Top Hat, Aldwych Theatre, London’s West End, May 2012

If you like a frothy musical with lots of dancing, and numbers like Cheek to Cheek by Irving Berlin, this is for you.

Tom Chambers and ensemble, all images Brinkhoff and Mogenburg

It’s the early 1930s and an American dancer named Jerry Travers has come to London to star in a show produced by wealthy Horace Hardwick. A tap dance routine he performs in his hotel room awakens the lovely Dale Tremont. She treats him with disdain, but he falls for her and spares no effort to bring her round. All would be well, but a case of mistaken identity carries the affair off to Venice.

Tom Chambers and Summer Strallen

There are funny lines aplenty, often inspired by the ridiculous Horace Hardwick, ”A man is incomplete before he’s married. After that he’s finished”. This may not seem very witty when written down, but delivered in a Bob Hope kind of way by a string-bean version of Henry Higgins, it’s funny. Martin Ball gave a fine performance as Hardwick, and talking of string-beans, Stephen Boswell was wonderful as his man, Bates. Vivien Parry carried off the role of Hardwick’s wife with great panache, delivering some superb lines, but the main plaudits must go to Summer Strallen as Dale Tremont: super stage presence and wonderful dancing — she was great.

Tom Chambers starred as Jerry Travers, giving him great charm, and his playful pas-de-deux with the hat stand in Act I was a delight. Super ensemble dancing by the company to choreography by Bill Deamer, and the sets by Hildegard Bechtler were glorious. Lovely costumes by Jon Morrell and good lighting by Peter Mumford. The story line is a bit thin, but Matthew White has directed a hugely appealing show that never flags for a minute, and left the audience with a sense of euphoria.

Booking available until 26 January 2013 — for details click here.

Madam Butterfly, English National Opera, ENO, London Coliseum, May 2012

Anthony Minghella died four years ago, but his wonderful English National Opera production of Madam Butterfly lives on. Created in 2005 it attracted huge acclaim and won the Olivier Award for best new opera production.

Death at the end, all images Clive Barda

Those who attend live relays from the Metropolitan Opera in New York may have seen it in the cinema in 2009, but it’s better in the theatre so if you live anywhere near London go to the Coliseum. If theatre is anything to do with visual imagery, and it surely is, then the clever set designs by Michael Levine, the glorious costumes by Han Feng, and the fabulous lighting by Peter Mumford are a treat not to be missed. Excellent choreography by Minghella’s wife Carolyn Choa, along with the very clever use of puppetry, make this an unbeatable Butterfly production. Not only is Butterfly’s little son a puppet, but she looks on in Act III as a puppet of herself is manipulated by forces she can’t control.

Act I wedding

Mary Plazas gave a beautiful portrayal of Butterfly, with Gwyn Hughes Jones singing strongly in the thankless role of US Navy Lieutenant Pinkerton, particularly in Act III. Though his full name is Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, she refers to him as F.B.Pinkerton, and in my view he’s more of an FB than a BF. The US consul Sharpless has explained several times that she is taking this marriage in deadly earnest, but the hedonistic young naval man couldn’t give a monkey’s. Only in Act III is he finally sorry, singing with conviction, “I’m a coward, I am weak”, but it’s too late.

John Fanning sang with real feeling as Sharpless, and Pamela Helen Stephen came over very sympathetically as Butterfly’s maid Suzuki, both of them joining the main characters from the cast of 2005. This was excellent team-work under revival director Sarah Tipple, with musical direction by Oleg Caetani in the orchestra pit. His light touch yielded emphasis at the right moments, though I missed some of the emotional swell to this music.

The Butterfly puppet

Puppetry by the Blind Summit Theatre was excellent, and the whole cast, including those black-clad figures personifying the forces of Japanese tradition, moved beautifully in time with the music. And if you need some background to Puccini’s extraordinary take on Japanese culture, see the interesting article by Adrian Mourby in the programme.

Performances continue until June 2 — for details click here.

The Damnation of Faust, English National Opera, ENO, London Coliseum, May 2011

This is ostensibly a French opera sung in English, though it’s not really an opera but a légende dramatique by Hector Berlioz — a musical and vocal canvas on which a clever director can paint his own picture. And this is exactly what Terry Gilliam does by turning the whole thing into a history about the rise of Nazism in Germany from World War I to its expression in the violent anti-Semitism of 1930s and eventually the death camps of World War II.

