Conflicting passions

Francesco Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur, his biggest success, dating from 1902, leads a fringe existence, but it persists thanks primarily to the name role, dramatically meaty and not imposing too great a strain on the performer.

In Act III of Adriana there is a mock 18th-century ballet for the Judgment of Paris. A couple of nights later, I was in Bury St Edmunds, at the exquisite Theatre Royal, for Offenbach’s La belle Hélène, a drastically and refreshingly different setting of the same myth. I must admit that this production, by Suffolk Opera, surprised me very pleasantly. I was expecting a quasi-G & S account, with plenty of nudging political references and sexual innuendoes, and actor-singers behaving, speaking, as no human beings ever do.

Not at all: the acting was natural, the translation by Phil Park witty and relaxed, and Offenbach’s glorious score — though clearly it couldn’t be done justice by a pianist and a collection of mainly amateur singers but stiffened by some promising professionals — wasn’t hard done by. This wasn’t a complete version of the music, some of the most difficult numbers being omitted. But the Offenbachian spirit of irreverence, hedonism, effervescence and sensuous melodiousness survived. I look forward to future productions by this company; if they maintain this standard, opera-lovers will be travelling long distances to see them.