English National Opera / Anmeldelser

Sir Jonathan Miller's La bohème is back at the Coliseum once again. Taking its inspiration from the interwar Paris of Brassaï and Cartier-Bresson, Isabella Bywater's sets are efficiently attractive, though it is contingent on each revival cast to bring the performance to life. English National Opera's latest revival cast brings freshness and a fine attention to detail under revival director Crispin Lord, bringing to the fore some of Miller's more inspired touches from landlord Benoit's badgering wife to the tipsy sailors stumbling out of the tavern. Lord also maintains tight control over Act 2's festivities, deftly focusing the audience's attention between the street vendors, military bands and café diners as needed. Amanda Holden's translation, though, needs an update, coming across more as Gilbert and Sullivan than rowdy twenty-somethings getting drunk in Paris.

As a result, the evening relied more on the fine Marcello and Musetta from Charles Rice and Louise Alder, who gave the tragedy the ring of truth, both revealed and camouflaged by their explosive relationship. Alder took charge of her Café Momus waltz with imperious ease, considerable humour and some impressive coloratura, while in Act Three Rice’s immensely likeable Marcello in fine acting and singing painfully got to the heart of the misery Mimì and Rodolfo are inflicting on each other – they can’t live with or without each other. Rice naturally took charge of the artist household, backed up William Thomas’s Colline and Benson Wilson’s Schaunard, both strongly characterised and sung.

Roll up, roll up, for the return of Phelim McDermott’s Così fan tutte – a production with all the fun of the fairground, but few of its threats or dangers. First seen in 2014, McDermott’s staging plunges us into the deep-fried, candy-striped clamour of 50’s Coney Island, complete not only with boardwalk, rollercoasters and Ferris wheel, but sword-swallowers and acrobats, giants, dwarfs and bearded ladies. A 12-strong “Skills Ensemble” tumbles and juggles the action into constant movement, rotating sets and scheming with Don Alfonso, with a little light fire-eating or contortions between times.

Sams takes the opportunity to re-write the libretto when necessary, not only making his words fit the music but even achieving the near impossible feat of making it all sound completely natural as though it were all written in English in the first place.

Ruders and his librettist, Paul Bentley, have succeeded magnificently in transferring a book, much of whose action is in memories and internal monologue, to the stage. Flashbacks to Offred’s Life Before with her mother, husband, and daughter are back-projected black-and-white film. Act One ends with a birth — to the Handmaid Ofwarren, a moment of communal rejoicing — Act Two with a death, the whole framed by an academic symposium in which a historian in 2065 — Call My Agent!’s Camille Cottin — plays us Offred’s clandestine tapes, making it clear from the start that Gilead, like Nazi Germany, is a historical aberration.

Ruders’s detailed orchestral colours are never dull, swerving from the sweet tonality of Amazing Grace (quoted in the score) to aggressive dissonance, enhanced by a battery or instruments from harpsichord and piano to xylophone, bells, gongs, woodblocks, unidentifiable grindings and sizzlings and the insistent ambush of a large bass drum. Every aspect of the singing and production is impressive, fluently staged with a backdrop of drapes and a few mobile set pieces such as The Wall. The women of English National Opera’s chorus have many opportunities to shine, and do. The hardworking ENO orchestra excels.

Each time I see another production of The Marriage of Figaro I remember why it is done so often. Not only does it lend itself immensely well to scenic adaptation, the music and story are just so darn good. This one, a revival of Fiona Shaw’s 2011 staging for English National Opera, particularly brings out the hilarious elements of the opera. Jeremy Sams’ English translation works remarkably well, as usual. What a delight to have seen such strong ensemble casts at ENO this entire season. From Midsummer to Iolanthe and now The Marriage of Figaro, it is hard to find a weak link in any of the casting done in the Coliseum. I have been especially impressed with the ENO Harewood Artists this year, with Rhian Lois as a cunning Susanna and Katie Coventry as a captivating Cherubino. It was most heartwarming to see the relationship between Lois and Thomas Oliemans as Susanna and Figaro. Oliemans seemed to go for a more casual Figaro, not quite the charismatic showman that one sees in other productions (or in The Barber of Seville for that matter). His was an unobtrusive Figaro, more content to go along with the schemes of others than to make up his own. I did feel like during “Aprite un po’ quegli occhi” he didn’t actually believe that women were the devil - at the bottom of his heart he never really turned on Susanna. Although this may seem to make Figaro a weaker character, in a way it actually makes him stronger: his commitment to Susanna and unwillingness to lean towards misogyny updates Figaro out of the 18th century.

Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro has always been deemed by many to have the air of revolution about it on a class basis, but seeing the opera in light of the revelations of #MeToo revelations gives the piece new colour. Though the droit du seigneur is unmistakably of its time, one cannot help at times but to wince at the similarities between behaviour in the opera and reports that have emerged in recent months. Ashley Riches sang the Count and certainly looked the part, towering and smouldering above the rest of the cast, and while he didn’t always strike the kind of lecherous menace that would suit Shaw’s production, he carried off an air of thwarted bitterness extremely well. He has a handsome voice and sang with plenty of colour, his performance in the Act 2 trio particularly strong. Thomas Oliemans was a boisterous Figaro, immediately likeable and showing a clear knack for comic timing. His tone was a little dry at times, but it’s certainly a strident baritone and Oliemans gave “Se vuol ballare” such an edge that he could almost have been singing through gritted teeth. Rhian Lois was a sparky Susanna, but one craved a little more size to a voice which, though sweet, often seemed to be lost in ensemble moments. Katie Coventry’s sassy Cherubino was joyfully sung and raucously acted, full of youthful passion and mischief. Janis Kelly’s Marcellina swung with ease from a superb performance of vinegar and lemon in the first half to maternal sweetness in the second, and Keel Watson gave a suitably magisterial Dr Bartolo. Colin Judson made the most of the blind Don Basilio, the slightly sinister sniffing a good touch.

Allison Cook gives a totally committed performance in the title-role, keeping her nerve with steely assurance to sing with great skill and security.” (Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph, September

After a not inconsiderable time in their roles, Daniel Kramer and Martyn Brabbins, English National Opera’s Artistic and Music Directors, have been able to produce a season that is entirely their own, uninfluenced by their predecessors. The heart sank on reading Kramer’s introduction to the season which he optimistically hopes “provoke discussion around what an improved balance of masculine and feminine might encompass and the changes we need to make this possible”; optimism that his productions might break free of the chains imposed by this restrictive mission statement lingered, but the first test is Adena Jacob’s new production of Richard Strauss’ Salome which alas does not bode well. Making her first appearance at ENO, Allison Cook’s role debut as Salome was a mixed success. I am not quite convinced that the role’s unique range is entirely suited to her voice and there were a couple of moments where the voice sounded, if not pushed then not entirely comfortable. Diction also veered in clarity. Where she stood out was with the colour and drama of the voice; imperious and enticing in her dealings with Narraboth, desperate and fiery with Jochanaan, cold and forceful with Herod. Her final scene was compellingly delivered, sung with dramatic intelligence and entranced passion, the severed head carried within a plastic bag as though straight from a butcher’s stall. David Soar, perhaps discomforted by the muzzle-like contraption with the camera on the end, sang Jochanaan with typical musicality, but rather less force than usual.

Under baroque specialist Christian Curnyn, the orchestra of English National Opera plays Rodelinda’s sublime score to perfection. Designer Jeremy Herbert’s three-room set, comprising the cross section of a house, switches scenes instantly from a panelled office where Juan Sancho’s usurping king Grimoaldo obsessively watches closed circuit television, to the adjoining whitewashed cell where Rebecca Evans’s imprisoned queen Rodelinda mouths curses at the surveillance screen.

Tim Mead is excellent as Bertarido. Lamenting his fate – all but Garibaldo lament their fate at at least one point in the opera – he lets the pure sound of his voice and the music do the work, rather than emoting. Yet he can convey exasperation or desperation both vocally and in his occasionally shambling gait. His Act 2 duet with Rodelinda (Io t’abbraccio) is delicious – and so poignant as they are physically parted by their rooms separating off to the wings.

This weekend I saw the ENO’s production of Nico Muhly’s Marnie. Based on a novel by Winston Graham which later became a Hitchcock film, the story is full of suspense and drama. Visually beautiful and very cleverly staged, using moving set pieces and projections to provide film-like transitions between scenes, the production was rich to look at, full of eye-catching tableaus and scenes. The costuming was very effective as well, particularly on Marnie herself and her quartet of Shadow Marnies who followed her throughout the show.

La version lyrique de Nico Muhly, coproduction entre l’English National Opera et le Metropolitan Opera de New York, est plus compatissante envers Marnie que le film, et se rapproche davantage du livre original. La voleuse est ici victime, et affirme que nous, êtres humains, incarnons constamment des personnages distincts selon notre environnement. La mise en scène entoure donc la protagoniste de quatre « ombres » (Charlotte Beament, Katie Coventry, Emma Kerr and Katie Stevenson), qui révèlent plusieurs facettes de sa personnalité. Quatre danseurs en costumes de bureau apparaissent à intervalles réguliers dans des chorégraphies très saccadées, pour représenter l’emprise masculine et les forces qui se jouent contre elle. Au cours d’une croisière, ils se placent autour de son lit et rappellent les « hommes aux costumes gris » dont la Princesse Diana parlait régulièrement.

