A Christmas Carol review – solo opera wrings heroic acrobatics from Mark le Brocq

The appeal of Charles Dickens’s Christmas parable has not palled since its first publication and, in Welsh National Opera’s new production of A Christmas Carol, tenor Mark le Brocq continues the tradition Dickens himself established early on with his solo readings. Le Brocq was credited as the narrator: in fact, he sang all the roles – more than 20 – and generally played a blinder.

Staging the piece at this time was effectively throwing a festive sprat to catch a mackerel: an introduction to the name and sound-world of composer Iain Bell, whose In Parenthesis, based on David Jones’s poem of the Great War, will be WNO’s big new venture this coming May.

Bell’s Carol was first staged at Houston Grand Opera a year ago, directed then by Simon Callow whose one-man version had formed the basis of his libretto. Here the approach of Polly Graham and her designer Nate Gibson was to ensure that Dickens’s railing against the terrible deprivations in his own time had a salutary contemporary resonance. Atop the Christmas tree, the star-quote was “The one thing the world never forgives is poverty”; its decorations featured David Cameron and George Osborne as twin-images; the ghostly Jacob Marley’s chains were of newspaper with the words austerity, tax, etc, writ large; on the bucket collection for the poor was a Santa Corbyn.

After some uncomfortable opening slapstick, Le Brocq’s vocal acrobatics – jumping between narration, high, low and falsetto – and the constantly changing hats and nightcap were sustained remarkably throughout. Words were super-clear and mini-cameos beautifully characterised: Bob Cratchit Cockney-perfect, Fezzipeg touching, Tiny Tim reduced to a finger puppet. Albeit with atmospheric effects accomplished neatly enough, the musical language was not so distinguished as to make particular impact: there was throughout a slightly frenetic quality suggesting that, rather as Ebenezer Scrooge had not thought enough about others, Bell may not sufficiently have considered the demands he was making on a single singer and thus on the audience.

The pressure was constant. The chamber ensemble’s accompaniment, driven briskly by conductor James Southall, also seemed unrelenting and the voice carried the most expressive force when it was very occasionally heard alone. Le Brocq was hero of the hour (and a half), with Dickens’s voice demanding that one return to the original.