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Glare, classical
‘Athletic desire’: Amar Muchhala and Sky Ingram in Glare at the Linbury Studio. Photograph: Stephen Cummiskey
‘Athletic desire’: Amar Muchhala and Sky Ingram in Glare at the Linbury Studio. Photograph: Stephen Cummiskey

Glare; Suor Angelica/Gianni Schicchi; Emerson String Quartet – review

This article is more than 9 years old
Linbury Studio, Royal Opera House; Royal Academy of Music, London
The dream girl isn’t quite what she seems in the Søren Nils Eichberg’s Glare. And Puccini is in safe hands at the Royal Academy

That old showbusiness adage “never work with children or animals” should be extended to encompass the pool table. In the Royal Opera’s production of German/Danish composer Søren Nils Eichberg’s Glare it plays a central – and distracting – role, the game becoming so engrossing it’s easy to miss the crucial narrative being sung around it. And make a note now: in the unlikely event that bass Ashley Riches invites you to play, be quick to decline: he’s a real demon.

Actually, his character, Michael, is a very real demon. He’s a nasty manipulator, a modern misogynist with a chilling desire to control everybody in his life, including his best friend, the over-sexed and socially inept Alex, who can’t quite believe that he has found the perfect girlfriend in Lea.

When creepy Michael tells him Lea is actually a robot, dim Alex stumbles in horror, a reaction surely undercut by director Thaddeus Strassberger’s decision to have Alex unveil a motionless Lea from beneath a plastic cover near the beginning of the piece. How can he not know? We are in the land of male fantasy here, that tiresome search for the perfect woman that’s been going since the dawn of literature, but it’s all – deliberately – far from clear.

We are being invited to question our assumptions about one another and who we can trust in a world where technology is making alternative realities increasingly possible. It’s a dark and occasionally crass piece, but it does come close to achieving its claim to be a “taut thriller”, particularly in the closing twist, though even that is mishandled, such is the generally leaden direction.

Ashley Riches as Michael with Sky Ingram as Lea in Glare. Photograph: Stephen Cummiskey

Somehow the score manages to rise above the confusion. Laced with electronics and brimming with interesting sonorities, it is occasionally violent but often very beautiful. The 11 musicians of Chroma are directed with cool precision by Geoffrey Paterson as the four singers seize eagerly at Eichberg’s supple vocal lines and Hannah Dübgen’s admirably direct libretto: Alex (tenor Amar Muchhala) has a vibrato that’s not always easy on the ear, but his athletic desire is thoroughly convincing; soprano Sky Ingram, as Lea, has a voice to match her apparent perfection, beautifully balanced by Clare Presland as Alex’s ex, the canny Christina. Ashley Riches is totally secure vocally, even when potting ball after ball.

It’s a disturbing 75 minutes, strikingly contemporary but with many nods to operatic inheritance, not least an almost Mozartian quartet, sung stock-still, each character reflecting on their hapless predicaments.

There was much more fun to be had at the Royal Academy of Music last week when opera students romped through Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi. This amusing tale of avarice and duplicity was made hilarious by a dream combination of William Kerley’s tight direction, Jason Southgate’s witty, primary-coloured design and oodles of eager young talent.

Among the standout singers to watch for as they come on to the opera circuit are the tenor Oliver Johnston, whose virile young lover Rinuccio made a good match with Cathy-Di Zhang’s sweet toned Lauretta. Haobin Wang, as Schicchi, has a real gift for comedy, but his big baritone is still a bit foggy in the upper registers. Firm bass Tristan Hambleton has no such problem, even when saddled with playing Simone, the pompous, elderly former mayor.

‘Oodles of talent’: the cast of Gianni Schicchi at the Royal Academy of Music, led by Haobin Wang (centre) in the title role. Photograph: Hana Zushi-Rhodes

Dante’s timeless comedy of a grasping family plotting to rewrite the will of their rich relative while his body is still warm was given some funny updates: the cast parodied thoroughly modern, blingy Italians, the women all teetering heels and fake Prada, the men in sunglasses and fur-trimmed parkas. Rinuccio takes pictures on his mobile while Lauretta extols his virtues to her father, Schicchi (“O mio babbino caro”), who in turn sends her out on to the balcony to play Angry Birds on her phone.

The whole piece requires the most intricate ensemble work, triumphantly achieved here in a production bursting with wit, energy and youthful vigour.

Puccini conceived Schicchi as part of his operatic triptych Il trittico, but we heard only two of the three pieces last week, the Academy choosing against staging the gritty Il tabarro and opting for Suor Angelica, a good showcase for the sopranos and mezzos currently training there. Unlike the knockabout fun of Schicchi, this requires some subtle handling to avoid it descending into a cloyingly sweet, sentimental mush. This, for the most part, was achieved, thanks chiefly to some beautifully restrained playing from the Academy Sinfonia, conductor Peter Robinson coaxing ravishing colours from the score without allowing them to dominate.

Emily Vine, left, and Céline Forrest in Suor Angelica at the Royal Academy of Music. Photograph: Hana Zushi-Rhodes

Puccini really tugs at the heartstrings with this story of the young Angelica, sent to a nunnery after she brought disgrace on her noble family by giving birth to an illegitimate child. If that isn’t cruel enough, years later she learns that the child she yearns for has died. Stricken with grief she takes her own life, but sees a vision of the boy as she dies. Céline Forrest brought a charming simplicity to Angelica, which made her breakdown all the more powerful, but while her voice is rich and warm it’s surely too early to be tackling such a vocally taxing role. Emily Vine charmed as Suor Geneviefa and Claire Barnett-Jones made a repellent, cold-hearted principessa, haughtily destroying the hopes of poor Angelica.

From irrepressible youth to the wisdom of age. After three decades of music-making, concerts by the venerable Emerson String Quartet have taken on an almost religious significance, pilgrims travelling far to worship at the feet of these masters. They won’t have been disappointed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall last week, when they heard Beethoven’s wildly radical Grosse Fugue laid bare so brilliantly, but for me the jewel was their exquisite reading of Ravel’s quartet in F, the inner movements as stirring to the soul as the promise of spring.

Star ratings (out of 5)
Glare ***
Gianni Schicchi ****/ Suor Angelica ***
Emerson String Quartet *****

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