As published on Opera Britannia

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Scottish Opera is at the start of taking a bawdy romp around Scotland and Northern Ireland with an inventive, witty and utterly filthy Orpheus in the Underworld. This is an exemplary touring show – satirical, relevant, well sung and with plenty of naughtiness to torment Tain, disgust Dumfries or provoke outrage in Armagh. That it very precisely sets out to subvert petty morality with its portrayal of the hypocrisies of Public Opinion will make achieving such outrage all the sweeter.

The action begins with Máire Flavin the very character of Public Opinion herself stumbling about the theatre looking for the stage. When she eventually finds it, she proceeds to lecture the audience on its morals and immediately reveals one of the true stars of the show – the new translation by Rory Bremner. From the outset, it is clear that this is going to be an entertaining evening. Bremner’s translation is inventive and laugh-out-loud funny throughout.

Public Opinion herself is dressed head to toe in tabloid newsprint and seems to embody pseudo-outraged bigotry of some of the columnists of the tabloid press. It is our relationship with the press and celebrity which is to dominate the action – earth is a place where tabloid celebs fight and squabble. Heaven turns out to be a very sophisticated cocktail bar high above London where the true A-List stars hang out, and the underworld is a sleezy joint where they all go slumming it.

Two figures dominated the stage whenever they were present – Jane Harrington as Eurydice and Brendan Collins as Jupiter. Eurydice may never have been portrayed as a tarty Essex girl before, but Ms Harrington was up for the challenge. Indeed, she was up for anything. Her voice sauntered through the score making all seem effortless. Moving from speech to singing and remaining in character was perhaps the trickiest part of what she had been asked to do. This task was perhaps more ably accomplished by Gavan Ring as Pluto the God of the Underworld, or, when he was trying it on with Eurydice, as Aristaeus, personal trainer to the stars.

Collins’s Jupiter was king of the gods, king of the stage and king of the vocal action too. An enormously rich, burnished tone never faltered throughout, even when he was upside down being stripped to his boxers for the amusement of the other deities. His voice had immense power and authority and was a joy to listen to. All credit to him for making his voice the centre of attention even as his appearance became more bizarre and his activities more lewd. His bondage-clad buzzing fly disguise lingers for far, far too long in the memory.

Ross McInroy struggled a bit to make his John Styx a believable Glasgow drunk. (The audience knew that character all too well). He did get some of the best lines though and even managed to, well, titillate us with a slight emphasis on the second syllable of “Quantitative Easing” as he tried to have his way with Eurydice.

The rest of the cast was nicely balanced. Daire Halpin and Marie Clare Breen were two very confident daughters of Jupiter, Diana and Venus. Mercury is wittily turned into the cocktail waiter for the deities and is sung by Christopher Diffey whose portrayal left one wanting more. Orpheus himself was competently sung by Nicholas Sherratt though the part itself is not the most exciting title role in the repertoire. Here he was a streetwise Nigel Kennedy figure, clutching a violin and sounding slightly in awe of Miss Harrington’s in-your-face Eurydice. In this battle of the sexes, she won, hands down.

Bremner’s translation never failed nor flagged though it is so up to date that it is hard not to imagine that it will need refreshing even before the end of the tour. The Greek bailouts, parliamentary shenanigans, the Murdoch press are all beautifully sent up though amidst all the comedy, great praise is due for a translation which fits the music like a glove. Text and score married beautifully.

Simon Holdsworth’s design is inventive and fully integrated into the production and considerably more exciting than last year’s Carmen tour which seemed to take place entirely within a corrugated iron box. Here, the backdrops are large pages from the red-top press or celebrity magazines. One particularly stunning reveal came at the end of Act 1 when one of these pages was ripped away to take us to the stylish bar where the gods were snoozing.

Down in the pit there was…. well, nothing going on at all. Scottish Opera’s tour has been a mixture of cut down orchestra, and piano-only performances for the last few years. A twelve piece band will join in with some of the tour this year, particularly when it makes it over the sea to Northern Ireland. It did seem bizarre that the tour began in the perfect theatre for a small orchestra and yet none was present. However, notwithstanding the fact that no-one goes to Offenbach’s Orpheus to hear a pianist, Ruth Wilkinson played the tricky score with commendable panache. Inexplicably, the orchestra will also be absent when the tour hits England with three performances at the Young Vic in London in December

It is a sign of the inventiveness and wit of the rest of the production that the Infernal Gallop (aka the Can-Can) is rather a let down when it comes. The slow line dancing which precedes it is a good deal more funny.

The point of this production is clearly to make us laugh and it achieves that easily. Director Oliver Mears might do well to remember that the anticipation of vulgarity is considerably more hilarious than actual vulgarity and for that reason, the first half of the evening turns out to be both the funnier and the more satisfactory.

Public Opinion on the stage ends with a rather guilty snog from Pluto the king of the underworld. Public opinion in the theatre cheered so loudly and applauded for so long than the cast were forced out onto stage for more bows than the lighting designer had anticipated. However, this production is particularly recommended to those who like to storm out at half time and write outraged letters to the press. Should you be such as these, never forget for a moment whilst doing so, that it is all about you.

