Opera North
Robert Beale
Sir David Pountney’s creation of a “masque” performance for our times, recycling music Purcell wrote for his, is downright good entertainment even if the plotline’s a bit incoherent.Now that’s a virtue, if you look at the 17th century models he’s starting from. Shows with masques never were designed to have much narrative logic, and the music – even when it had words attached – could as easily fit one story as another. So for this new “eco-entertainment” he’s plundered several of Purcell’s stage works including The Indian Queen, The Tempest and The Fairy Queen, and crowbarred in several Read more ...
Robert Beale
There’s a charmingly retro feel to Opera North’s new Falstaff, which comes from it being done as part of their new “green”, i.e. ecologically conscious, season.Leslie Travers’ set is made of bits from other productions and – most notably – shows Falstaff’s home as a worn-out little 1970s caravan, actually found unwanted in the grounds of a pub on the north side of Leeds by resourceful operatic bargain hunters.In Olivia Fuchs’ production of Verdi’s final masterpiece, the story’s been transported to the 1980s, and the bourgeoisie of Windsor, who make up most of the roles in the story, are first Read more ...
Sir David Pountney
Purcell came very early to me. When I was a chorister at St. John’s Cambridge “Jehova quam multi sunt” was a perennial favourite and we were thrilled by the evenings when George Guest brought in some string players to accompany Purcell’s verse anthems. These were special occasions. Then, since no management had the wit to invite me to direct Purcell, I finally engaged myself to direct The Fairy Queen at ENO.That was very directly the genesis of Masque of Might which is being given its world premiere by Opera North tomorrow.The Fairy Queen is like the other Purcell “masques” or “theatrical Read more ...
Robert Beale
Innovation is always a risky business. Opera North’s vision and ambition for this production is to create, in effect, a new genre: a combination of staged choral-orchestral performance with contemporary dance.Partnership and diversity are the buzz words – good ones, too – and the concept brings together the opera company’s soloists, chorus and orchestra with dancers from both Leeds-based Phoenix Dance Theatre and South Africa’s Jazzart Dance Theatre, plus some help from Capetown Opera.The link here is choreographer Dane Hurst, until recently artistic director of Phoenix and now its artistic Read more ...
Robert Beale
The Pearl Fishers is very much a mid-19th century Romantic opera, with a plot that’s basically a love triangle set in an exotic location. Its writers, Michel Carré and Eugène Cormon, were not the greatest of plot inventors, and after hearing the opening scene alone, you might think much the same about the inspiration of the music, beautifully crafted though it is.But then there’s that astonishing tune, attached first to the duet for the two men in love with memory of the same woman, “Au fond du temple saint”. Bizet knew a good thing when he wrote one, and he keeps bringing it back again and Read more ...
Robert Beale
Rodula Gaitanou’s production of Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos is a hugely entertaining treatment of an opera that brings its fair share of problems to any company, and the chief virtue of Opera North’s presentation (a co-production with Gothenburg Opera, now seen in the UK for the first time) is the wonderfully well suited casting.This is the 1916 version of the piece, the scenario adapted to position the Prologue (the first Act, essentially) in a 20th century film studio (Fellini's, the programme book tells us), rather than a wealthy dwelling in the Vienna of the past.Forget the Read more ...
Robert Beale
It’s good to think that there are some opera productions – not just compositions – that in themselves can have the status of classics. David Pountney’s 1980 interpretation of Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen must be high on a list of contenders for that accolade. It was first seen at the Edinburgh Festival that year, performed by Scottish Opera in a co-production between them and Welsh National Opera.Now Opera North have revived it for their audiences, and it’s lost none of its inspirational magic. That comes both from Pountney’s English translation of the text and from the wonderful Read more ...
Robert Beale
Though billed as a “concert performance”, this was really much more than that. With the resources of their own theatre, Opera North’s team present a staging that employs a big, built-up and raked floor, with a simple platform in the centre and a starry-night black back-cloth, and their principals and chorus move and act in simple but effective style.There are costumes, there is theatre lighting, and there are sound effects – thunder and rushing wind noises tell us we’re visiting the land of the dead and abode of the Furies (as well as Gluck’s music, of course). I’ve seen poorer production Read more ...
Robert Beale
Within its own aspirations, Orpheus is a complete triumph. “Monteverdi reimagined”, as Opera North subtitled it from the start, is an attempt to unite (and contrast, and compare, and cross-fertilise) early baroque opera with South Asian classical music.That’s a big ambition, as the two might seem to have little in common. But Anna Himali Howard’s simple production concept of a marriage celebration, where Orpheus is a white British guy and Eurydice an Asian girl, set in the back garden of a semi-detached house – probably in Leeds – is a symbol of the whole enterprise.The design (Leslie Travers Read more ...
Jasdeep Singh Degun and Laurence Cummings
We believe that with Orpheus, we are creating something which will invite audiences to rethink what opera can and should be. Inspired by Monteverdi’s 1607 work L’Orfeo, it grew out of Opera North’s long-standing relationship with South Asian Arts-uk, a Leeds-based centre of excellence for South Asian music and dance.Sung in Italian and Urdu with excerpts in Malayalam, Bengali, Panjabi, Hindi and Tamil, it brings together European baroque and Indian classical music in a way which has never been heard before.We are only too aware that we are working with two massive musical traditions, but the Read more ...
Robert Beale
Wagner, in his medievalist, pan-European, 19th century way, wanted Parsifal to be a blend of abstract and religious experience for his audiences at Bayreuth, calling it a “festival play for a stage consecration”. Questions for those performing it today include how to do justice to its philosophical baggage as well as its marvellous music, and whether to introduce new elements in the visual staging that the composer never thought of.Directing Opera North’s first-ever performance of the work, Sam Brown’s approach has avoided getting it mired too deep in the philosophy and restricted Read more ...
David Nice
Beware of joining the Duke of Mantua’s sleazy feast in time of Covid too late, as I did on Opera North’s Newcastle leg of its Verdi journey. You may find more than a couple of the distinguished guests on stage have fallen sick – three, no less, on Wednesday night, including the Rigoletto and the Gilda, as well as the main conductor. But if you’re lucky, as I also was, you may discover unanticipated compensations.A personal explanation may be necessary here; baritone Eric Greene came to my third Opera in Depth Zoom session, and gave us a two-hour masterclass on Verdi’s music for his Read more ...