McCrystal has no inhibitions about hamming everything up to the max, given a huge leg up by designer Paul Brown – it’s so sad that Brown died in November, robbing him of the chance to see his work made real. Brown’s sets and costumes are beautifully executed, a riot of colour and fun, and difficulties like “how to turn a bunch of not exactly young and sylph-like chorus members into sweetly tripping fairies” are handled with panache. Stagecraft is nothing short of superb: the sheer amount of movement from the chorus is jaw-dropping, and there is exuberant use of things like people flying above the stage or the random apparition of animal puppets (check out the Fairy Queen’s use of the unicorn’s horn). McCrystal can’t resist putting in a bunch of additional gags, many of them visual but some spoken: the vast majority of them worked, with the audience in stitches.

Les costumes victoriens sont très colorés et fantaisistes et le décor composé par de très poétiques toiles peintes à l’ancienne pour les scènes d’extérieur est parfaitement efficace. Ils sont dus à Paul Brown, un décorateur très prisé au Royaume-Uni, disparu peu avant le début de cette production. Un bain de bonne humeur et d’humour très singulier (le fameux humour camp) apte à réconcilier avec ce genre si particulier ceux qui pensent qu’il n’est guère exportable.

The supporting characters in the parties were splendid, with extreme and provocative behavior helping to set the context. Gastone indulged in rude gestures while Flora represented the more cynical, businesslike side of the system. The usually problematic gypsy and toreadors ballets were brilliant solved, making perfect sense in the context of the party: a parade of fetishes as the onlookers grow ever more aroused.

Mirrors and bright lights in the party scenes contrast with the tranquillity of a country garden in early Act II and the bleak feeling of a cemetery where Violetta digs her own grave in Act III. With designs ranging from fin de siècle Paris to the glitter of modern Las Vegas, Daniel Kramer in his first production as artistic director (his Tristan and Isolde predated that appointment) has deliberately disconnected the story from its customary milieu, adding to the disorientation between Violetta’s demi-monde and high society.

That said the set is the star. The dilapidated conservatory in amongst the reeds and marshes feel like they have been part of the landscape for years, and sets just the right eerie tone. You are transported wholly into the house and its machinations, and Designer Soutra Gilmour must be praised for such an achievement.

The same could be said of Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, his invincible 1954 chamber opera based on Henry James’s novella. Psychic forces grip the Governess in charge of two children, who may or may not be in thrall to two ghosts. In this first Regent’s Park Open Air theatre/ENO venture, young singers from ENO’s Harewood Artists programme – Rhian Lois, William Morgan, Elgan Llyr Thomas – led a double cast (I heard the second), conducted with superb authority by ENO Mackerras fellow Toby Purser. The 13-strong chamber ensemble was impeccable. As the children Miles and Flora, Sholto McMillan and Ellie Bradbury were chillingly convincing. Sholto’s brilliant miming on a dummy keyboard (played for real by on-stage piano) was a tour de force, never mind the insolent purity of his treble voice.

Such intensity demands a parallel level of emotional power from the pit, and here Stuart Stratford, a familiar name from Opera Holland Park (see Puccini’s La fanciulla or Mascagni’s Iris, for example), provided just that. The English National Opera Orchestra gave their all in a performance of Lucia that also included a great deal of nuance. Stratford understands the voice, and how phrases need to breathe; he also, crucially, gets Donizetti’s orchestration. A sense of flow permeated the whole from the very opening; and to hear the ENO Orchestra on such full-toned form was a joy indeed. They clearly respect Stratford, whose deep musicality added immeasurably to the evening.

Tynan fully identified with the portrayal of Lucia, giving us a profoundly disturbing picture of a woman who was controlled and neutralised by society, fighting back in the only way possible. This meant that in Acts One and Two she was relatively passive, and one of this production's clever strokes is to make Edgardo just as controlling, in his different way, as Enrico. It is clear, this Lucia will be controlled no matter what, so madness is the only way out.