Heartfelt congratulations to Scottish Opera for having the courage to tour this show to Stornoway.

Here’s the review that I wrote for Opera Britannia of Scottish Opera’s current Rigoletto:

From the moment the curtain went up on this stylish and beautifully sung Rigoletto, it was clear that this was going to be a confident production. We saw a dark, blank stage with only a simple door, drawn slightly carelessly as though with chalk. It was but the first of many bold visual images which punctuated an assured and very satisfying musical achievement.

This single door soon gave way to a barrier wall, upon which red curtaining had been painted, which consisted of a further series of doors, through which we could glimpse a ball in progress. What was not immediately apparent was that when we first caught sight of the malevolent chorus of courtiers, they were not in fact dancing with real women at all but with a series of mannequins. These eerie plastic figures were to recur throughout the evening in what was to prove a strong and well thought through staging. The twenty-six strong chorus themselves, when not larking about with mannequins, were in good heart and good voice throughout.

The first to shine on stage was Edgaras Montvidas whose Duke of Mantua was a force to be reckoned with. This duke was a cocky soul, strutting his stuff whenever he was on stage. Montvidas has a voice which perfectly matched the bravado which he brought to his part. This was a Duke who was arrogant, brash, conceited and vain but it was clear too that he had a great deal on offer vocally to be conceited about. His Parmi veder le lagrime in the second act seemed particularly effortless and whilst it is difficult to bring anything new to La donna è mobile, Montvidas gave an assured rendition all the same.

The Duke’s jester, Rigoletto was played by Eddie Wade.  Here was a brilliant performance. Wade’s unfortunate hunchback ran the whole gamut of emotions before our eyes and explored an extraordinary palate of vocal colours as he did so. His duets with Nadine Livingston (as Gilda) were wonderfully tender and the contrast between that tenderness and the bitter agony of the last act was one of the things which left the greatest impression of the evening. Pure and clear when playing the over-protective parent and a shocking nasal rage when he later discovered that he had been betrayed and had lost his daughter after all.

The fairly recent Josef Fritzl case in Austria – where a father held his daughter captive for 24 years, does give the Rigoletto story a contemporary resonance which in turn offers layers which we’ve never been able to explore before. Wade’s Rigoletto was completely creepy and possessed of a horrifying darkness, whether jigging around at court in the manner of a deranged Max Wall or skulking around hiring others to play out his own inner violence.

Nadine Livingston’s Gilda was pure gold. Her polished, shining voice effortlessly soared heavenward whilst musing on her love for the Duke as she sang Gualtier Maldè! … Caro nome. This was perhaps the only point in the evening when the set got in the way of the singing. Though we were entranced by Miss Livingston’s declaration of intent, things started to happen around her which were more than a little distracting. The back wall of the room which had hitherto imprisoned her started to give way to a window through which she could sing, but through which we could see a revolving glitter-ball casting its dancing spangles all over the stage. It was perhaps just one glitter-ball too many in an evening which could already be described as glitter-ball positive.

Miss Livingston is described as being part of Scottish Opera’s Emerging Artists programme. It was quite clear from her performance that she has in fact emerged and done so with an admirable grace and elegance.

Amongst the other voices on stage, particular mention must be made of Gregory Frank. His portrayal of Sparafucile the contract killer was breathtaking. Frank’s glorious rich bass poured out into the theatre like warm blood dripping from a fatal wound.

Throughout the proceedings, Tobias Ringborg, conducting apparently from memory, kept driving an enlarged orchestra to great musical heights with the best playing that’s come from the Scottish Opera pit this season.

Perhaps the most striking scenes were played out at the end of the piece. Normally, Rigoletto is handed what seems to be the dead body of the Duke only to discover it to be the still dying body of his daughter Gilda with whom he sings an agonising parting duet before her death. In this production, director Matthew Richardson ensured that we were in no doubt at all that Gilda was dead. Rigoletto was handed a package which was soon to be revealed as one of the mannequins which had so punctured the whole evening. This was a believable corpse, but what about the duet?

Sure enough, Nadine Livingston reappeared on stage but this time as the ghost of Gilda. Always behind her father and ought of his line of sight, she described her death from beyond the grave rather than being the operatic cliché of an almost dead diva singing as though full of life. It was a clever conceit and worked well. Indeed, this kind of assured management of the stage business was characteristic of a delightfully well conceived show.

The closing duets from Wade and Miss Livingston reconfirmed, lest there have been any doubt from their performances earlier in the evening that they had been perfectly cast together. Though Wade’s Rigoletto had been deeply unpleasant, somewhere in his agony over his daughter, it was possible to find a sense of compassion for him. This was a complex, rich and dark Rigoletto completely believable in his pain and completely satisfying to listen to.

As the curtain came down, it was clear that the best scenes had been saved until the end. That curtain marked the end of Scottish Opera’s all too short season but it was clear that they had saved their best production until last too.

