During August the only opera-going possibility used to be a festival, of a fairly grand kind, but in recent years the small, ‘alternative’ opera companies that are proliferating have sensibly taken either to continuing throughout the summer, as the big opera houses don’t, or to having their own festivals.
During August the only opera-going possibility used to be a festival, of a fairly grand kind, but in recent years the small, ‘alternative’ opera companies that are proliferating have sensibly taken either to continuing throughout the summer, as the big opera houses don’t, or to having their own festivals. In London in the past couple of weeks there was Tête-à-Tête in Hammersmith, which I wasn’t able to get to, but which offered an extensive programme of shortish works; there was the Grimeborn Festival in Dalston, agreeably parodying Glyndebourne, but offering a wider range of operas; and the indefatigable OperaUpClose, which continues nightly at both the King’s Head in Islington and the Soho Theatre.
The Grimeborn Festival still takes place in the Arcola Theatre, but that has now relocated, and is very close to the new Dalston Junction overground station. I’d have liked to see several things there, but in the event only got to one, Barefoot Opera’s version of Handel’s Alcina. Barefoot’s programme is discouraging. It reads in part: ‘We research ways to use voices and bodies with minimal instrumentation, tell a story as an ensemble, and are working towards the formation of a cooperative company with an integrated and distinctive artistic vocabulary.’ Did they employ consultants, or can everybody write this kind of gunk now?
In the event, Alcina was in large part enjoyable and moving. The Grimeborn rule seems to be that operas should last about an hour, which seems a first-rate start. Handel’s do tend to last more than three, so obviously we only heard extracts from his cornucopian score. Further, it was reorchestrated, if that’s quite the word, for clarinet and accordion — or, rather, Acts I and II were, since the musical ‘re-imaginer’, Peter Foggitt, hasn’t yet got funding for Act III. Actually, Alcina is, for plot and emotional purposes, over by the end of Act II, so that isn’t dramatically as grave as it might sound.
True to the management-speak brief, the company entered discalced, and indulged in a good deal of movement (I use the word technically, of course). One of them piped up with the background to the opera’s plot, and periodically, but randomly, translated bits of the text for us — for one of the strangest aspects of this exercise in accessibility is that it was performed in Italian. The characters, in a weird variety of costumes, intertwined and swayed and lay on the floor, but more importantly they almost all sang Handel’s glorious music, fragmented and disjointed as it was, beautifully, and in the case of Alcina herself, taken by Penelope Randall-Davis, extremely movingly. Her whole portrayal, of an ageing temptress trying to hold on to her seductive power, stirred beyond what one might have imagined possible in that context — and thereby partially validated the context. She had promising material to deal with, since the Ruggiero of Krysia Mansfield also performed exquisitely. Not all the seven singers were on that level, but thanks to the sensitive accompaniment, and despite a moderate amount of transient trendiness, I felt my visit to the Arcola was richly rewarded.
A matinée at the Soho Theatre was less straightforwardly worthwhile. ‘Don Giovanni had its world première at Soho Theatre, London, on 11 August 2011’ the programme startlingly announces, as if it has taken over Mozart’s most intractable great opera. Well, this is another idiosyncratic adaptation, though there is a risk that there are so many of those that it will soon be traditional performances that will be trailblazing exceptions.
Set in contemporary London, it is the tale of banker Johnny, his intern Alexander (previously known as Leporello), and the barrister father of Anna, whom Johnny murders with a kitchen knife, and who returns to take him to hell (though the plot gets cloudy here). The opera as previously known is drastically pruned, more in Act II than Act I, though the last ten minutes of that simply vanish. Teasingly, we are played a recording of the opening chords, but they soon get stuck in a groove (it’s vinyl, not CD) and what sounds like a mechanical, i.e., robotic piano takes over, emptying every last wonderful phrase of Mozart’s of life and force.
Still, the performance I attended had a good cast, though I’m not sure who most of them were, since there is alternate casting in the larger roles and I wasn’t told which performers I was seeing. It wasn’t very good, but it certainly wasn’t — vocally and dramatically — bad. I enjoyed it, but I was with two highly intelligent, self-styled opera virgins, and they could make very little of it. Oddly enough, I am coming to feel that these adaptations and abridgements usually give more pleasure to old hands than they do to those they are intended for — though it isn’t all that odd. It’s not hard to reorchestrate, just as one does when whistling; but just as those suffering the whistling can only squirm, so those presented with filleted operas can only wonder what the fuss is about.
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