★★★★☆
You can’t complain that OperaUpClose doesn’t deliver what it says on the tin. Big voices emote almost into your face. When eight are singing at once, as in the catastrophic end of the birthday party, you feel as if you are being hit by a vocal tsunami. I love that directness, but don’t go if you don’t like loud sounds.
On the other hand, the company takes a very reductionist view of the work in hand. In Alison Holford and James Widden’s new arrangement, Tchaikovsky’s sumptuous score is reduced to piano, violin, cello and clarinet — all competently played, but sounding thin and pressurised when trying to evoke Tchaikovsky’s surging string tremolandos or the dazzling orchestration of the dance numbers.
Similarly, Lucy Bradley’s staging