Recenzijas par iepriekšējiem iestudējumiem
18Dambrauskaitė was well-partnered by Hazel Neighbour’s Fox, whose slightly heavier soprano shone richly against Dambrauskaitė’s brightness. Their love duet was a highpoint but revealed the gentle humour of their relationship too
In this production for Royal Academy Opera, director Ashley Dean has decided that simplicity is a virtue: and, with considerable assistance from Kevin Treacy’s terrific lighting design and Laura Jane Stanfield’s panoply of fabulous costumes, he’s proved right.
Neighbour sparkled suitably and also convinced as a dancer, she has to spend a lot of time mooning seductively and Neighbour did this brilliantly
Hazel Neighbour’s L’Ensoleillad also had the vocal allure and colour to really make something of this role – particularly in the upper-reaches of the role where she was bewitching and beguiling in equal measure.
Hazel Neighbour spun a graphically defined line as a cheeky Cupid
'though for sheer vocal voluptuousness Georgia Mae Ellis's Mother Goose is hard to beat.'
Wake-Walker’s setting pivots between 18th-century and contemporary London in a spare production that is heavy on projections, devised by Ergo Phizmiz and Lottie Bowater. Colours are saturated and woozy; images – whether of city or country life – glitch disconcertingly; there are sudden shifts of setting, such as when Nick Shadow transforms Tom’s bedsit tower-block living room into a taxi cab, as they go haring off to see Baba the Turk. This is the unreal city of TS Eliot, where things are in free fall; there is a feeling of flatness, which does well to summon the crunchy superficiality of Stravinsky’s neoclassicism. Equally it hollows out the moments of emotional payoff that even sternly formalist Stravinsky must have wanted (Tom’s ennui at the top of Act 2; Anne’s pathetic lullaby in the penultimate scene).
When it comes to sex and death, timing is everything. The Royal Academy of Music is one of Europe’s leading conservatoires, with a renowned opera program for young singers whose stars are in the ascendant. This autumn they offered – across two casts – a double bill of Maurice Ravel’s mischievous farce “L’heure Espagnole” and Giacomo Puccini’s story of probate chicanery “Gianni Schicchi,” both directed by Stephen Barlow. As he notes in the program, what connects both pieces is that time is running out for the parties concerned: Concepción struggles to find a moment for an assignation; Buoso’s grasping family want to change his will before his fortune is given to a Friary.
An odd coupling, you’d think, Henry Purcell’s abandoned heroine and Peter Maxwell Davies’s ghost story, although the director for both, John Ramster, drew attention to their mythic qualities in the printed programme, and provided a hint of a link – the mask worn by the Sorceress in Dido and Aeneas becomes the vision of the Beast in The Lighthouse. All three singers made an overwhelming impact, and when the 13-piece ensemble got into its considerable stride, the musicians and Lionel Friend did full justice to Maxwell Davies’s extraordinarily imagined, stream-of-consciousness score, now a 33-year-old classic.
The jaunty violence and paranoia of the piece were really effectively brought to life in three totally confident, big performances by singers Iain Milne, Samuel Queen and Andri Björn Róbertsson. Here was real music theatre, wound as tight as a spring, full of terrifying musical and dramatic strength.
Departure lounge delays, squabbling couples, cancelled flights. We’ve all been there and shared the frustrations, which is what makes Jonathan Dove’s Flight such a great opera. We identify with his characters in this slice of modern verismo in April De Angelis’ incredibly witty libretto. With a cast of ten, it’s a true ensemble piece making it the perfect conservatoire vehicle and a wonderful way for the Royal Academy of Music to launch its splendid new 309-seat Susie Sainsbury Theatre, built on the former site of the Sir Jack Lyons Theatre. Royal Academy Opera fields two casts in this run and on opening night there wasn’t a weak link. Hannah Poulsom’s terrific mezzo made the most of the Minskwoman’s ‘Suitcase aria’ and brought the on-stage birth off hilariously. Richard Walshe, as her husband who leaves for Minsk without her only to return in Act 3, gets some of the opera’s most powerful musical moments, his firm baritone riding the lines of “Everything’s going to be fine” with ease. Olivia Warburton and Nicholas Mogg turned from corporate plastic smiles to lusting colleagues at the flick of a switch, while Marvic Monreal’s Older Woman, seeking to be inconspicuous, rejoiced in her one-liners: “If anyone asks me where I’m going, I’ll speak French… fromage, café, Veuve Clicquot”
Andri Björn Róbertsson's Gremin was exquisitely sung