The universality of its central themes of love and loss are easy enough to relate to; the Artistic Director of the ENO, Daniel Kramer, credits La Bohème’s prevailing popularity with the decision to restage its “near-perfect equilibrium between realism and romanticism, comedy and pathos, at whose heart lies the relationship between the forlorn couple of Rodolfo and Mimi”.https://www.ayoungertheatre.com/review-la-boheme-london-coliseum-3/

First seen in 2009, Miller’s Bohème nudges the action forward some 100 years to the ‘années folles’ of the 1920s. Café Momus becomes an edgy guinguette where Fitzgerald and André Breton might have traded writing tips with Rodolfo, and a Josephine Baker-esque Musetta (Nadine Benjamin) holds the stage. It’s a neat sleight-of-hand, nicely framed in Isabella Bywater’s revolving sets — an unobtrusive restoring of operatic order after Benedict Andrews’s teenage rebellion of a crack-den Bohème for ENO in 2015.

Ninguna versión de concierto con tenor y barítono detrás de un atril y en medio de una orquesta puede satisfacer del todo el significado de este momento. Aquí se necesita una escena como la propuesta por Kramer: semi vacía, cubierta de nieve con una tumba abierta y un coro tímidamente intrusivo a los costados, y dos hombres mirándose primero con asombro y angustia, después con tierna admiración y finalmente tomados de la mano. Hasta este momento, el barítono y el tenor se habían movido no solo como enemigos el uno de otro, sino con una perplejidad que traicionaba la enemistad interna, la que cada uno tenía consigo mismo.

ENO’s excellence with technology, demonstrated on multiple occasions, is once more on display here. Massive screens display anti-war propaganda, an appeal from Srebrenica (fleshed out by an essay, ‘Kada Hotić – Seamstress of Srebrenica’ in the exceptionally lavish programme booklet) alongside scenes of the utmost violence mirrored by the blind violence of today’s football hooligans. Nature also plays a huge part in the visual display, as do Tilmans’s photos of Coventry Cathedral (for whose re-consecration the War Requiem was written; as was, of course, Bliss’s Beatitudes).

This is a reworking of Purcell’s late seventeenth-century opera Dido and Aeneas, based on Virgil’s Aeneid and originally written for a London girls' school. It uses the original words and music, apart from a few cuts, but transposes it to the now of contemporary Southwark and makes the sorceress and her witches who plot Dido’s ruin into voices within her own head. Rachael Lloyd therefore sings both Dido and the Sorceress.

Seven fine musicians from ENO’s own orchestra, bolstered by the eloquent theorbo of David Miller, played Purcell’s score with idiomatic fluency under Valentina Peleggi’s firm direction, while a dozen sensitive choristers supplied the opera’s chorus, semi-chorus and small solo parts. Together they created an aural vista of the highest class. The three principals did well too, although Rachael Lloyd, admirable as ever, has a mezzo timbre that’s a few watts too bright for her mournful Dido. Her lament “When I am laid in earth” should ideally be more heartrending than it was here. Njabulo Madlala, who sang Jim in ENO’s recent Porgy and Bess, gave a strong account of the underwritten Aeneas, while 18-year-old Eyra Norman, an undergraduate at the RCM, more than held her own as Belinda with a youthful soprano that was wholly attuned to the director’s concept.

Indeed, Lizzi Gee’s movement direction is superb. The children’s rough-and-tumble antics; the dream sequence, in which the children really do ‘take flight’ into fantasy; the delicate dancing of the en pointe duplicates of the dazzling Dew Fairy (He Wu), with their ‘milk-bottles’ of dew droplets; the reawakening of the lost children and the final chorus in celebration of this miracle: all are brilliantly conceived and executed. And, the choreography provides the production with a judicious moment of tongue-in-cheek kitsch. Reunited with his toy aeroplane by the sympathetic Sandman (Gillian Keith), the sleeping Hansel’s imagination powers a ‘lift-off’ to paradise. A bleached-blond flight crew arrive, smiles beaming and uniforms spic-and-span, and semaphore their pre-flight briefing before the excited children soar into the air on the surging wave of Humperdinck’s score, to be greeted by their parents bearing the balloons that will float them to wonderland. It’s terrifically well done.

Rachel Kelly and Susanna sang the roles of Hansel and Gretel in fine style, acting the childish roles with mischievous enthusiasm, but the real comic star of the piece was Alasdair Elliott as the witch, appearing first in a dress and luxurious blonde wig, but later revealing himself as a bald male, which I suppose makes him a warlock rather than a witch.

Benjamin Britten’s 1958 account of the flood described in Genesis draws on the mediaeval mystery plays, in which obedience is a key theme. While other human beings are busy being wicked, Noah is obedient to God’s command and starts building the ship without troubling the Lord with those ‘what’s an ark, what’s a cubit’ questions. Lindsay Turner’s production for this collaboration between the English National Opera and the Theatre Royal Stratford East casts Suzanne Bertish as God, a speaking role in which she is excellent. The comic turn comes from the disobedience of Mrs Noah, who’s having none of it and refuses to embark even when the rain starts.

