Royal Northern College of Music / Léirmheasanna

Throughout both operas, there was freshness, vividness and spontaneity from the singers. Costumes and sets were superbly designed by Nicolai Hart-Hansen, their simplicity enhancing their effectiveness. Sympathetic atmospheric lighting design from Ian Somerville showed creativity, enhancing the excellent on-stage action from director Robert Chevara. The line between students and professionals was indistinguishable: there was nothing about these performances that would indicate that the majority of the cast were students. The RNCM Opera Ensemble, again drawn from the student body, despite having the very occasional blemish, showed professionalism and played musically following the baton of conductor Martin André with precision.

The student cast was certainly up to the challenges of Poulenc’s score with the relationship between the nuns built to a convincing level of intensity. An emotionally complex character, Blanche was portrayed well by Yuliya Shkvarko who improved steadily revealing her bright soprano producing a notable level of intensity. Mezzo-soprano Molly Barker created impressive drama as the ailing Prioress notable for her smooth, expressive voice. Standing out in the part of Blanche’s fellow novice the rather immature Sister Constance was soprano Pasquale Orchard. Such a good actress Orchard’s performance was a joy, singing with a focused and clear tone, exhibiting her talent for communicating dramatic expression. Georgia Ellis a mezzo-soprano sang producing strong emotion and acted most effectively as Mother Marie.

As I sat in the bar at Manchester’s Royal Northern College of Music sipping my pre-opera gin, my eye was drawn to a stunning vision of a young Parisian woman in a revealing corset, fishnet tights and courtesan ankle boots. With my other eye not far behind, she sauntered past me with a street-walker swagger and speed. As my mind wandered, it took me a few seconds to realise that she was part of the cast of RNCM’s end of year production of Offenbach’s operetta La Vie Parisienne. In fact, I began to notice more of these spirits of Paris dotted among the throng. A nice prelude to an evening full of delicious possibilities. Offenbach’s two-act operetta was first performed 150 years ago when Paris was the cultural centre of the modern world. This performance has been moved to the 1930s and is sung in English, giving it the sartorial elegance of the jazz age and more than something of its sexual freedom. It opens appropriately in that cathedral to French modernism, the railway station. We meet Raoul de Cardefeu (David McCaffrey) and Bobinet (Edward Robinson), replete with bouquets, awaiting the same woman, Metella (Fiona Finsbury) who arrives with another man. Our two young men are distraught. While Bobinet declares that being a bon viveur is very difficult and forswears women altogether, de Cardefeu, after a chance and funny meeting with Antoine (Robert Brooks), a hotel guide, takes his place in order to meet women of high quality. So begins our romantic and comic journey through la vie parisienne. His intended guests are Lord and Lady Ellington (John Ieuan Jones and Charlotte Richardson) who are in Paris to sample its’ baser delights, certainly implied by Lady Ellington’s shameless handling of the pink Tour Eiffel. While Lord Ellington has his eye on just about anyone in French frilly knickers, Lady Ellington has hers on de Cardefeu’s tower as much as he has on her Eurotunnel. W.H. Auden declared that ‘no opera plot can be sensible’ and this one relied heavily on innuendo and high farce where timing is god. I have to say that some of the verbal exchanges between the principles were a little creaky but I put that down to first night nerves. Furthermore, I was here for the singing – and brilliant it was too. While the plot energetically moved on with all the saucy irrelevance of a Carry On movie, the level of the musical performances by the company in its totality, from the chorus to the sexy spirits of Paris to the main characters supported by a well-drilled orchestra was extraordinary. Performances by Frick (Matthew Palfreyman), Urbain (Edwin Kaye), Leonie (Charlotte Badham) and her assistants, Clara and Louise (Juliet Montgomery and Emma Wheeler) and a great Brazilian (Matt Mears) all added to a winning night. I was particularly taken with Gabrielle (Charlotte Trepess) whose voice and slinky, voluptuous nature brought the house down. And there was the Can Can! I arrived a man almost broken by work and life, tired and down, but I left revived, enlivened and happy by La Vie Parisienne and all those spirits who live there. Merci.

Massenet is still mainly remembered for his version of the Manon story (1884) and Werther (1892). Whilst his music seemed to fit the Paris of the period that followed the dramatic collapse of the ‘Second Empire’, the ‘Siege of Paris and the burnings’, there were intellectual elements in France who were derogatory, referring to the composer as grossly inferior to Gounod. Paris itself, with its new boulevards, became the cultural and elegant glory of Europe until its untimely demise following the advent, and literal decimation of France’s manhood, along with its cultural core, in World War I. Add the evolving musical directions and tastes in Europe and Massenet’s near sentimental melodic music never really recovered, despite the transient popularity of Esclarmonde (1889), promoted by Joan Sutherland and Thais (1894) by Renée Fleming. Cendrillon also suffered by the comparison, in some eyes at least, to Rossini’s La Cenerentola. More recently the shared production of Cendrillon seen and filmed at Covent Garden (review), New York’s Metropolitan Opera as well as Gran Teatre de Liceu, Barcelona, Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels and Opera de Lille has significantly altered that previous jaundiced view. This splendid staging and performance at Manchester’s Royal Northern College of Music should further enhance that view. The stage set for the first two acts was a simple two-sided affair, one mirrored, that gave illusions of size, whilst that for Acts III and IV involved the mirror as a room separator, very effective albeit I was not fond of the pseudo hospital treatment involving an intra-venous drip that followed Cendrillon’s attempt to take her own life. The lighting effects involving, at one point, the lowering of chandeliers was pleasingly apt at all times, not always so in some opera performances I see. The costumes were outstanding, especially that for Cendrillon to go to the ball. In summary, the whole set and direction produced a cohesive framework for the evolution of the story with its mixture of sleep experiences and domestic cruelty, albeit Massenett and its dream sequences underplays the later in comparison to Rossini’s opera. If I found the staging and production satisfactory, it was as nothing compared to the quality of singing and acting to be seen and heard. Matters started well with John Ieuan Jones sonorous tones and good acting as Pandolfe, Cedrillon’s father. As the heroine herself, Fiona Finsbury’s acted assumption was outstanding. Her singing perhaps needed a little tempering at the top of the voice to avoid a little flutter, but she has that indefinable attribute of stage presence. This latter quality was also evident in the portrayal of Madame de la Haltière, Cendrillon’s stepmother, well sung and acted by Rebecca Barry with plenty of verve and facial expression. Daniella Sicari as La Fée as well as Eliza Boom and Lucy Vallis as her daughters came over well in acted portrayal and their sung contributions. Of the men I was most taken by the French tenor style of Michael Gibson as Le Prince Charmant. Promoted from the second cast his voice seemed to be ideally French in timbre even if his intonation failed a couple of times. If the RNCM has another tenor of that quality in Kamil Bień, who he replaced, they have riches indeed. The other male roles were well sung and acted. Elsewhere my evening was satiated to the full by the chorus of vibrant young voices, so vigorous and obviously involved and enjoying themselves. On the rostrum Matin André paced the work to perfection whilst also bringing out the French character of the music. A word also about the use of the original language, very welcome here and as always in French opera in particular. The quality spoke well for the coaching in French of all the participants, soloists and choristers alike. The only hiccup of the evening was that the titles, in English, were barely visible to the discomfort of many of the audience who did not know this version of the famous story reasonably well or had not had time to read their programme synopsis.