Profilanmeldelser
6But most of all we wallow in the wickedness of Warwick Fyfe's Alberich & Hubert Francis's Loge - a Willy Wonka-meets-Edward Scissorhands confection with his wild hair and fireproof goggles. All the singers are in fine voice, though the evening belongs to Fyfe and Francis. The success of 'Das Rheingold' rests on the shoulders of Alberich and Loge, and both singers give world-class performances in these roles.
Hubert Francis was an audience favourite as Loge in Das Rheingold, his flexible tenor voice well able to project and portray Loge’s sinewy character as he acted as Wotan’s fixer.
Tidligere produksjonsanmeldelser
9Hubert Francis was an audience favourite as Loge in Das Rheingold, his flexible tenor voice well able to project and portray Loge’s sinewy character as he acted as Wotan’s fixer.
Second (since he is the only major character who doesn’t appear in any of the later music dramas but only in Rheingold) that impersonation of magic, Loge. At once the engineer of events and the detached onlooker, the character of Loge was brilliantly sung and acted by the tenor Hubert Francis. He holds the characters on stage spell-bound, and he did just the same with the audience. Handling vocal writing that is even by Wagner’s standards extremely difficult with precision cloaked in casualness, his voice integrated with the orchestra in a way I have hardly ever heard the part rendered. And I could hear every word.
The singer who made the biggest impression was Hubert Francis in the role of the slippery boyar Prince Shuisky. Rolling his tongue around the Russian text with relish, he presented exactly the extrovert characterisation required. His manipulation of Boris, informing him of a Pretender to the throne, was deliciously wicked.
"...the many solo roles were all extremely well sung, notably the sonorous bass of Wojtek Gierlach as the priest"
The opera two of its best vocal performances, from Štefan Kocán, grave and urgent as the watchman who tries to dissuade Oedipus from his quest, and from Marie-Nicole Lemieux, who takes on the Sphinx’s ferociously difficult lines with aplomb, swooping up and down through the extremes of the range, and creates a real flesh-and-blood character out of the agent of fate. The title role makes extraordinary demands on the baritone, who is the centre of attention almost continually for two and a half hours. Johan Reuter gave a compelling rendering, with plenty of steel in the voice. At his best in the big emotional highs, he couldn’t keep up the highest standard for the whole time – I’m not sure I can think of a singer who could, which might explain why Oedipe isn’t performed more often – so some details were lost in the quieter moments. But this was a performance that reached deep into the heart of the drama and dug out enormous amounts of characterisation. There are no other lead roles. I could mention half a dozen others in an exceptionally strong supporting cast, but I’ll limit myself to one: the blind prophet Tiresias gets two interventions where his pronouncements alter the course of the whole drama. Sir John Tomlinson proved himself still capable of making a dramatic entrance and making us quail in our seats. My one cavil is that Peter van Praet’s lighting will have been too dark for anyone up in the amphitheatre, while blinding anyone in the stalls in the scene of Oedipus’ killing of his father, presented as a road rage incident. But my last word goes to conductor Leo Hussain, starting his Royal Opera career the hard way with a score of exceptional complexity, making it instantly accessible to first-time listeners and delivering colour and power throughout. Oedipe is opera at its most potent – visually, musically, vocally, dramatically. Go see it!
Laughter is a powerful dramatic weapon. Not the kind of laughter you normally get in the Royal Opera House - knowing, self-conscious - but actual inelegant, snorting-before-you-even-realised-it laughter. Kosky harnesses this anarchic force, startling an audience expecting an improving piece of musical modernism by giving them instead a disarming piece of cutthroat comedy.Kosky, in a brilliant sleight of hand, transforms the oversized nose into a mischievous tap-dancing boy. Ilan Galkoff clearly has a ball, and together with his troupe of adult tap dancers (ten in total) they nearly romp off with the piece, thanks to Otto Pichler's superb choreography and the witty designs of Klaus Grunberg.A rash of false noses and some elaborate costumes make it hard to identify many of the players, but the core ensemble make their presence known, relishing the vernacular rough and tumble of David Pountney's new English translation. John Tomlinson leers and lurches and broods as (by turns) the Barber, Newspaper Office Clerk and Doctor, while the double act of Helene Schneiderman and Ailish Tynan forms a deliciously grotesque mother and daughter team. Alexander Kravets's Police Inspector finds comic gold in the composer's extraordinarily demanding vocal writing, and Susan Bickley makes much of her cameo as the Old Countess. But the evening belongs to Martin Winkler, a singing-actor of such skill, whose physical and vocal clowning as the luckless Kovalev - all orifices and ooze in Kosky's hideous portrait - must penetrate this bustling phantasmagoria and make us care. Panto season has arrived early, and for those who like their clowns sad and their comedy sharpened to a point, there won't be a better show this winter.