Strauss’s Intermezzo is seldom performed and consequently not particularly widely known. Scottish Opera’s new production (directed by Wolfgang Quetes) is an attempt to rescue the reputation of a difficult and troubling work which, though it has wonderful music throughout, never quite allows us to escape a suspicion that what we are watching is a rather vicious public shaming by the composer of his wife.

In a world in which we are used to watching the inner turmoil of dysfunctional relationships played out on the small screen, it is surprising how shocking it remains for them to be performed before our eyes on the opera stage.

The plot, such as it is, is this. A famous composer (obviously supposed to be Strauss himself) is in a stormy marriage with an untrusting, yet not entirely faithful wife (obviously supposed to be Pauline, Strauss’s wife). Though she has a dalliance with a young student baron who tries his hardest to tap her for money, she reacts hysterically when she wrongly suspects her husband of playing fast and loose with women in Vienna. In the end she discovers that the composer’s virtue is intact and domestic bliss is restored. The opera’s origins came about some 20 years after the real life events in the Strauss household which are described therein. So hot to handle was it at the time that several librettists turned the job down and in the end Strauss was compelled to set his own text.

At the beginning of the production, the stage is dominated by a glorious shimmering representation of The Kiss by Klimt. Our first sight of the couple whose relationship forms the nuts and bolts of the piece is when they are revealed, as the two characters of The Kiss are torn apart, not to be reunited until the final curtain. The opera is a ruthless piece of work and none of the characters which it depicts are particularly pleasant. Christine, the wife of the composer is particularly complex; she is, by turns, flaky, bored, hysterical, bitter, angry and downright unpleasant. She is also therefore a cracking role for a singer to attempt. Soprano Anita Bader faces squarely up to the challenge of a demanding part and, by and large, conquers it bravely. It was the case that she was more at home in the lower part of her register; at the top end there was a danger of things seeming to be a little thin. The narrow tone of the voice was not entirely inappropriate during some of Christine’s louder hysterics, however it was much more difficult to hear what was going on during the more reflective passages. Christine is clearly not supposed to be nice and we are not supposed to have much sympathy for her. Notwithstanding that, the first-night audience took Ms Bader to their hearts and were entranced by her acting.

Playing opposite Ms Bader is Roland Wood as the put-upon composer Robert Storch. Wood brings a fine eloquence to his part and a strong physicality to the stage. Whereas Christine appears always about to crumble, Storch himself is a tower of strength. This strength is evident vocally and Wood shows off a fine palette of vocal colours as the evening progresses. This was particularly evident during the third scene of Act II when Storch has just learned that his wife suspects him of things he hasn’t done. Wood’s silky baritone was wonderful here – crisp enunciation powered by the most emotive singing of the evening. Wood managed to capture perfectly a combination of both outrage and bewilderment as his world fell apart. He possesses a very pleasing richness of tone which was most effective in the reconciliation scene at the end of the piece.

Christine’s love interest Baron Lummer is played by tenor Nicky Spence with bravado and confidence. Having discovered him on a toboggan run she whisks him off to a local inn for some dancing. At this point they were joined by several couples who galumph around the stage in what can only be described as an inelegant fashion. We may not be dealing with the Waltz King but someone needs to teach those dancers how to count to three. In marked contrast to those attempting to dance around him, Spence’s singing was highly polished, precise and refreshing to listen to.

Ultimately, the baron turns out to be little more than a social leech but he has some fine singing to get through before Christine eventually sees through him and sends him packing. Domestically all is being watched by a bunch of sly maids whose contribution is exemplified more by significant looks and exasperated expressions than by anything they are asked to sing. Amongst them, Sarah Redgwick as Anna had a voice which made one want to hear more.

Michel de Souza plays the notary – a lawyer whom Christine approaches with a view to getting a divorce when she mistakenly presumes her husband to be having an affair when she intercepts a missive addressed (entirely incorrectly, as it turns out) to him. Morrison-Allen’s lawyer seemed to be talking sense to a crazy person and his singing was sensible too. Indeed, it was a reasonably well-balanced cast all round with no particular weaknesses.

Down in the pit, an enlarged orchestra was having a ball. In many ways they get the best of the deal with a series of, well, intermezzi which punctuate the piece coming between the 14 scenes. These are glorious miniature tone poems. They contain such interesting expansive music that they are one of the strongest of planks to be laid in any case to be made for a re-appraisal of the work as a whole. Francesco Corti was clearly enjoying conducting a fabulous band making fabulous music. Notwithstanding that, he could do with keeping a lid on things when Ms Bader is singing through her angst in quiet mode rather than her raging manner, particularly in the second half of the Act II. It is fair enough to let the orchestra off the leash between scenes but it does need to be kept a little more in check whilst the singing is progressing, not least because Anita Bader is worth listening to.

