OPERA Closing curtain
Adriana Lecouvreur ROYAL OPERA HOUSE, COVENT GARDEN
nomic reality. Covent Garden’s swanky production of Francesco Cilea’s 1902 back- stage theatre-opera partakes of this heartening contrariness: there may be a catastrophic recession outside, but that’s no reason not to spend the GDP of a small country on a lavish opera production. The opera is taken from a nineteenth-
O
century French play about the eighteenth-century Comédie Française actress Adrienne Lecouvreur, whose colourful per- sonal life was immensely enhanced by her unlikely death, caused by inhaling the fumes of some poisoned violets sent her by the jealous former mistress of her latest lover. No, of course it never happened; Adrienne was cer- tainly taken ill shortly after reciting some pointed lines from Phèdre directly at that for- mer mistress, the Princesse de Bouillon, and died a month later, though from dysentery rather than poison. But why ruin a good story? What really kills her is dramatic imperative, an idea David McVicar’s expert production
THEATRE Forced confinement
Season’s Greetings LYTTELTON, NATIONAL THEATRE, LONDON
parties can go to as a celebration. An obvious option is pantomime or thematically seasonal pieces – A Christmas Caroland Irving Berlin’s White Christmas are available at various ven- ues – but productions that offer uplift and exhilaration will also do. And although one ends in attempted murder and the other is a prelude to a suicide – and are therefore probably more fitting for office outings than family trips – there are two current plays from which audiences will stagger feeling drunk on champagne, no matter how sober they go in. No other major dramatist has written as
A
many plays set during Yuletide as Alan Ayckbourn, partly because he ran a theatre for so long and knew the scheduling benefits of a Christmas show but also because, for a dramatist who specialises in domestic dis- agreement, the days between 24 and 27 December serve much the purpose of the Somme for an author interested in war. Season’s Greetings imagines the worst about the forced confinement that the festive period
26 | THE TABLET | 11 December 2010
t this time of year there’s a particular demand for a show that families or office
latches on to with enthusiasm. The set is itself a theatre – first backstage at the Comédie, then at the Princesse’s house, and finally back at the Comédie, and is fantastically well made. Adriana’s death is all part of the performance that is her life: as she breathes her last, the company takes a bow. She’s the original lost- in-showbiz gal, fatally unaware of the difference between her art and her elbow. It’s fitting that she is sung by Angela Gheorghiu, a soprano who often seems slightly unsure which show she’s actually appearing in. But Gheorghiu is certainly one of the opera world’s superstars, and she does just about enough here to justify some of the adulation. The
imposes on families. To the home of Neville and Belinda Bunker, a self-made retailer and his dissatisfied wife, come various relatives and friends including Dr Bernard Wagstaff, an incompetent GP prone to putting on inter- minable puppet shows for the children, and Uncle Harvey, a near-psychotic retired secur - ity consultant, who has elected himself defender of the dwelling. Belinda’s unmarried 38-year-old sister Rachel has brought home an aspiring novelist she has just met. Christmas dramas tend towards nostalgia but, for most of those in the audience, Ayckbourn’s scenarios will hopefully be less an echo of their own experiences than an extreme extrapolation from recognisable ten- sions. A series of familiar situations – the relative who beaches in front of the TV, the guests married to others who tipsily flirt with each other, the ritual entertainments that continue though nobody can stand them – are ingeniously combined in a single twisted, vicious holiday. As always in Ayckbourn, part of the pleasure is the impeccable craft: a moment in an early scene when a comic toy is activated felt at the time like mere padding but the prop plays off fantastically later on. Another of the drama- tist’s recurrent traits – bleak marriages in which one partner fails to understand how unhappy the other is – also darkens the laughter. Marianne Elliott’s cast cleverly utilises younger TV comedians – Mark Gatiss, Catherine Tate, Katherine Parkinson – to draw in audiences who might think Ayckbourn safe
pera has always gloried in a blithe ability to laugh in the face of life, death or eco-
Distant diva: Angela
Gheorghiu as Adriana Lecouvreur
voice is smaller than it was, but the luxurious, creamy tone and some shivery money-notes are still there. But you get a strange feeling that nobody thinks very much of the work itself: there’s little attempt to go beyond the shimmering surface. It’s a pity: Puccini’s contemporaries are the forgotten men of opera, but they all at some point represented a possible future for Italian opera. Cilea was a lovely, civilised musician, orchestrating divinely and never overdoing the cheap sentiment or vulgarity: there is a touch of Massenet in his politeness. And of course this is beautifully played by the Royal Opera’s orchestra under Mark Elder, though it all sounds a bit precious. And you never really warm to poor Adriana, whose death scene is one of the most sensitively done in opera; Gheorghiu is too distant for this loveable heroine. Jonas Kaufmann has a ball as Maurizio, the guy who causes all the trouble by running at least two women at the same time: he’s rather a sober singer for Italian repertoire, but the masculine, velvety voice is a joy. Olga Borodina, as the Princesse, has a voice like an armoured train and blows away the courtesies of the show with a marvellous display of voice as incarnated emotion. Alessandro Corbelli’s Michonnet – the avun- cular stage manager, hopelessly in love with Adriana – is the only one to bring out Cilea’s warmth. For the rest, it’s all quite brilliant, but chilly; and the missing ingredient is love. Robert Thicknesse
and cosy, although this play again proves that he isn’t. Gatiss’ puppet show is a masterpiece of slowly unfolding physical and psychological disaster. The National has given a treasurable gift to theatregoers this Christmas. Elsewhere, End of the Rainbowhas reached
the Trafalgar Studios via earlier runs in Northampton and Australia. Peter Quilter’s play moves between two venues – a suite at the Ritz and the stage at the Talk of the Town – during a final run of London concerts given by Judy Garland in the late 1960s. By this stage, Garland was on her fifth hus- band, Mickey Deans (Stephen Hagan), who supplied her with drink and drugs to keep the show more or less on the road. But, although aggressively heterosexual, Garland, in the play, receives kindness only from a gay piano-player, Anthony (Hilton McRae), a smart decision by Quilter as Garland’s legend has greatly been sustained by her status as a gay icon. Terry Johnson’s production contains one of the most carefully detailed and electrifying performances you will ever see. Tracie Bennett, who has won numerous British musical theatre awards without her talent quite being recognised, achieves an uncanny vocal and physical resemblance but also somehow shows the greatness of which Garland remained capable even when she was having to be dragged on stage and carried off. Although in no way Christmassy, it’s another special treat of a night out. Mark Lawson
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36