Miss Fortune, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, March 2012

The title of this opera is a play on words, the eponymous character being the daughter of Lord and Lady Fortune, whose riches have melted away, and after the chorus sings, “We think you should go to gaol”, they take off.

All images by Bill Cooper

Miss Fortune stays behind singing that, “I won’t scuttle away … I’m going to live in the real world”. And so she does, but the forces of chaos, represented by break-dancers, lead her through a course of ill-luck before she wins the lottery. Judith Weir wrote both music and libretto, reflecting the banalities of a dull life in expressions such as, “I can’t go on like this. In the end we’ll all be dead”.

In the end the opera finished rather suddenly, and the Soul Mavericks break-dancers came on to thunderous applause. They were super. The whole production by Chinese opera expert Chen Shi-Zheng was delightfully colourful with bold set designs by Tom Pye, costumes by Han Feng, and excellent lighting by Scott Zielinski. As a co-production with the Bregenz festival it was first shown in July 2011, and the cast remained the same for this UK premiere.

Break-dancers

Emma Bell sang beautifully in the title role, and Jacques Imbrailo was wonderful in the relatively small role of Simon, the attractive man she leaves with at the end. Noah Stewart was very fine in the role of Hassan, the owner of a Kebab shop whose business is destroyed by the break-dancers, Andrew Watts sang the counter-tenor role in the rather shadowy character of fate, and Anne-Marie Owens sang well as Donna the owner of a Laundromat.

A mixture of soap opera and fairy tale, the story lacks narrative drive, and the clouds of mellifluous music lack a cutting edge. The saving grace is the very effective staging, with Paul Daniel in the orchestra pit doing his best to inject life into an otherwise unimpassioned score.

Performances continue until March 28 — for details click here.

Ruddigore, Opera North, Barbican, November 2011

W. S. Gilbert, the librettist for this work, was a master of wit, not just on paper but spontaneously in conversation. When a neighbour referred admiringly to Ruddigore calling it Bloodygore, Gilbert objected, so the neighbour said: “Same thing isn’t it?” WSG was swift as a rapier, “If I admire your ruddy countenance, it doesn’t mean I like your bloody cheek, which I don’t”.

All images Robert Workman

There’s no blood in Ruddigore, but there is a ghostly episode after our hero, Robin has reluctantly accepted his real name of Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd, whose position as the Lord of Ruddigore gives him the accursed obligation of committing a crime a day. Failure to do so condemns him to death. His attempted crimes are rather inadequate, and in Act II ancestral paintings come to life to accuse him of failure. This pantomime-like episode was very well done, with excellent sets and lighting by Richard Hudson and Anna Watson. All seems lost, but the trick in the plot is that the honest Robin suddenly realises that failure to commit a crime is suicide, which itself is a crime …

Robin and Rose, just before the intervention

Robin was delightfully sung and portrayed by Grant Doyle, a versatile performer whom I last saw as a bearded Abraham in Clemency, a serious Biblical opera by James MacMillan. His beloved Rose Maybud was beautifully sung by Amy Freston whose body movements were those of a ballerina. She even did a small jeté en tournant at the end, and the sheer joy of her performance was a charm in itself. Robin’s foster-brother, Dick Dauntless was engagingly performed by Hal Cazalet, and the rest of the cast formed an excellent team around these three principals, including Heather Shipp as the Mad Margaret, Steven Page as the ancestral Sir Roderic, Richard Burkhard as the sly Sir Despard, and Anne-Marie Owens as Dame Hannah, all well directed by Jo Davies.

The ghosts of Ruddigore

Sullivan’s music was played with wit and enthusiasm under the direction of John Wilson, and it was a pleasure to see a performance of this lesser-known operetta from the Gilbert and Sullivan stable.

Performances at the Barbican continue until November 26 — for details click here.