Director Wolfgang Quetes makes the best possible case for Intermezzo. The question is, though how shall we judge it? Notwithstanding a fine score and some fine singing, this piece remains one that makes for terribly uncomfortable viewing. It is odd that Scottish Opera have been trying to peddle it to us as a comedy. Strauss himself called it a bourgeois comedy with symphonic interludes. Some of the pre-publicity interviews have even made a connection with Carry On films, which does seem to be overegging the pudding of expectation. It’s taut, it’s fraught and it’s not very funny at all. Expect melodrama and you won’t be too disappointed. Expect Sid James and Hattie Jacques and you are in for a long glum evening.

Some artists have drawn deeply from their personal experience to produce work of universal significance. (Eliot’s Wasteland is an obvious near contemporaneous work where emotional breakdown led to something far more significant than the personal experience from which it was wrought). Strauss, however, produced something which never managed to leave petty argument behind. It is an insight, if we want an insight, into the peculiarities of his marriage and nothing more. The big question is whether we want to look on at all. The suspicion gradually grows through the evening that Strauss might have been better to book some appointments for both himself and for Pauline with a certain Mr Freud who was also operating in Vienna at the time. Better that than to put all this nasty bickering on stage for us all to see.

The Scottish Justice System has an odd and seldom used verdict in some criminal cases which juries can choose when guilty or not guilty simply won’t do. Scottish Opera has very bravely and very convincingly made the case for Strauss’s work. Notwithstanding the singing, the music, the set and the glorious orchestral interludes, it seems clear to me what the verdict must be in this case. The conclusion has to be that unsatisfying and uniquely Scottish verdict. Not Proven!

Here is what I said:

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Scottish Opera – Theatre Royal, Glasgow, 14 February 2011

Scottish Opera’s Orlando is a vehicle for some fine virtuoso singing but the evening never amounts to anything greater than the sum of its parts. Indeed, though some of those parts are a delight, others fall short of expectations leading to something of a mixed bag.

Harry Fehr has chosen to update the setting of the piece to 1940s London. A young airman (Orlando) lies in a London hospital battered by both love and war. Seeking to heal him is his psychiatrist Zoroastro. Around him are his nurse Dorinda, a love struck American socialite Angelica and the object of her affections, Medoro, one of the other patients. Generally speaking, this time-shift works reasonably well. It does bring some coherence to a work which might well puzzle us had the original setting been maintained.

The piece opens with Zoroastro (Andreas Wolf) examining his young RAF patient. Instead of reading his future in the stars, Zoroastro examines pages of printouts from a machine which has been taking readings from Orlando’s damaged brain. Medical charts replace calculations drawn from the zodiac. Wolf’s Zoroastro did warm up through the evening. However, he never owned the stage and his opening declamatory arias need a good deal more strength behind them. As he sang of the various battles in Orlando’s brain between love and valour, it seemed for a while as though he was going to lose the battle with the orchestra. He did, however, come into his own later on and though never quite precise enough with Handel’s relentless scales had a resonant and warm voice that seemed to resonate more the longer we listened.

Two very fine performances came from the female leads. Claire Booth’s Dorinda brought an agonising intensity to the put-upon nurse who was never destined to find the love she craved. This was a nurse who blustered about wearing her heart on her sleeve leaving us in no doubt at all about the emotions that she was feeling. This was the finest acting of the evening and came with a glorious voice utterly uninhibited by the intricacies of the score. Her talent was matched by the equally good  Sally Silver as Angelica. The score gives Angelica the greatest glories when it comes to the high notes, but in truth there was nothing to choose between these performances – both delightful, clear and completely committed.

Andrew Radley gave good support as Medoro. His duets with Ms Silver provided the most touching moments of the evening. His character seems the least complex of the proceedings. It’s a busy plot in which nothing much seems to happen, yet happens frantically. Although there is little happiness to be found in the story, Medoro does at least get the girl and Radley’s affectionate singing often managed to insert a gentleness amongst the otherwise hectic business around him.

But what of our hero? Tim Mead’s Orlando was simply dazzling. Looking every inch the flying ace, his voice was astounding from its first notes right through to the close. This kind of opera can seem strange to many contemporary audiences. Though the characters are battling on stage for one another’s hearts, the truth is they are battling in a competition of virtuoso voices for our own. There can have been few present whose hearts did not beat a little faster at the sight and sound of Mead. Much is expected from an Orlando. Much was delivered by Mead. The clear articulation of the complex running passages, particularly in his mad scenes, never took over from the sheer beauty of his voice. The paradox of those scenes is of course, that the more out of control Orlando’s mind becomes, the greater the control over breath and diction that the performer needs. Mead made this seem effortless; an extraordinary achievement well worth the generous appreciation of the crowd.

So, with some glorious singing on the stage, what was not to like? Things were mostly under control in the pit. A sparkling overture had wonderfully crisp dynamics and things began well. However the orchestra, unlike the singers, did seem to get more weary the more the evening progressed. By the third act there were some obvious problems with tuning amongst the strings.