Noah had all kinds of trouble with the ark. What about the beavers, who wanted to gnaw at the wood? The cats, who wanted to gnaw at the mice? Then there was the nervous moose requesting a swimming aid, the hyperventilating zebra, the tortoise who nearly missed the boat ... OK, so none of this is specified in the libretto of Britten’s Noye’s Fludde, but they are all nice touches in Lyndsey Turner’s production, which marks English National Opera’s first collaboration with the Theatre Royal Stratford East.

The tenor Peter Hoare was very impressive in the hugely demanding part of Orpheus the man (as opposed to Orpheus the myth and Orpheus the hero, also played well by Daniel Norman and Matthew Smith respectively) but the whole cast coped magnificently with the outlandish score.

This is the last of the four operas based on the Orpheus myth which the ENO had the wonderfully crazy idea of bringing together for the last few months of this year and on the whole the quartet has been a success. It began with Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice which is full of great music and tells effectively the basic story of Orpheus travelling to Hades to try to bring back his beloved Eurydice after her untimely death.

Le chœur d’adultes et d’enfants de l’English National Opera se réunit, soudé, entraînant et solidaire sur scène. Le résultat vocal est joyeux et rassurant. Enfin, l’orchestre symphonique, dirigé par la cheffe italienne Valentina Peleggi, dynamise et propulse dans la musique de Bizet dès l'ouverture brillante, à travers ce sombre et cruel road-tripe espagnol.

Driving the drama is ENO Mackerras Fellow Valentina Peleggi. Her conducting is dynamic yet detailed; rarely if ever at ENO have the lines of the orchestral contribution been so finely honed, and the orchestra clearly loves her, on top form throughout. Chiselled rhythms, a full realisation of the colourful orchestration, a deep grasp of the ongoing dramatic thrust were all in evidence, as was a willingness to relax into the lyricism where appropriate (as in the José/Micaëla passages in the first act around what in French would have been ‘Parle-moi de ma mère’); and now the run has settled in, ensemble problems were minimal. The wonderfully reedy bassoon at the beginning of the second act particularly merits mention.

English National Opera’s cast and conductor serve Luisa Miller well. Alexander Joel, having previously conducted it in Braunschweig and Hamburg, knows all its beauties and qualities and brilliantly makes the best possible case for it. He is a maestro totally at home in the opera pit. And leading the cast irresistibly, Korean tenor David Junghoon Kim as Rodolfo sang and acted thrillingly – with excellent singing too from James Creswell’s Count Walter and the towering Soloman Howard as the Count’s agent Wurm, outstanding bass voices impeccably deployed.

Alexander Joel’s fine conducting, sensitive to the ebb and flow of Verdi’s paragraphs and moulding them into potent enactments of human conflict, makes the strongest possible case for the work in this new ENO production. He is aided by some outstanding singing: Elizabeth Llewellyn brings a warm, generous tone and touching empathy to the title role, while David Junghoon Kim, a recent Jette Parker Young Artist, adds another triumph to his early-career successes with a confident, impassioned Rodolfo.

The prospect of Natalya Romaniw making her role debut as Cio-Cio-san at English National Opera has given the latest revival of Anthony Minghella’s 2005 production of Madam Butterfly an added flutter. The Welsh soprano has been building an impressive career in bringing opera’s tragic women to life in a startlingly vivid way; the uniquely awful story of the heart-broken Japanese girl who commits ritual suicide – albeit inauthentically – was always likely to be movingly depicted in Romaniw’s hands and indeed this was an absolute triumph.

This is the third or fourth time I have seen Anthony Minghella's stunningly gorgeous production of Puccini's Madam Butterfly at the London Coliseum and in many ways it is the best. Revival director Glen Sheppard has made some delightful tweaks that make Minghella's vision even more effective and the title role is sung by Welsh soprano Natalya Romaniw in gloriously impressive style.

In the event, those performers communicated their fears, anxieties and desires vividly with the audience, who loved it all. Not surprising, since this was a magnificent cast headed by ENO Harewood Young Artist Božidar Smiljanić, as a firmly-voiced Figaro with superb stage presence. Silver-voiced Louise Alder led the feminine side as his feisty Susanna, along with Elizabeth Watts as a disconsolate Countess whose soliloquies on the loss of the Count’s love were superbly delivered, with Johnathan McCullough showing mystified resolution as a notably youthful Count. Singing in the witty translation by Jeremy Sams, the diction was so good I don’t recall glancing at the surtitles more than once or twice, and there was not a weak member of the cast in that respect, helped perhaps by the acoustic of the rectangular box.

