The Judas Kiss, Richmond Theatre, October 2012

This David Hare play focuses on two moments in Oscar Wilde’s relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas (Bosie). One is at the Cadogan Hotel during the day leading up to his arrest, the other in Naples after his release from prison.

Bosie, Robbie, Wilde

The audience found several of Wilde’s lines amusingly witty, and some of Bosie’s breathtakingly narcissistic. This obnoxious young man was well portrayed by Freddie Fox, his admirable physique well befitting the nude scenes, though Tom Colley as Bosie’s Italian lover in Naples arguably beat him in this respect. Cal MacAninch as Robbie Ross, an ex-lover of Wilde who adores him and wants to help him, was very convincing, and the scene with the hotel servants was well played, but Rupert Everett made an unsympathetic Wilde. It’s essential to feel for him, otherwise the play rather loses its point.

Everett as Wilde

In an interview in the programme, David Hare is asked why he picked the two moments he did, and to what extent the dialogue was Hare’s own invention — the answer is most of it. Among numerous other questions and answers, the one asking what the author was trying to achieve is absent: was the intention to explain Wilde’s demise, was it to grieve over a relationship that halted Wilde’s creative genius, or was there some other purpose? However, in an article by Wilde’s only grandson — well worth the price of the programme — Merlin Holland wishes he could ask his grandfather one single question, ’Why on earth did you do it?’ suing Bosie’s father, landing himself in gaol and allowing society to rid itself of a rebel “who called into question … the hypocrisy of those social, sexual and literary values upon which Victorian society was so firmly based”.

The creative team that put this on has done a terrific job. Fine direction by Neil Armfield with excellent designs and costumes by Dale Ferguson and Sue Blaine, and clever lighting by Rick Fisher that allows the audience to experience the passing of many hours as Wilde sits almost immobilised.

Bosie and lover

Time waits for no man, but at the end of this play it seems that Wilde is waiting for time so it can annihilate him. I would have preferred more depth.

Performances at Richmond continue until November 3 — for details click here — after which it goes to the Theatre Royal Brighton, November 5–10, before opening in the West End at the Duke of York’s Theatre on 17 January 2013 (previews from 9 January).

Heart of Darkness, Linbury Studio, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, November 2011

Wow! This was a remarkable achievement by 33 year old composer Tarik O’Regan, along with a libretto by artist Tom Phillips.

The crew on the boat

They have packed Joseph Conrad’s novella into 75 minutes of gripping musical narrative, starting in London with the old sea captain, Marlow — beautifully sung by Alan Oke — in a moment of recollection, “He was a remarkable man”. This is repeated in different forms, and although nothing is hurried, everything is accomplished. Marlow goes into the heart of Africa, upstream with his crew.

Edward Dick and Robert Innes Hopkins have come up with a wonderful design. The deck of the boat moves up and down on water that seeps through, and the effect is that we are there with them as they move up river. It is all helped by Rick Fisher’s lighting, which is mostly dark, but sometimes brilliantly lit with the crew is in the midday sun, and when the witch-doctor appears later we see a strangely magical projection roiling the air.

Alan Oke as Marlow

The sets and lighting help, but the atmosphere is created by the music and libretto. The tension, the frustrations, “What I really need are rivets”, and when the rivets eventually arrive the crew dance for joy. Bright interludes there may be, but the percussion, strings and woodwind create a sense of the jungle, and the crew pull out their guns, “The jungle has eyes in it”. They survive an attack, instigated by Kurtz, that mysterious man whom we eventually meet, strongly sung by young Danish bass Morten Lassenius Kramp. He looks the part in spades, lying on a table, yet supremely fit and slim when he stands up. A man of vision, or is it obsession — Kurtz and his ivory, “They will try to claim it as theirs. It’s my ivory. I want nothing more than justice”. But as Marlow later sings, “His intelligence was perfectly clear, but his soul was mad”.