Faust and Mephistopheles in the cube, all images Tristram Kenton

It all starts with a spoken prologue by Mephistopheles in which he talks about the desire to unlock the secrets of life saying, “there will always be a Faust”. Referring to a struggle, he then intones “My struggle translates in German as Mein Kampf“. This obvious reference to Hitler out of the way, he then seats himself stage left as Faust with his spiky orange hair hikes in the mountains carrying a massive cubical burden from which he opens out a large chalk-board replete with mathematical mumbo jumbo. He then meets Teutonic figures from German myth, but this is all just prologue, and as we watch Gilliam’s story unfold we are presented with one clever stage idea after another. For example towards the end, when Faust and Mephistopheles ride off on black horses to save Marguerite — who in this production has been transported to one of the death camps — they ride a World War II motorbike and sidecar, appearing to race across the front of the stage as the night-time scenery flashes past behind them. In the meantime we have been presented with high and low points from German history in the 1930s: the callous brutality of the brown shirts, the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin with Leni Reifenstahl’s wonderful moving images of divers, the yellow stars for Jews, the horror of Kristallnacht in November 1938, and the transportation of Jews to concentration camps.

The journey to save Marguerite

In case this all seems too much, Gilliam dilutes it with comedy and choreographic invention worthy of a musical, as the blond athletes move in formation and sing in Latin, and the brown shirts perform at one point as if in an operetta. Peter Hoare’s Faust, with his high tenor voice, is costumed as one of them, but always with that frightful orange hair, looking rather like the dog-man he portrayed so well in the ENO’s Dog’s Heart late last year. Christopher Purves by contrast was a commanding Mephistopheles with his sonorous baritone and superb stage presence, and Christine Rice was a beautifully voiced Marguerite. The relatively small part of the student Brander, another brown shirt, was well sung by Nicholas Folwell. Musically this was wonderful, with inspired playing by the orchestra under the direction of Edward Gardner.

The sets by Hildgard Bechtler ranged from open air romanticism of a style to suit Der Freischütz, to utilitarian buildings and their interiors, all superbly lit by Peter Mumford. Good costumes by Katrina Lindsay and clever video designs by Finn Ross helped make this a remarkable staging, yet I feel discomforted by the huge range of production ideas, and wonder if it isn’t all a bit self-indulgent.

Faust and Marguerite fearing crowds outside

Of course, as a musical creation by Berlioz this is not exactly an opera, but more like a cantata, and it failed at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in 1846 during its first performances. Only in 1893 was it successfully staged in Monte Carlo, and now Terry Gilliam has created it anew, using Berlioz’s wonderful music to tell the story of where German Romanticism and idealism took a badly wrong turn, leading to one of the great tragedies of the twentieth century.

Performances continue until June 7 — for more details click here.

Lucrezia Borgia, English National Opera, ENO, London Coliseum, February 2011

A mother’s anger leads unintentionally to the death of her adored illegitimate son. Shades of Verdi’s Rigoletto here, where a father’s anger leads to the death of his beloved daughter, but there are strong differences. Where Rigoletto is a physically ugly man with a hunchback, Lucrezia Borgia is a beautiful woman, now in her early forties. It’s a wonderful vehicle for a great soprano, but that’s not how it was played here.

Michael Fabiano as Gennaro, photos by Stephen Cummisky

The director, Mike Figgis has made a film about Lucrezia, and he imports several scenes from the movie into his staging of the opera. The purpose is to give some background from Lucrezia’s early life, which is not in the opera, but the effect was disorientating, like a Renaissance painting with several vanishing points. In fact we were also treated to projected images of paintings in which the figures started moving. This was supposed to give background to the background, but I felt myself in some avant garde Gesamtkunstwerk (mixed languages intended) that was attempting to educate me in the attitudes of the time.

The background to Lucrezia is that she was the daughter of a man who became pope, and the sister of a man who was a psychopath. Both supposedly had incestuous relations with her and she, like a true Borgia, took a delight in causing the death of others. At least that is what the movie showed, but where does this leave the opera?