Sometimes simple solutions really do work best. Joe Hill-Gibbins’ new production of The Marriage of Figaro for English National Opera stages Mozart and Da Ponte’s tangle of intrigues and concealments along a row of four identical doors in a white box. It’s a revelation: this is, after all, a piece in which the issue of who’s in on the joke (and who’s out) is crucial – and the humble door is its ideal multiway tool.

Mimi’s sickbed is the floor of her transit van. Rodolfo sits hunched against a wheel outside, the closest he dare get to his dying lover. Musetta makes her showy arrival in a convertible Merc, and an old ice-cream van serves as the Cafe Momus. Trailer-trash stagings are nothing new – many an old camper van has been rolled on to an operatic stage – but here we’re in a proper car park, this unparalleled season’s venue of choice for high art.

A feature of this La bohème is that some characters come up or down from the stage or roam around the parked cars and indeed Rodolfo’s first entrance is when he cycles back from his part-time job delivering takeaways. He hopes to be a playwright but earns additional money writing newspaper reviews. Home isn’t a Parisian garret but a Volkswagen campervan in a car park much the same as the opera was being performed in. It is surrounded by a couple of others and appears to be part of a commune of some sort peopled by those at the fringes of society.

In the title role, Natalya Romaniw was a complete star. This Tosca was tempestuous and fierce, driven by extremes of passion and envy, vengeance and despair, but Romaniw made such emotions feel so human and real, overcoming the practical obstacles and capturing the audience’s eyes, ears and hearts. During Scarpia’s Act 2 manipulations, I found myself truly drawn into the drama, forgetting the chilly breeze, the boomy sound and the fact that I was essentially watching a film-screen rather than an operatic stage. It was all the more remarkable as Romaniw, bare-shouldered in a beautiful blue gown, must have been frozen! As the wind whipped up off the water, no wonder she hugged her arms tightly around herself during Scarpia’s torturous onslaught. ‘Vissi d’arte’ held the moment entirely: there was not a shuffle or whisper from the captivated audience – and no doubt the birds and beasts in the Park were entranced too.

This was thanks to Puccini’s magic, to the orchestra’s vibrantly committed playing under Richard Farnes’s direction, and to larger-than-life performances by three outstanding singers. Baritone Roland Wood’s Scarpia (with perfect diction) had exactly the right kind of death-dealing menace, and when his duet-duel with soprano Natalya Romaniw’s Tosca reached its bloody denouement, some women in the audience let out an involuntary cheer.

PROUD TO SUPPORT UKRAINIANS FIND OUT HOW WE'RE HELPING Craft beer fans can get a box of 8 beers for £8 - and it comes with extra perks Hopsmore beer club Deborah James' romantic reconciliation with husband ahead of cancer diagnosis The Verbier Festival celebrates its 25th anniversary (I/II) Medici.tv EN Vicki Michelle: 'Weeing every 30 minutes' was sign of star's 'rugby ball' sized cyst Royal Family LIVE: Harry and Meghan poised for 'damage control' as William shows 'regret' by Taboola H.M.S. Pinafore REVIEW: A mix of Gilbert's witty lyrics and Sullivan's rollicking music 3 / 5 stars Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore Having celebrated the long-awaited return to their home at London's Coliseum Theatre with Philip Glass's esoteric Satyagraha, the English National Opera has gone to the other extreme with its first ever production of Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore. Jonathan Miller once contemptuously described G&S as "UKIP set to music" and there can hardly be a better example of what he meant than Pinafore. Set aboard a ship of the Royal Navy, it pokes merciless fun at the British class structure and the supposed merits of being an Englishman, but its simplicity is relieved by Gilbert's witty lyrics and Sullivan's rollicking music. By WILLIAM HARTSTON 17:30, Wed, Nov 3, 2021 | UPDATED: 17:30, Wed, Nov 3, 2021 0Comment sectionShare on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on PinterestCopy link HMS Pinafore John Savournin (Capt. Corcoran) and his 'midshipmite' (Rufus Bateman) (Image: Marc Brenner) Sign up for FREE now and never miss the top royal stories again Enter your email address here SUBSCRIBE We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you've consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info Like most G&S, Pinafore is rather outdated and needs a good director to introduce some twists that appeal to a modern audience and on past performance, Cal McCrystal had all the right credentials. With two Paddington films and the stage hit One Man, Two Guvnors under his belt, as well as numerous other successes, he has repeatedly shown his ability to lift and sustain the comic level of a show.