Marlow and Kurtz

The opera ends as it starts, on the river Thames in London. Kurtz’s fiancée, sung by Gweneth-Ann Jeffers, reappears and we are back to Marlow’s conversation with her at the beginning. He muses about the ‘remarkable man’, impossible to know him and not admire him. She wants to know what were his last words, and Marlow is stuck. “The last word he announced was . . . your name”. It is almost the end, and as the tide of the music goes out and in, we are left to ponder on the eternal insanity of acquisitive obsession.

The music was played by CHROMA conducted by Oliver Gooch, and I would gladly hear and see it all again. This is the first time I remember seeing surtitles in the Linbury Studio, and they worked very well. Performances continue until November 5 — for details click here.

Radamisto, English National Opera, ENO at the London Coliseum, October 2010

On 27^th April 1720, a month before his sixtieth birthday, King George I attended the opera with his son the Prince of Wales. They’d only recently reunited after not speaking to one another for three years, so this was just the right opera to see. The king, Farasmane and his son Radamisto are in dire danger of losing their lives to the crazily emotional actions of a tyrant, Tiridate, king of Armenia, whose wife is Radamisto’s sister — the names are those of historical figures, but the personalities are not. Moreover Handel wrote this opera for the newly created Royal Academy of Music, whose directors favoured stories of love defeating the naked ambition of a ruthless conqueror.

Zenobia begs Radamisto to kill her

The young queens, Zenobia wife of Radamisto, and Polissena wife of Tiridate, are vital characters in the plot, both beautifully sung by Christine Rice and Sophie Bevan. Radamisto was sung by a woman in the original production, but here we had American counter-tenor Lawrence Zazzo who was excellent, and I do prefer such roles to be sung by a man rather than a woman. The other two male singers were superb too. Ryan McKinny sang very strongly as Tiridate, with fine stage presence and excellent diction, and Henry Waddington gave an equally wonderful performance in the much smaller bass role of King Farasmane. The one other character, Tigrane — an ally of Tiridate — was also very well sung by Ailish Tynan. A further role for Tiridate’s brother was cut from Handel’s revised version, which was performed here. Tigrane is infatuated with Tiridate’s wife Polissena, and acts as something of a unifying force, while Tiridate, who’s insanely in love with Radamisto’s wife Zenobia, is purely destructive, “From the hands of those I slaughter I will snatch a victor’s crown”.

Tiridate and Radamisto, all images ENO/ Clive Barda

The trouble with this opera is the weak ending. It builds up to an impossible situation, when suddenly Tiridate’s wife enters to say that his troops are abandoning him, so he admits having behaved very badly and thanks his erstwhile enemies for their kind understanding. Not a brilliant ending, but the music is wonderful and Laurence Cummings conducted with huge enthusiasm and excellent control of the proceedings. Musically this was a real treat.

Radamisto is not often performed, and the first twentieth century revival in Britain was not until 1960. The performance attracted strong applause, as did the new production by David Alden — a joint production with the Santa Fe Opera — apart from objections from a few audience members at the end. I didn’t understand the objections, so I asked one man what he didn’t like about it, to which I got the response that he didn’t like anything about the production. Did he not like the lighting by Rick Fisher? I thought it was wonderful. Did he not like the designs by Gideon Davy? I thought the Eastern style costumes were lovely, particularly Tiridate’s, and as for the late Ottoman white suit for Tigrane, that was obviously meant to be deliberately anachronistic. And the sets? I thought they were super. It’s a colourful production, easy on the eye, and the occasional body pierced by arrows is a reminder that while this family feud goes on, a lot of people die. Not a bad lesson, and remember that this opera’s opening night was witnessed by the future King George II with his music loving father George I, at the conclusion of one of their feuds. Handel had been Kapellmeister to George when he was Elector of Hanover, but then moved to London, so it must have felt like a family reunited when George became King of Britain.

Performances continue until November 4 — click here for more details.