Stage direction was again mixed. The hospital scenes were enhanced by the presence of half a dozen actors who filled out what would otherwise have been a rather sparsely populated place. One puzzling scene occurred early on when Medoro shuffled out of the hospital ward with a leg injury only to seem to return a few moments later with his arm in a sling and a bandage around his head. In fact it soon became apparent that this was in fact one of the non-singing actors playing a bit part. However the fact that he came on in identical pyjamas and wearing a similar moustache made one briefly wonder whether the hospital had invented a new cure for a gammy leg by snatching Medoro’s walking stick in the corridor and beating him about the head with it.

The hospital setting was finely achieved by Yannis Thavoris’s elegant, deco designs with scene changes aided by a handy revolve. The elegant simplicity of the set was something of a contrast to the score, but none the worse for that. Sometimes simplicity is best and this was once case where that was certainly true.

However, some of the goings on around the singers were decidedly odd and point to lazy stage management. Throughout the overture there was a smell of dry ice in the theatre and all through the first and second acts wisps of smoke seemed to keep appearing at random from the left of the stage. In fact the smoke was not needed until a fire scene in Act III and was a distraction that no-one needed. Coming and goings could be seen in the wings, even from a good seat in the stalls.

In addition to this there was the puzzling behaviour of a certain tree which was sometimes visible through the double doors of the hospital’s lobby and sometimes not there at all. Even more curiously, at one point the double doors swung open to reveal the tree shimmying into position and then lurching with a quiver to a halt. This kind of carelessness was distracting and took the eye away from an otherwise excellent design.

There has been a lot of video used in Scottish Opera productions recently – sometimes to great effect. Its use in Orlando was a little less inspiring than some of the efforts we have seen (notably in Mr Broucek last year). Back projecting onto the hospital ward’s frosted windows was a good idea. Using the video to provide us with a commentary of what was going on in Orlando’s mind was not a bad idea either. However, the images were simply too repetitive. When he was worrying about love we saw a glittering ring. When he worried about Medoro’s success with Angelica we saw a register signed with their names. Over and over we saw the same things. There should either have been a lot less going on using the projectors or a lot more. It would have been much more creative to use the video work to give some hints of the back story and let us know how Orlando came to be there at all.

The plot, after all, is unsatisfying. The deeply troubled Orlando is simply cured by Zoroastro’s magic at the end. Whether that device is accomplished by the wave of a Magus’s wand or by the ECT therapy that we saw on stage in this production, we come away having learned little about the characters and even less about ourselves.

Overall the evening was satisfying enough and indeed occasionally astounding. However the fact remains that this was a three star show which offered some of its artists the opportunity to show off their five star singing.

• Conrad Wilson in the Herald liked it. (4 stars – no mention of the dog)
• Rowena Smith in the Guardian hated it. (2 stars – no mention of the dog except in comments)
• Conrad Smith also hated it. (2 stars and concern for the dog’s welfare)
• Ruth Innes loved it. (Note comments by the dog’s PR agent)

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
This review should appear in due course on the Opera Britannia web-page.
King’s Theatre, Edinburgh – 14 August 2010

Despite a somewhat slow start to proceedings, this Edinburgh Festival production of Montezuma was an inventive, surprising and ultimately very enjoyable evening.

An unsuccessful attempt at setting the Mexican scene was underway in the theatre as the audience took their seats. Shouting hawkers tried to pique the interest of opera-goers by attempting to sell them cheap trinkets and Montezuma T-shirts. Meanwhile members of the company huddled on the stage in peasant fashion apparently knocking together the props. Whilst this might have been entertaining for a few minutes, the production started some twelve minutes late and the joke had worn thin long before the orchestra began an eleven minute overture. It was something of a relief when the curtain finally rose to reveal the title character, the Aztec emperor squatting in centre stage – that’s the vertical as well as the horizontal centre of the stage, on top of apparently impregnable walls. Flavio Oliver’s Montezuma was to dominate the action for the rest of the evening. His singing was clear and strong though took some time to find real emotion. Indeed, it was not until a much later prison cell scene during Act II that Oliver managed to find a depth of emotion which was suddenly very deeply moving.

The emperor’s advisor (and on-stage dresser) Tezeuco was sung by the Mexican, Rogelio Marín. Although Marín looked the part, there was not quite the strength needed in his voice to reach out into the furthest point of the theatre. One suspected that had this production been for the intimate surroundings of a baroque court opera house, his voice might have been ideal. In the King’s Theatre in Edinburgh it did not quite come up to the mark.

More confident were Lucía Salas as the warrior Pilpatoè and Lourdes Ambriz as Eupaforice, Montezuma’s betrothed. They were each clear and confident in their roles and perfectly capable of carrying off the long arias which are such a feature of this opera. Ms Ambriz proved also to be capable of a significant tour de force at the end of Act II. Her singing whilst slithering down a steeply stepped, Aztec ziggurat was certainly enjoyable. Her continued singing of the same aria whilst she writhed on the stage was highly commendable. However, the completion of the aria as she manoeuvred herself in supine fashion back up the ziggurat arm by arm and leg by leg was little short of incredible.

