 |
 |
|
 |
||
|
Macbeth & La Sonnambula Verdi Macbeth Opera Holland Park London 9 June 2005 Director Olivia Fuchs Designer Bob Bailey Lighting designer Giuseppe Di Iorio Movement director Claire Whistler Fight director Alison de Burgh Macbeth Olafur Sigurdarson Good that Opera Holland Park entrusted their 2005 opening production to Olivia Fuchs, whose Fidelio at Holland Park is etched on our memories. Not possible to be too serious about her bloody take on Macbeth, a great show of popular entertainment, as it was for Verdi's audiences, with the chaste white set turning red before our eyes, drenching the stage, rivulets still trickling alongside Holland Park as we walked home towards Kensington. A heavy overcast evening for the second performance, not so much blood and thunder as blood, helicopters and peacocks, their screeching anticipated uncannily by Verdi in his Overture! The plot, fast driven by as fetching a coven of young witches as ever you'll encounter disporting themselves on climbing frames (appearances deceive!) left John Gibbons directed the alert City of London Sinfonia astutely. They played Verdi's splendid score powerfully, on a level with the front rows, but without overwhelming the singers, who were helped to project easily by the bloodied backdrop. The young chorus sang, acted and managed their costume changes well, making a substantial presence on stage in their various guises. Good bright side-titles with sufficient translated text for those who are glad of their help (even ENO has now conceded the need for them). An excellent Night at the Italian Opera; Sonnambula, another sleepwalker, next night! Bellini La Sonnambula Opera Holland Park London 10 June 2005 Director – Alasdair MiddletonDesigner – Bob Bailey Lighting designer - Giuseppe Di Iorio City of London Sinfonia/Conductor – Brad Cohen Amina – Linda Richardson Arriving for the second performance of La Sonnambula at Holland Park, with the previous night's blood still dripping down the wall in our minds, never to be washed away, it was a pleasure to be greeted by the ingenious Bob Bailey's new backdrop, a sunny image of gold and white for Vincenzo Bellini’s sleepwalker, presaging a happy beginning and ending too for this slight tale of a marital hiccup and its resolution. Bel canto singing is all in this fantasy world of rural domesticity, and we were soon being regaled with beautiful tunes galore. Brad Cohen put his mark upon the music with orchestral playing which responded to his elegant painting of rhythm and rubato, always considerate to the singers, and the City of London Sinfonia's accompaniments had us respecting Bellini's orchestration more than we had expected. Cohen has been researching Bellini and restored material from the original autograph score; there is an indication that this is the second instalment of a Holland Park Bellinian odyssey.
Once again Holland Park's youthful opera chorus becomes a constant delight instead of an embarrassment, as used often to be the case in 19 C Italian opera, still to be seen so in some of the La Scala DVDs. As the bride's neighbours they pop out of windows, and steal many of the scenes, notably delicious moments when they find a sleeping woman in the Count's hotel bedroom and, the morning after Amina has been jilted, emerge bleary eyed to go off in their night-gowns to support their chaste friend. It is all played Tim Mirfin, handsome and irresistible as the young Count returned to claim his inheritance, has a sonorous bass voice and immaculate delivery and inadvertently compromises Amina; a pity that after he has explained to the assembled company the mysteries of somnabulism, his part rather fizzles out. Anne Mason gives character to Amina's foster-mother, who sorts out the confusion and puts the village marriage back on course. If you want to be really terrified by Verdi's Macbeth, do get hold of Leonardo Capalbo as Macduff and Olafur Sigurdarson as Macbeth; Linda Richardson (La Sonnambula) sleepwalking |
no time for Shakespearian poetry.
with gentle humour, entirely suitably. Linda Richardson (pictured in the wrong bed!) has the right village-girl charm and tosses off her roulades competently; a little light-weight for a Bellini heroine perhaps, and her sleepwalking persona was not as convincingly characterised as Lady Macbeth's with her candle yesterday.