Flight, Opera Holland Park, review: 'provides uncomplicated pleasure'

Having found Jonathan Dove’s opera Flight rather bland and shallow at its première at Glyndebourne 17 years ago, I’m surprised at its resilience. Yet after several productions in Europe, the US and Australia, it scrubs up a treat in this latest revival, and while I don’t think it will ever rank as a modern classic, it certainly hits parts that most contemporary operas fail to reach.

The setting for April de Angelis’s skilful and intelligent libretto is an airport lounge, where a variety of characters – ranging from grinning trolley-dollies and a squabbling couple off on holiday to a refugee hiding from the immigration authorities – are stuck during an electrical storm. There’s no strong plot-line or grand dénouement, but as lives intertwine and unravel, both comically and poignantly, bookended by Arrival and Departure, these people seem to learn something about themselves.

The context is a period piece now, complete with references to the Sock Shop and Jacques Chirac, but innocent of the heightened security measures that haunt such places post-2001. There are some larger shortcomings too: things sag and ramble two-thirds of the way through, and some of the musical ideas are just too slickly borrowed to be authentic. But one can only admire the combination of compositional craft and theatrical nous.

The music has a bright American sheen, closer in idiom to Broadway than the Met. Some richly textured ensembles emerge, as well as some emotionally engaging solos. The vocal writing is shapely and sensitive. You won’t come out humming any killer tunes, but there’s a warmth and energy in the score that sustains attention and communicates humanity – for that, much thanks.

^{Up in the air: Jonathan Dove's 'Flight' (Photo: Alastair Muir)}

Opera Holland Park has done the show proud with a fluent light-touch staging directed by Stephen Barlow and designed by Andrew Riley. There are some sharply etched charcterisations too – in particular from Ellie Laugharne and Victoria Simmonds as disgruntled wives; Kitty Whately and George von Bergen as trolley dollies; and Lucy Schaefer as a middle-aged woman clinging to vestiges of youth.

Vocally, two performances are exceptionally strong. Jennifer France moves cleanly and thrillingly above the stave as a celestial Air Traffic Controller, and I’ve never heard the counter-tenor James Laing do anything better than his touching yet restrained portrayal of the paperless Refugee. With Brad Cohen confidently piloting the orchestra, Flight takes wing and provides uncomplicated pleasure.

Until June 19. Tickets: 0300 999 1000; operahollandpark.com