Special mention must be made of Lina López singing the part of Erissene, (Eupaforice’s confidante) which was by a long way the most beautiful of the evening. The clarity and purity of her voice was a delight and perfectly suited to this challenging material.

The Spanish conquistadors were represented by Adrián-George Popescu and Christophe Carré and a large hound (played in a stage debut by Fly) who soon became very much the centre of attention. Popescu’s singing was confident and strong as the Spanish tyrant Cortes who was ably backed up by Carré’s Captain Narvès. Indeed, it was the arrival of the captain which provided the first real glimpse of the extent of the inventiveness of the production. He arrived marching through the auditorium with a large and slightly threatening, living, breathing dog by his side. Clearly this gesture was supposed to lead us to believe in the strength and the violence of the Spanish conquest. However, an Edinburgh audience was soon to become fascinated by the welfare and well-being of the dog in question. The first appearance of the dog was a triumph of dramatic surprise. The true genius of the occasion was only realised when it became apparent that the dog, had been chosen, like almost everyone else in the production, for her abilities as a soprano. High pitched yelps soon filled the air and quite swayed the audience’s emotions. Musical director, Gabriel Garrido’s excellent conducting in the pit was soon being mirrored by the wagging of a hairy tail right next to his right arm. A swift turn of heel and paw ensured that the tail was indeed to hit him in the face as so many had foreseen. The audience was entranced. Goodness knows what that particular aria was like. No-one was paying any attention to it by this stage, though Carré’s ability to keep going as though he was not in charge of an ever more excited hairy animal must not go unnoticed.

There was a lot going on throughout this production. Glorious straw head-dresses were worn by the Aztecs near the beginning when all was well, plenty of flesh was on display later on when things got a bit tricky for the Mexicans. Though much was done in traditional dress, modernity kept making its own intrusions. Montezuma found a T-shirt and slipped it on (one of those which had been unsuccessfully hawked around the auditorium at the beginning. The riches of the Mexican people had been represented by bottles of pure, clear water. This was taken from them, only to be replaced by Coca Cola bottles carried between their legs. The bitterness of colonialism was the theme of the evening, undermined only by the memory that the apparently peaceful Aztec empire was a great centre of human sacrifice as we had witnessed early on.

Individual set pieces occupied the mind as the arias came by one by one, each more inventive and more difficult than the last. Whether it was the Montezuma’s queen tottering along a catwalk by (and almost into) the pit, blindfold in high heels; or the sudden and very effective singing through a loudhailer to rouse a protesting crowd; or the giant pillar which Montezuma found himself marooned on and which no-one, not least his conqueror could subsequently climb; or the madness of the final scene when modern dress more or less took over and the trials of the Mexican people were allowed to dominate the imagery, there was always plenty to look at and to wonder at.

It is the sheer inventiveness of this production which will linger longest in the memory. Though Graun’s long, competitive set-piece arias could become rather tiresome in a dull production there was no risk of that in this Montezuma. The audience’s interest was maintained throughout by the excellent stage direction of Claudio Valdes Kuri. It was ultimately a production of surprises. After all, everyone expected the Spanish Inquisition. No-one expected the dog.

A very last minute dash took me to the theatre last night, having won a pair of tickets on twitter earlier in the afternoon. (I’m fast becoming fixed in my opinion that theatre and opera should, like the NHS, be free at the point of delivery). The dash was rewarded with an evening of playlets, each barely more than a couple of minutes long, sewn together to form a patchwork of glimpses of life in contemporary Britain.

All of life was here and all of life was played out by three actors who accents changed as often as their clothes.

Is this a play or a collection of sketches? Well, it is difficult to care when the evening proves as entertaining as this. Humour, pathos and wit competed for our attention as the various fragments of conversation were brought to life. This is theatre for our channel flicking, attention deficient, post modern society which raises the fundamental question, what is Britain about; is there a collective narrative that binds us all together?

Themes did emerge in the course of the evening. Barely suppressed rage simmered beneath quite a few of the characters. Mutual incomprehension between different ethnicities was obvious. And our love-lives seem, well, all too real when we see them played out by other people.

This play (or collection of plays) is a bold but overall successful experiment. There were some puzzles though. Why did one set of characters recurr whilst no-one else did. Why did the pair of Glasgow litterpickers re-appear as the penultimate play? Had they been at the end, it might have rounded the evening off rather more neatly. Yet maybe that was the point. We carry our drama within us and strew it out on every pathway we walk. Our pleasures and our pains create the most complex chaos of everyday emotion that is instantly recognisable in others yet which doesn’t quite make sense from any perspective than our own.

This is theatre with narrative but little meta-narrative. It occupies a psychological space somewhere between The Blue Room/La Ronde and The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other. Yet this is La Ronde with no knickers and The Hour in which the mime is mostly done in words.

All three cast members, Sushil Chudasama, Mark McDonnell and Pauline Turner work hard and work well.

Both compelling and funny, this is theatre that makes us to look around about ourselves and also to look within.

