Tag Archives: Collis

La Sonnambula (Bellini)

 


 

W.A.Opera Company

 

 

His Majesty’s Theatre

reviewed by Neville Cohn

 

One of the rewards of working as a music critic over decades is, after identifying and encouraging promising young talent, listening and watching (and hoping, because there is a high dropout rate) as they mature into confident adult musicians. This is very much the case insofar as Rachelle Durkin and Aldo di Toro are concerned.

 

Both demonstrated very significant potential as students. I recall a young Durkin in a  production of The Magic Flute – and di Toro in a wondrously fine account of a Schumann song cycle. How splendidly they have now come to the fore.

  

As the romantic leads in La Sonnambula, each is enormously effective in solo arias –  and in duo, their voices blend beautifully.

 

As the eponymous heroine, Durkin is vocally excellent and dramatically convincing. She has the ability to project her voice effortlessly to the furthest corners of the house;  it is a pure and perfectly pitched stream of sound. And di Toro, as the ardent swain Elvino, who is heartbroken when it seems as if Amina has been unfaithful, was beyond reproach in vocal terms (he seems incapable of an ugly sound). Vocally and histrionically, they are a perfect match.

 

Other casting was shrewd and effective. In a smaller but pivotal role, Andrew Collis as Count Rodolfo (into whose bedroom Amina innocently wanders in her sleep, triggering a blizzard of malevolent gossip) was well cast. Zoe Kikiros brought an altogether appropriate shrewishness to the role of Lisa, at one time engaged to Elvino.  And David Woodward was a delight as the engagingly dotty, fusspot notary.

Choristers were in fine fettle.

 

Sleepwalking lies at the heart of Bellini’s masterpiece. It is a crucial factor; too many productions have foundered on this point by having the heroine appear like some eerie, ashen-faced phantom from another dimension with weird lighting and silly make-up. How much more realistic and meaningful was this; it had the stamp of truth. It was this and a voice in fine form – as well as di Toro at his best – that made this production so meaningful.

  

It was an inspiration on the part of costume designer Richard Roberts to clothe the chorus in grey. It perfectly complemented the austerely Calvinist environment of the Switzerland in which the opera is set. All this struck a perfect note (no pun intended) as did Roberts’ set designs which were most effective in establishing, enhancing and maintaining mood.  

 

Richard Mills was a reassuring presence in the pit as he took the W.A.Symphony Orchestra through its paces.

 

 

 

 

 

Photography by James Rogers

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OPERA

The Bear (William Walton)

Angelique (Jacques Ibert)

Victorian Opera, Melbourne

Ollivier-Philippe Cuneo, conductor

Talya Masels, director

reviewed by Neville Cohn

In the minds of most opera-goers, mention of a double bill of one acters, calls I Pagliacci and Cavalleria Rusticana instantly to mind. Opera Victoria, however, has put on a double bill that might well be completely new to many: William Walton’s The Bear and Jacques Ibert’s Angelique.

In brief, this is the plot of The Bear: A widow (Popova) is in deepest mourning for her  serial adulterer husband. She has become a recluse. Her butler Luka urges her to come out of seclusion. There is a visitor: Smirnov, a debtor who demands immediate payment of a loan to avoid his financial ruin. A fierce argument ensues, with a duel narrowly averted. Improbably, widow and debtor fall in love.

John Bolton Wood and Jessica Aszodi

Lavish laurels to John Bolton Wood who was a frankly marvellous Smirnov. His diction had a level of clarity that critics dream about but seldom encounter in reality, his stage presence a model of its kind.  And his face mirrored a myriad subtle emotions. Jessica Aszodi, too, could hardly be faulted as Popova – and Andrew Collis’ facial expressions and body language were comic inspirations.

Ibert’s Angelique, unlike The Bear, has very much less singing; a good deal of the script is spoken dialogue. A crucial character – Boniface – was to have been played by Samuel Dundas but illness compelled withdrawal. So, at very short notice, the role was taken over by not one player but two – James Payne and Adam Murphy.

Payne, clad entirely in black, stepped onstage from the wings to sing his lines and then silently withdrew. Adam Murphy, though, tackling the spoken word with a script gripped tightly in the hand, (there was no time to memorise it) brought the house down again and again. I cannot praise his characterisation too highly; I savoured its every ridiculous moment. As the hapless husband of a woman who is the ultimate harridan, physically violent and verbally abusive, his frantic desire to get her off his hands was a comic delight. For much of the time, Murphy had the audience in stitches of laughter.

Theresa Borg gave a bravura performance as Angelique. And no less satisfying a characterisation is that of Charlot by Gary Rowley. As the marriage broker trying to offload his dangerous client onto some unsuspecting victim, he rose to comic heights. No fewer than four husbands would return her in short order:

A capacity audience fell about as a weirdly garbed pageant of gentlemen proposed marriage to a human hand grenade.

Benjamin Namdarian was hilarious as The Italian, nursing a broken leg courtesy of the charmless Angelique; Paul Biencourt was a no less funny as a concussed Englishman – and Pelham Andrews, sporting a turban like some monstrous white onion, brought the house down as the King of Bambaras.. Even the Devil (Jacob Caine), in a demonic outfit, returned the goods complaining that Hell had been turned upside down by the appalling, vomitous Angelique.

Director Talya Masel’s directorial touch was everywhere apparent: an arm gesture here, an inclination of a head there, a sudden sideway glance; it added up to theatrical magic and I savoured every second of it. Certainly, the whole of this carefully considered production was significantly greater than the sum of its constituent parts.

This was an evening of utterly diverting silliness that would surely have melted the heart of the most curmudgeonly of opera goers.

Ollivier-Philippe Cuneo presided over events to excellent effect, extracting a consistently stylish response from his players both on stage and in the pit.

Harriet Oxley’s costume designs for Angelique were wondrously over the top.

This double bill had the stamp of distinction. It thoroughly deserves a long run and full houses. Bravo!