In short, it’s a cracking night out, and ENO is running it into December. Take your kids, take your opera-sceptic friends; take your sisters and your cousins and your aunts. Definitely don’t take the kind of bore who can’t stand wisecracking cabin boys (they’ve added one, and in fairness he’s terrific) or poop-deck jokes (McCrystal and Toby Davies are credited with ‘additional material’); who prefers to hear Gilbert’s original dialogue savoured rather than sent up; or who’s liable to grumble that McCrystal can’t hear a quiet, reflective aria without an urge to blow it sky-high with yet more knockabout.

Sally Matthews shone in the title role, her bell-like soprano emotionally adaptive to a variety of situations, Pumeza Matshikiza’s Fox similarly likeable and (strangely?) relatable. The journey of Lester Lynch’s Forester offered a crucial dramatic counterpoint, ably supported and brought into relief by a host of sharply drawn cameos. It would ultimately be a little pointless to go through the large cast, but Madeleine Shaw’s Forester’s Wife and Ossian Huskinson’s Harašta seemed to me particularly vivid portrayals, in stage and vocal terms.

Directed by Dominic Hill (artistic director of Glasgow’s Citizens theatre) and conducted by Scottish Opera’s music director, Stuart Stratford, this is a bewitching staging of high theatricality, ending with big-hearted, over-the-top hilarity. The wolf whistles and cheers at the final curtain suggest the company has a hit on its hands.

Amidst a grand public relations blitz, the a new production of Philip Glass’ 1984 Akhnaten has finally arrived at the Met, having been seen in London and Los Angeles. Reports from afar were glowing, and, indeed, it is a magnificent musical and dramatic spectacle. Director Phelim McDermott, conductor Karen Kamensek, the glorious, finely trained and tuned orchestra, Donald Palumbo's chorus and a quite miraculous cast have been gathered and offer a mesmerizing, deep, and vastly entertaining contemporary masterpiece. Complaints about Mr Glass’ repetitive, ritualistic music seem to have gone out the window – when I looked around, there were fewer audience members nodding off than during some of the company’s more basic repertory; indeed the enthusiasm was comparable only with the company’s earlier-in-the-season Porgy and Bess. The third in the composer’s “portrait” trilogy which includes Einstein on the Beach and Satyagraha, Akhnaten is the most accessible. The storytelling is direct – the old king, Amenhotep III dies and is buried, his son is crowned and renames himself Akhnaten. He banishes the concept of multiple gods in favor of monotheism in the form of "the sun's disc", he weds Nefertiti, he orders a new city to be built in praise of the new religion. The royal couple and their family lead insular lives to the consternation of the citizenry who storm the palace and kill Akhnaten; polytheism is restored and in a flash we are in the present, in a museum, where we learn that almost nothing is known of Akhnaten's 17 year reign. The orchestra is full and the orchestration brilliantly colored; it is scored without violins, giving the work a darkish timbre. The repetitive/variation-on-a-rhythm music clearly outlines the dramatic context, and is mimicked by Sean Gandini and his troupe of 12 jugglers, costumed alternately as hieroglyphics or in a type of camo. Tom Pye's tri-level set comes and goes and serves everyone well and Kevin Pollard's costumes, from the sheer white that originally wraps the naked Akhnaten to the matching bright red gowns for the royal couple in their love duet, to the almost Elizabethan gowns for our boy-king to the spooky look of the couple's six daughters, elicited gasps of approval. And Bruno Poet's lighting – oranges, yellows and soft pinks, the latter transmogrifying into astonishing reds – were often underscored by the exotic orchestration and the string of images. With the exception of some crowd scenes – the burial and the storming of the palace – movement is intensely slow and deliberate, more than a bit reminiscent of the work of Robert Wilson. It is sung in Egyptian, Hebrew and Akkadian which are not translated; the music and action tell us all we have to know. English is spoken by a strong-voiced narrator in the personification of Amenhotep III, and sung by Akhnaten in his "Hymn to the Sun" and in the royal couple's love duet. Anthony Roth Costanzo, whom I first encountered at the 2008 Glimmerglass Festival as Nireno in Giulio Cesare, has grown into a magnificent artist. Both he and his countertenor are lithe and focused, all in the service of the music. His concentration in the death-march movements is staggering and his sound is big and beautiful, if a smidge light at the bottom. I cannot imagine another singer coming close to his compelling performance. J'nai Bridges as Nefertiti sounded warm and lush; Dísella Lárusdóttir's high, bright soprano as Queen Tye, Akhnaten's mother, blended hauntingly with the royal couple in their otherworldly trio. Zachary James, towering physically above the rest of the cast, spoke Amenhotep's narration with grand authority and sang with an impressive, dark tone and Aaron Blake and Richard Bernstein impressed in their smaller roles. Karen Kamensek led with a sure hand, with a blip only in Act 1's more frantic moments. She clearly understands the ritual aspect of the score but put great energy into the drama as well, leading so successfully that the audience easily heard the variation as well as the repetition in Mr Glass's spectacular score.

