UK Edition
Review
Opera North's Pagliacci and L'Enfant et les sortilèges is an odd combination but a terrific one at that
Always enterprising and, bravely, ready to be different, Opera North is devoting its autumn season to six one-act operas, presented in pairs but bookable individually. A team of singers is cross-cast, which must be fun for them, and the company’s super-chorus has been assigned many of the smaller roles. It’s a terrific idea, and I only hope it works at the box office.
First out of the stocks is a programme in which Leoncavallo’s steamy old melodrama Pagliacci is followed by Ravel’s piquantly sophisticated fantasy L’Enfant et les sortilèges. It’s an odd combination – a pint of stout followed by a glass of Krug? – and neither piece has anything to say to the other. Fortunately both productions are sufficiently strong to make their own intrinsic statements, and there is much to enjoy.
Charles Edwards designs and directs Pagliacci. Taking it out of its original context in rural Italy, where a troupe of two-bit travelling players have holed up for an outdoor gig, he transfers the setting to the rehearsal rooms of a modern opera company. Here Canio becomes the bigwig tenor directing a new show, while Nedda, his flighty diva of a wife, is in the throes of a secret affair with the conductor Silvio - much to the disgust of Tonio the designer, who has the hots for her.
Within this frame, the tragedy remains sufficiently plausible, as real violent emotion spills into the final run-through of the troupe’s performance, ironically contrasted with a drop curtain showing a blown-up photograph of the smiling cast. Peter Auty doesn’t have the histrionic skills to convey the extent of Canio’s agony at his wife’s betrayal, but his robust tenor stirringly renders the breast-beating of Vesti la giubba. Richard Burkhard, Elin Pritchard and Philip Rhodes are both vocally and dramatically convincing as Tonio, Nedda and Silvio, and Tobias Ringborg conducts with the fierce brash energy that this crude score requires.
What a contrast with the delicacy and wit of Ravel’s moral tale (the text written by Colette) of the cross, wilful little boy who is chasteningly taught kindness and consideration by the spirits (or sortilèges) inhabiting his house and garden. Annabel Arden’s rumbustious staging avoids the picture-book whimsy that infects so many versions of this confection: the little boy’s rages seemed truly dangerous, and appearances from a priapic teapot and Vicki Pollard went down a storm.
The orchestra under Martin André provided washes of beautifully vivid colour, and the singers plainly enjoyed the romp as much as the audience. Wallis Giunta is a delight as the knobbly-kneed child and there are splendid cameos from John Graham-Hall, Fflur Wyn, and Quirijn de Lang in a variety of roles.
Until 21 October, in repertory, then touring to Hull, Nottingham, Newcastle and Salford Quays. Tickets 0844 848 2720; operanorth.co.uk