Well worth a night out at the Citz, even if you do have to buy a ticket.

OTHER REVIEWS

Brian Donaldson in the Scotsman – 4 stars

Clap your hands if you believe in stage magic.

The National Theatre of Scotland’s latest show is full of big set piece theatrical experiences that make for an exciting if occasionally puzzling evening. Peter Pan comes home to Scotland in an extravaganza, which locates the Darling household in Edinburgh and Neverland as a place somewhere across the Forth Bridge, which is being built on stage even as we watch.

This setting is inspired, offering a grandiose reveal of Neverland beyond the girders of Victorian industry and eventually, a convincing pirate ship when a sail emblazoned with the skull and crossbones is raised up on the iron lattice work.

Many of the cultural symbols determined by JM Barrie’s play have become rather complicated for a modern audience in recent years. Can we think of Neverland without thinking of Michael Jackson? Can we be entertained without making judgements about the way gender is dealt with? Do we not hesitate before we can participate fully in a play in which fairies and pirates fight over who will take possession and control of a crowd of lost boys? A young boy crying out for his common fairy has resonances with us which may not help. This is a play which raises may puzzling psychological questions which remain long after the final applause has ceased.

However, this is not an attempt to explain or to resolve our deep-seated anxieties. It is an attempt to entertain. On those terms, it is a successful attempt to relocate Barrie’s play. We must hope though that the National Theatre of Scotland remains within a remit of trying to provide the best theatre in the world and doing so on Scottish stages and never begins to see itself as the primary teuchterizing force within Caledonian society.

John Tiffany likes dramatic entrances and having previously witnessed the bayonetted beginning of Black Watch and Alan Cuming’s behind landing on the Bacchae’s stage, we should not have been surprised to find Pan appearing from an unexpected corner. This is the first of many glorious pieces of stage-craft, without which the action would be slight and the narrative rather ponderous. Pan’s first appearance is completely upstaged by the advent of Tinkerbell though. In this production, its not so much Tinkerbell but Tinkerball-of-Fire who entertains us. The pyrotechnic business is dazzling and enchanting. Tinkerbell’s entrance was completely beguiling and left an audience utterly perplexed by how a ball of fire flew out from the Gods, under the Proscenium arch and down onto the stage. Similarly, the scene where Tinkerbell knocks over a bottle of arsenic and consumes it is astonishing. Pan is always meant to be precocious, but who could have expected that to be mirrored in such stunning stage-craft.

There are many glorious technical achievements. So many of them so well done that it comes as a surprise when other things miss the mark. Nana the Darling’s dog was never a success, pushed about in confusing manner. (And reminding this audience member how good Warhorse actually was). It was also surprising to see a technician so very obviously in Neverland providing the counterweight to some of the flying. Why was she not dressed as a pirate? There were also one or two shadows appearing on stage from the wings which should not have been there. Oh the irony, in a play in which Peter loses his shadow and cannot fly.

North British ballads and sea-shanties punctuate the action in a pleasant enough way without adding anything particularly helpful dramatically. This is a soundscape which never entirely descends into the Celtic-slush sounds which we love so much.

Amongst the company, Kevin Guthrie gives an secure lead to the production, discovering within himself a character which occasionally seems more Puck than Pan. Kirsty Mackay’s Wendy has the uphill struggle of convincing us that there is the voice of reason even within Neverland. She brings a confident sense of purpose to the role which wins out in the end.

Ultimately, it is the astonishing theatrical magic which steals the show. Worth going to see for that alone.

Updates: Other Reviews
Thom Dibdin in the Stage
Susan Wilson in the Caledonian Mercury
Joyce McMillan in the Scotsman – 3 stars
Mark Fisher

Structurally, The Adventures of Mr Brouček barely hang together. In the first half, the consequences of Brouček’s boozing are a trip to the moon and a series of encounters with characters whom he remembers from his bar. In the second, his drinking takes him back in time to 1420 and the Hussite rising in Prague. Again, the characters of Brouček’s alcohol induced fantasy are based on those who inhabit his local. Though he (and we) recognise them, they deny all knowledge of him. Whether on the moon or fifteenth century Prague, Brouček is an outsider, a loner and a stranger.

It is perhaps this sense of alienation that has led John Fulljames to set the bar scenes not in the early twentieth century but in 1968. That clever choice of date is a clear attempt to link the two disparate stories together. The setting takes us to a time just before the moon landings and just at the time of the Russian intervention in what was then Czechoslovakia. The lunar fantasy of Act I can only make what sense it does, if it takes place before anyone on earth had the images of the moon landings fixed for good in the imagination. Meanwhile, we were encouraged to see the Hussite rebellion of Act II within the context of the ongoing struggle of the Czech nation which reached such a defining point in 1968.

All these changes in scene give much for a creative team to work on. Particularly striking throughout the evening was the use of both the projected video work of Finn Ross and the accomplished and striking lighting design of Lucy Carter. The video located the work in the 1960s and was by turn whimsical and unexpectedly beautiful.

