Kiss Me Kate review – Welsh National Opera cranks up the feelgood factor

Another op’nin’, another show …” Welsh National Opera has taken on Jo Davies’s staging that Opera North premiered just a year ago, but Cole Porter’s take on The Taming of the Shrew was a shoo-in for WNO’s Shakespeare-themed autumn season and a suitable antidote to its earlier Macbeth and The Merchant of Venice.

Sam and Bella Spewack’s book, with their deft winding of Kate and Petruchio’s love-hate relationship into the post-divorce spats and subsequent reconciliation of director/actor Fred Graham and leading lady Lilli Vanessi, makes this a musical with high energy and spirits to match and Quirijn de Lang and Jeni Bern reprise their Opera North success in these roles.

There’s always something irresistible about the feelgood factor of Porter’s music: under conductor James Holmes, it’s played in luxuriant style by the WNO orchestra, the brass players and extra saxophones having a blast. Will Tuckett’s choreography is sharp and with Alan Burkitt in the double role of Lucentio and the gambling Bill Calhoun, there are excellent Nureyev and Fred Astaire cameos. As Bianca, Amelia Adams-Pearce is quite a hoofer, too, but it’s as Lois Lane that she makes her mark, delivering her numbers with cheeky character.

Slipping easily between backstage late 1940s and onstage 16th century, Colin Richmond’s design always engages the eye and he uses The Lady and the Unicorn tapestry, with its legend À mon seul désir, as a richly evocative backdrop, hinting at the ultimate kiss and make-up. Not all Porter’s witty lyrics are as clear as they might be, though the rhymes inviting the more mischievous stage business (Bianca/spank her, etc) get projected accordingly. Casting comedy-classic little and large Joseph Shovelton and John Savournin as the pinstripe-suited gangsters guarantees they stand out and they happily hog the limelight with the famous Brush Up Your Shakespeare. No need for brushing up yours before seeing the production: we’re not talking high opera here.

• At Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, until 2 October. Box office: 029-2063 6464. Then touring until 10 December.