Alastair Miles and Claire Rutter as Alfonso and Lucrezia

The part of Gennaro, Lucrezia’s lost son, whom she seeks out in the Prologue, was strongly portrayed and sung by Michael Fabiano, and his friend Orsini was beautifully sung by Elizabeth DeShong. Lucrezia’s third husband Alfonso was well sung, though rather woodenly portrayed, by Alastair Miles, and much though I have admired Claire Rutter in other roles, I found her a disappointing Lucrezia who avoided the high notes at the end. As for Lucrezia’s father and brother, who are so prominent in the movie sequences, they are simply not in the opera.

Costume designs of the period by Brigitte Reiffenstuel were excellent, and the sets by Es Devlin were wonderful. I loved the dual throne in Act I, which reappeared in Act II, and I thought the small proscenium arch in Act II, which widened later, showing a stage within the stage, was a clever idea. Lighting by Peter Mumford was very well done, giving a sense of irreality at appropriate moments. Conducting by Paul Daniel lacked a sense of drive, partly perhaps because of the various interruptions for the movie sequences.

The chorus in black cloaks, acting like a Greek chorus, formed a strong background to the drama, reminiscent of the chorus in Rigoletto. That opera is almost always a success, and it would be good to counterbalance it occasionally with Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia, but apart from clever production ideas one needs a very strong soprano, and the music must be played for all it’s worth rather than used as a background, which is what happens in movies.

Performances continue until March 3^rd — for more details click here.

An Ideal Husband, Vaudeville Theatre, London’s West End, November 2010

This witty and cleverly constructed play by Oscar Wilde was beautifully performed by the entire cast. So beautifully in fact that I never had a serious doubt it would all work out well in the end. Perhaps I should have done, because the charmingly dishonest Mrs. Cheveley, brilliantly played by Samantha Bond, exuded an air of inevitable success even though she ends up with nothing and loses the valuable brooch she once stole.

Mrs. Cheveley is poles apart from her old school ‘friend’ Lady Chiltern, who is puffed up with pride at having an ideal husband, a situation that allows her to sail forth clothed in good deeds and moral inflexibility. Unfortunately, the husband Sir Robert Chiltern has a nasty skeleton in his cupboard, well exhibited by a letter that has recently come into Mrs. Cheveley’s possession. This is a play about blackmail, political opportunism and questions of honour, and as such is as fitting to the present time as it was to the late nineteenth century in which it was written.

Rachael Stirling gave a beautiful portrayal of Lady Chiltern, who is pulled up short at the end when her husband, very convincingly played by Robert Hanson, refuses to give his sister’s hand to the shrewd but apparently foppish Lord Goring. Now it is he who shows moral inflexibility, and his wife feels obliged to explain that things are not entirely as he thought. Elliot Cowan played the amusing dandy Lord Goring with witty self-deprecation, a remarkable change from the Macbeth I last saw him perform at the Globe this summer. His wonderful lines, such as “I love talking about nothing, father. It’s the only thing I know anything about” were delivered with superb nonchalance, and his body language was wonderfully expressive. Charles Kay as his father showed ample disdain and concern in a suitably restrained way, and Caroline Blakiston as Lady Markby almost stole the scene at one point with her fine monologue.

The whole cast worked superbly together, and this production by Lindsay Posner turns Wilde’s 1895 drama into something absolutely topical, as did his excellent staging of Roberto Devereux at Opera Holland Park in summer 2009. Lighting by Peter Mumford showed Stephen Brimson Lewis’s designs to perfection, and what fine designs they are, with immensely tall rooms expensively decorated. For a delightful evening’s entertainment in these cold days with protests, strikes and economic gloom, you cannot do better. Performances continue until February 26^th — for more details click here.

Faust, English National Opera, ENO at the London Coliseum, September 2010

As a university professor who has studied very esoteric subjects I appreciate Faust’s weariness with the ultimate point of his research. His willingness to bring everything to an abrupt end gives the devil a chance to intervene and allow him to recapture a lost youth with a girl he desires, but life and death are never quite that simple.