Outstanding amongst the principals was Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts who brought a clarity and sense of narrative purpose to bear on his various roles throughout the evening. As Starry Sky-Blue, he brought out an unexpected gentleness whilst on the moon which was matched by passionate vocal declarations as Petřík, the Hussite later on. The love duet between Lloyd-Roberts as Mazal and Anne Sophie Duprels as Málinka which ended Act 1 achieved a moment of elegant tenderness and peace.

Centre-stage for much of the action on the moon, was Donald Maxwell. Notwithstanding the considerable visual treats of the production, it was difficult to take one’s eyes from him as he paraded about in only a pair of white skimpies as the lunar patron, Shining Radiance. Fortunately, his vocal production was more than a match for the visual distraction of all that flesh.

Almost all of the singing from the principals was confident and clear. Only Jonathan Best as Lunabor (and other parts) needed to work a little harder than he did to reach over the top of the orchestra.

Brouček himself is not a character whom we are supposed to warm to. John Graham-Hall managed to convey the fact that we are supposed to feel a little sneer towards this drunken everyman. The clarity of diction and the precision of his singing fitted well with Janáček’s particular ways of setting speech rhythms to music and allowed a controlled rage to bubble beneath the surface. Where rage fell silent, it gave way several times throughout the evening to a puzzled and even distracted bewilderment.

That sense of bewilderment was certainly shared by members of the audience. It is far from certain how a modern audience is supposed either to react. The satire was apparent in frequent humorous incidents, but how should we comprehend the broad sweep of the dramatic action? This is a complex piece which saw off seven librettists before its first performance and there are times when that shows.

Perhaps the only way to engage fully with this opera is to enter into a willing suspension of bewilderment and simply to enjoy the extravagant score. Martin André managed to inspire an energetic sound from the Orchestra of Scottish Opera, particularly in Act I. The brass section shone particularly brightly through the evening, seemingly confirming every hunch that Janáček wrote music just to let brass players show off. However the evening was not the sole preserve of the brass section. The ethereal, shimmering notes from the strings brought a haunting beauty to the space travel sections. As Brouček headed moonwards, he (or at least his projected digital avatar) was accompanied aloft by a glorious rising string section, playing at least as well as in any of Scottish Opera’s recent productions.

The only sour notes from the pit throughout the whole evening came from the organ. Though well played, the instrument itself was not adequate for the task. There is no point spending all that money on up to date digital projection system for the dramatic action and not to hire a similarly up to date digital instrument for the music in the pit. Janáček was an organist himself and his music deserves a better instrument than we heard.

There was a strong sense of discovery to be had about this production. Not only the discoveries represented on stage of space exploration and the mining of a part of European history with which many will be unfamiliar. This is also a relatively unknown opera. The score makes its own case for inclusion within the modern operatic repertoire. The dramatic action is much more difficult and it would be easy to see why a director might be shy of making an attempt to bring it to life. Ultimately John Fulljames is to be applauded not only for making such an attempt but also for pulling it off so well and making a compelling case for a tricky piece.

In this case, a great deal of the work in overcoming dramatic difficulty was achieved by new technical techniques (notably the use of video) which were previously unavailable to directors. The use of such work in this production was so convincing that it made it almost impossible to imagine the opera without it. It is to be hoped that such a confident technical production as this encourages others to look for other apparently unstageable works and to think the previously unthinkable.

Scottish Opera and Opera North have worked together to produce and exciting, innovative, beautiful and well sung production to stages across the North of England and Scotland. The Adventures of Mr Brouček deserves to be widely seen – not only for the sheer joy of seeing a company tackling a hard work and doing so well but also to delight in two Opera companies collaborating to produce exactly the kind of high quality work that they were formed for.

Amongst a strong cast, Siobhan Redmond seethes with anger in the title role. Her vicious comic barbs are what keep the action flowing. It is she who can generally keep her house in order by the raising of an immaculately coiffured eyebrow. It is she who has an answer for everything. It is she who will sort things out. She may be a villain, but she is an arch, camp villain whom it is curiously difficult to dislike. It is the complexity of Bernie’s own life which feeds the hatreds that poison the characters of all those around her. That same complexity makes her strangely vulnerable, even when grasping a baseball bat and heading down to the street below to defend her territory from all comers.

Almost every character in this play is imprisoned in one way or another. So many lives locked away. The plush apartment where all the action is set is a prison for the five daughters and also for Bernie’s mother, who is herself locked into a room beyond. Una Maclean’s grandmother figure appears for just a couple of scenes and tantalises the audience with her tragic heartbreaking nonsense.

It is unusual to see a stage so full of female characters from beginning to end. Twelve talented female actors sizzle with anger and repressed rage in a play which will teach us not to be sentimental about what the world would be like if men were absent.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Other Reviews:
2/5 Robert Dawson Scott in the Times
3/5 Mark Fisher in the Guardian
3/5 Adam Ramsey in the Big Issue
4/5 Joyce MacMillan in the Scotsman