Act I finale with so much inner detail, such as the intricately beautiful harmonies of the pseudo-madrigal "When the buds are blossoming" sung here with palpable joy by the entire company.

My only (small) criticism is that the lengthy overture needed pruning; this was set to "once upon a time" images and text recounting the legend of the Witch's Curse and projected onto the front-piece. Dame Hannah fully explains everything soon afterwards in her opening number "Sir Rupert Murgatroyd", sung with stentorian richness and firmness of tone by Anne-Marie Owens. A small carp which it seems almost churlish to mention because this terrific production of a hitherto under-rated Savoy opera oozes so much humour and visceral energy from an expert cast who now inhabit their roles. In fact it's ruddy marvellous!





Photographs (c): Robert Workman

Ruddigore, Opera North

A slick, witty but affecting Gilbert and Sullivan revival

by Graham Rickson

    

Revived with almost indecent haste, Jo Davies’s 2010 production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Ruddigore now feels even more polished and slick. Slickness is not a derogatory term here; this staging hits the spot in pretty much every way – musically, dramatically and visually.

Davies’s shrewdest move is to shift Gilbert’s creaky satire on the excesses of Victorian melodrama forward to the 1920s, a period now more closely associated with the genre – think silent cinema, big moustaches and shiny top hats. There are also several nice nods to 1930s horror films, and a witty sequence of scratchy slides shown just before the curtain rises. These give us the operetta’s back story – that of the cursed line of Murgatroyd baronets, each successive title holder condemned to commit a serious crime each day or face an agonising death.  Structurally it’s an unbalanced work – Act One is overlong and too discursive, followed by a tighter second half which concludes nonsensically and a little too abruptly. The plot is full of holes. But it’s still very, very funny – watch this Ruddigore as a series of brilliant set pieces and you’ll leave the theatre immensely satisfied.

 

Davies’s teasing hints of the drama to come are so delicious that there’s a rather long wait before the action really kicks off – at the point where the villainous Sir Despard (a superb Richard Burkhard) makes his dastardly entrance through a Punch and Judy tent. His elder brother Ruthven, having faked his own death and now living quietly under an assumed name, is unmasked, leading to a beautifully choreographed wedding scene where he is suddenly forced to take on the cape, the cane and the top hat, abandoning his bride to be for a life of crime. Grant Doyle is a joy as the imposter, best of all in his scenes with his foster brother Dick Dauntless – especially during an extended sequence where he wins the attention of village sweetheart Rose Maybud by describing what Dick might really have been getting up to whilst at sea. Dick’s entrance leads to a nicely choreographed re-enactment of a French naval battle played out by flag waving bridesmaids (pictured above right). It’s marvellous to watch, and Hal Cazalet is as agile vocally as he is with his feet. Amy Freston as Rose convinces as a woman vainly trying to lead her life according to the advice contained in an etiquette manual, subtly unbuttoning and loosening up before our eyes.

Act Two’s technical challenges are surmounted with ease - notably the moment where the Murgatroyd portraits descend from their picture frames to harass Sir Ruthven, too mild-mannered to commit atrocities more serious than forging cheques. Richard Stilgoe has provided yet more updated lyrics – mentioning phone hacking, Greek debt and Sally Bercow. It’s gorgeously lit by Anna Watson – I’ve rarely seen outdoor skies look so natural. And it’s conducted by the remarkable, precocious John Wilson, lifting every rhythm and pacing each patter song to perfection. Bad Gilbert and Sullivan productions are pure torture. This one is lavish, affectionate and witty.

• Ruddigore at the Grand Theatre Leeds until 27 October, then on tour to Nottingham, Newcastle, Salford and London

Link to original review here