Into the Woods review – Opera North casts spell on Sondheim fairytale

The West Yorkshire Playhouse and Opera North have stood at either end of the same slope for more than 25 years without ever entering into a significant collaboration. That Leeds’ flagship arts organisations have managed to do so now is largely down to Wagner. Opera North’s focus on its acclaimed, stripped-back Ring Cycle has freed up the chorus up to take part in Stephen Sondheim’s fairytale fantasia down the road.

The Wagner connection may be significant. The Ring, after all, is the story of a battle between giants and humans arising from the theft of some enchanted gold. Into the Woods is the story of psychological disturbance among giants and humans arising from the theft of some magic beans. There’s also something Wagnerian about Sondheim’s preference for interleaved motifs over individual melodies. And also, it has to be said, in its prodigious length.

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James Brining’s production comes as close as any to ironing out the imbalance between the show’s inspired first half and the belaboured second, which always tends to play like a pantomime scripted by a pedantic psychoanalyst. Designer Colin Richmond has placed the action in a primary school classroom, full of the miniature chairs, octagonal tables and brightly coloured art projects that make year one quarters such jolly places to be. The journey into the forest thus becomes possibly the most disastrously ill-advised school outing ever undertaken, led by a well-meaning teacher (Nicholas Butterfield as the Narrator) who, despite issuing his charges with high-visibility tabards, is culpable of failing to complete the necessary risk assessment.

It invests a sense of unity throughout the piece, in which everything is made to seem the product of a child’s imagination. Jack’s cow is a convincing bovine composite of milk bottles. The wrathful giant is a baby doll blown up to the size of a hot-air balloon. You could heartily recommend the show on the quality of the puppetry alone.

The real ace up the production’s sleeve, however, is a large ensemble of classically trained voices as equally adept in Rodgers and Gershwin as in Mozart and Puccini. Opera North’s choristers can really act as well. Claire Pascoe is outstanding as an eye-rolling witch who trades power and influence for youth and beauty – and looks as if she ought to get a refund. Helen Évora’s not entirely innocent Little Red Riding Hood struts around in a distressed, crimson padded jacket. Warren Gillespie and Ross McInroy are great value as untrustworthy princes brought up to be charming rather than sincere.

Musical director Jim Holmes beefs up the percussion in places to suggest that some of Sondheim’s rhythmic wordplay may be a form of proto-rap. One only hopes that now Opera North and the Playhouse have started talking to each other, they can be persuaded to keep the conversation going.