Philip Glass has a solid trajectory at the Metropolitan Opera. Though few of his operas have had major representation at the hallowed house, their scant performances have tended to be major successes, often flanked by fantastically conceived productions that manage to get the utmost of his meditative masterworks. “Satyagraha” remains one of the great achievements in the Peter Gelb era, which is marked by productions often lacking in any sense of creative risk. “Akhnaten,” which had its world premiere back in 1984, continued this trend on Friday night in an immersive if somewhat draining production by Phelim McDermott that, when the dust settles on the 2019-20 season, will likely remain one of its greatest highlights (it is already, without any doubt, the best Met performance of the 2019 calendar year). “Akhnaten” follows the rise and fall of the legendary Egyptian Pharoah in his quest to institute a new religion for his kingdom. Of course, his mission ends in tragedy. The opera is unique among many of Glass’ operas as its narrative retains the focus on a singular narrative world instead of shifting its focus as it does between Columbus and a spacecraft in “The Voyage” or Tolstoy, Tagore, and Martin Luther King, Jr. in “Satyagraha.” Of course, like all of those, the opera tends toward more of a ceremonial nature that allows for the composer’s repetitive trance-like music to truly take its effect. Dramatic conflict is subdued in this work as it is in the other Glass operas, but McDermott managed to created a tremendous amount of visual tension throughout by employing well-placed motifs that become an essential part of the fabric of the story world. Juggling Act The main set is made up of three levels – the bottom where we see the pharaohs beings buried and later brought to power; the middle section often reserved for the people, though occupied by Akhnaten and his father Amenhotep III at several junctures; finally, the top section is often occupied by symbolic figures represented by either jugglers or the “Gods.” This division is first noticeable in the opera’s first major setpiece “The Funeral of Amenhotep III.” This section in particular brings us the first appearance of the visual motif of juggling that will weave itself throughout the work, aligning itself with the rule of Akhnaten. We see increasingly fascinating feats of juggling throughout his encounter with the priests in the temple and especially in the city where the balls being tossed about grow in size with a massive globe (representing the Sun God Aten) as the main backdrop for the set, suggesting the increased power of Akhnaten; even the ghost of Amenhotep gets in on the act at the start of “The City.” What is most impressive and symbolic about the choreography for these juggling acts is the interconnectedness between the different participants; they all form an intricate relationship with one another throughout, the complexity of their choreography growing and growing as they incorporate more and more people into the activity. This visual motif seems to symbolize the delicate and intricate balance of Akhnaten’s power. His actions are dangerous and one false move could collapse the entire structure he is building for his kingdom. We see these effects in “Attack and Fall” when the jugglers and choral members drop the balls numerous times before picking them up and repeating the cycle. The balls themselves, spread out across the front of the stage, seem to represent “The Ruins” of the opera’s final pages with the figures crawling across the stage pushing the balls to the other side in what can be interpreted as history sweeping aside the impact and memory of Akhnaten’s rule. This sense of tragedy of time and history’s passing is furthered by the opera’s ending, particularly in a scene featuring a professor trying to teach students about Egypt’s past. The students all line up where the “Gods” and jugglers of the opera’s opening once sat. But instead of a coordinated dance or cooperative juggling act, the students are taking balls of paper and heaving it at one another chaotically. A student throws a piece of paper at the professor as they all walk out; the professor looks on in horror and disappointment. Meanwhile, at the bottom level, Akhnaten is “brought back from the dead” and dressed up in his royal garbs from Act one. Next to him is a sign that reflects his years of rule and nothing more; he has become but a museum piece for no one to watch. This scene resonates potently as it operates in complete contrast to one of the most impressive moments of the opera’s opening. After the death of Amenhotep III, Akhnaten emerges completely naked from what looks like a robed cocoon; he descends slowly to the lower level, gets lifted up in Christ-like fashion before being dressed in the very golden robes that reappear at the close. Where the opening “Coronation of Akhnaten” is ceremonious spectacle to behold, the epilogue’s bookend is tragic in its emptiness. The opera thus ends on a note of somber melancholy; Glass’ arpeggiated music does not deviate from its perpetual rhythmic emphasis, but the emotions, as contextualized by the staging, allow for deep reflection on how society often lets the past die and even kills it if we need to.

Remarkable Staging of Glass’s Remarkable Akhnaten by ENO

Philip Glass’s opera Akhnaten has been revived at English National Opera after more than 30 years.