Melody Moore and Toby Spence as Marguerite and Faust

The main characters in this Gounod opera are Faust, Marguerite and Mephistopheles, and in a pre-performance talk at the Apple Store in Covent Garden someone asked who the main character is. The panel’s consensus was Mephistopheles — the devil has the best tunes, and he’s certainly the operative force in the opera. But in this performance the strongest characters were Toby Spence as Faust and Melody Moore as Marguerite. She sang beautifully with great purity of tone, and in the final scene as she achieves redemption through death her voice took on new power. Toby Spence sang with effortless lyricism, and being an attractive man who looks admirably young, his youthful rejuvenation was very striking. I also particularly liked Anna Grevelius as Faust’s student, Siebel. Mephistopheles was sung by Iain Paterson, whom I have seen perform very well in sympathetic roles such as Amonasro in Aida, and the first lieutenant in Billy Budd, but as the devil he lacked power and menace, and didn’t quite have the lower register that this role requires. Fine diction from all three main performers, though less so from the chorus, and while the orchestra played lyrically under music director Edward Gardner, there seemed a lack of tension and pathos.

This was not helped by Des McAnuff’s new production — a joint venture with the Metropolitan Opera in New York — which had a phantom-of-the-opera feel to it. The necromancy was missing, though the lighting by Peter Mumford was wonderful and the greens and blues in the last scene were very effective. I also loved the choreography by Kelly Devine in Act II, and thought the first two Acts worked well, though the flash paper tricks were a bit naff, and the still projection of a face that suddenly blinked seemed unnecessarily contrived. Overall some lovely singing from Toby Spence and Melody Moore, but I left feeling underwhelmed.

This was the opening night of the new season, and things may catch fire later. Performances continue on September 21, 25, 30, and October 2, 6, 9, 14, 16.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Rose Theatre, Kingston-on-Thames, February 2010

There is an idea that Shakespeare had in mind Queen Elizabeth when writing the part of Titania, queen of the fairies, whose name is based on the Roman goddess Diana. The play was produced in about 1595, at a time when Shakespeare’s company, the Chamberlain’s Men, were regularly playing to Elizabeth’s court and it’s quite likely she saw it. In any event it was a masterstroke of Peter Hall to have Judi Dench play the part of Titania, and I found her entirely convincing. It is nearly fifty years since she first performed it under Hall’s direction with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1962, but fairies are ancient beings, aren’t they — and fairy queens may be older than most.

The players, who rehearse in the woods and perform at the Duke’s court, were utterly delightful. Oliver Chris as Bottom, with a Brummie accent, was a wonderful ass, and his death scene in the frightful court performance of Pyramus and Thisbe was gloriously over the top. I also thought Timothy Speyer as Snug was superb with his round-eyes and broad Black Country accent, seemingly in awe of his more worldly fellow actors. The hopeless incompetence of the acting troupe was hilarious, and their marvellous comic timing had the audience in stitches.

The lovers were well played, with Annabel Scholey as Hermia, Rachael Stirling as Helena, and I particularly liked Tam Williams and Ben Mansfield as Lysander and Demetrius, the suitors. In the fairy realm, Reece Ritchie was an excellent Puck with his dark features, huge energy and mischievous attitude. The sets and costume designs by Elizabeth Bury, and the lighting by Peter Mumford, were both simple and effective, and the ass’s head gave Bottom an appealing nobility. The Rose Theatre usually has some empty seats, partly because of some poor sight-lines, but Judi Dench has made this a sell-out. If you can get tickets, it’s well worth seeing, not just for her, but because the whole cast gives a wonderful performance. This is the perfect antidote to the winter blues — it’s a riot, and two Americans in front of us were going for the second time that day!

Bluebeard’s Castle, and Rite of Spring, ENO, London Coliseum, November 2009

This was the first night of a double bill, in which the main item was Bartok’s one-act opera performed by the English National Opera.

Bluebeard’s Castle is an extraordinarily dark work for two singers: Bluebeard and his new wife Judith. I thought this production by Daniel Kramer, with designs by Giles Cadle and lighting by Peter Mumford, worked very well, amply showing the light, the darkness and the blood. The castle has seven locked doors and Judith demands they be opened. When the fifth door was opened, out poured nine children, neatly arranged in increasing sizes, and behind the seventh door were the three former wives, each mother to three children. This production suggests that the wives were sadistically abused by Bluebeard, and just as he is about to do the same with his fourth wife, the opera ends. It’s intense and disturbing, and from the orchestra pit, Edward Gardner gave the music great power and lyricism. Clive Bayley sang an autistic and threatening Bluebeard, with Michaela Martens as a powerful Judith. This production was well worth the price of the ticket, and I only wish it had been followed by something more worthy.

Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring was given a tremendous rhythmic intensity by Edward Gardner, and in some ways the music complemented Bartok rather well. Unfortunately the dance-work accompanying the music — a co-production with the Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre, directed by Michael Keegan-Dolan — was a disappointment. A young man is killed, three women are drugged and gang raped by men dressed in animal heads, who later strip naked and put on women’s dresses. I liked the March Hare heads for the three women — the ones who drank the drugged tea — and the juxtaposition of March Hares and tea reminded me of Lewis Carroll’s Alice, but overall I found the interpretation unnecessarily crude. I prefer to see the performers dancing, rather than writhing horizontally on stage, because I find that more abstract choreography carries more power.

A View from the Bridge, Richmond Theatre, May 2009

This Arthur Miller play, about the self-destruction of dockworker Eddie Carbone, who lives in 1950s Brooklyn with his wife and niece, was beautifully revived and directed by Lindsay Posner. Ken Stott was excellent as Eddie, well demonstrating his insecurity, his intensely narcissistic love for his niece Katie and growing disenchantment with his wife. After overcoming his reluctance to let Katie go to work and become independent, he is presented with two brothers from their extended family in Sicily who move in to work as illegal immigrants. The elder one, Marco intends to stay five years and then go back to his wife and children, but the younger brother Rodolpho wants to become an American, and Eddie immediately senses a rival for Katie’s affections. When Rodolpho and Katie begin to fall in love, Eddie gets obsessed with the boy’s easy going and outgoing attitudes, accusing him of being gay. He eventually snitches on both brothers to the US Immigration Service, despite his lawyer’s warning that the reaction of his neighbours will destroy his own life. Eddie’s narcissism is well expressed by his cri-de-coeur “I want respect”. The wretched man cannot respect himself so he begs it from others, and his eventual demand for apologies, where none are due, leads to the execution of ancient Sicilian custom resulting in his own death.

The lovely 17-year-old Katie was beautifully played by Hayley Atwell, and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio gave a strong performance as Eddie’s anxious and almost powerless wife. Harry Lloyd was a charming Rodolpho, and the elder brother Marco, who says but little, was powerfully portrayed by Gerard Monaco. The lawyer, who has a narrative role like a single-person Greek chorus, and attempts to turn Eddie from his fate, was excellently played by Allan Corduner.

Christopher Oram’s designs of the costumes and interior of Eddie’s apartment worked superbly, as did the lighting by Peter Mumford. The production by Lindsay Posner, which moved from the Duke of York’s Theatre in London’s West End, was well suited to this intense and emotional play, and the performance was riveting.

Madama Butterfly, live relay, Metropolitan Opera, New York, March 2009

This production by the late Anthony Minghella — perhaps the best Butterfly I’ve ever seen — was beautifully directed by his widow Carolyn Choa, who also did the original choreography. It portrayed the child as a puppet, which worked extremely well, allowing Butterfly to act with him rather than with a small boy unable to follow musical cues. Later during the prelude to Act III, Butterfly herself became a puppet, acting with a dancer portraying Pinkerton. The excellent puppetry was by the Blind Summit Theatre, the magnificent costumes by Han Feng, and the clever lighting by Peter Mumford. Altogether, Minghella’s production shows an intimacy that suits this personal tragedy very well, and it came over perfectly in a cinema setting.

The cast did a superb job. Patricia Racette acted the part of Butterfly with sensitivity and emotional conviction, singing with suitably restrained passion. Marcello Giordani was a hedonistic Pinkerton who sang like a god, and Dwayne Croft was outstanding as Sharpless, acting and singing with enormous sensitivity. Maria Zifchak as Suzuki expressed sympathy with Butterfly, while showing she understood the transient nature of Pinkerton’s affections. Back this up with conducting by Patrick Summers that allowed the singers room to express themselves, and this became a great performance of Butterfly.