Sometimes this means work's atavistic energies slightly occluded by action onstage that tries to clarify the narrative origami. Cast and creatives for the ENO production of Orpheus in the Underworld at the Coliseum. Sian Edwards and the ENO Orchestra are in fine form, with well-judged tempi and nice balance. Taking a swipe at Mrs Thatcher by parodying her as Public Opinion did date it but nevertheless it was a snappy and witty production, done during the time when the ENO was at its peak and with wonderful sets by Gerald Scarfe. Wonderful Life is a cosy, warm offering from the ENO, filled with astonishing bursts of beauty from a magnificent cast.. An operetta, in simple terms, falls somewhere between an opera and a musical. An operetta was, in fact, made an international art form by Offenbach himself thanks to his pioneering work that is Orpheus in the Underworld. We support credit card, debit card and PayPal payments. PLEASE NOTE: Sung in English with surtitled for sung words displayed above the stage. The French composer of German origins had a flair for writing some of the most attractive and melodious music of his time. Offenbach's conceit is that Orpheus and Eurydice are delighted to be rid of each other and hell is great fun.
TRY CULTURE WHISPER. Whilst I had issues with bits of the first two Orpheus operas, they pale to Birtwhistle's The Mask of Orpheus, in its first full staging since it had its world premiere at ENO back in 1986. Harrington's bursts of coloratura appear to emanate unstoppably from her teasing, minx-like personality, and she pings out high notes as a warning that beyond the skittish posturing she's a sharp, calculating operator not to be messed with. It's effective for the production. When the present evening begins with Orpheus and Eurydice's baby dying at birth, anyone who's come along in the hope of cheering up can kiss goodbye to that idea. Offenbach's Orpheus In The Underworld has been assigned to the controversial Emma Rice, whose tenure at Shakespeare's Globe was cut short. So what does Rice do with Offenbach's spoof piece?
The music, of course, is glorious – when we have a chance to hear any. Hell is where the party's at. It is not clear to this reviewer that this frothy confection can bear the weight of so much ideological freight, or that it is necessary given that the figures of fun and bearers of negative reputation in this work are always the lecherous, sensation-surfeited gods, not the humans. When Orpheus is advised by Public Opinion, a Greek chorus figure in the shape of a London cab driver (baritone Lucia Lucas), to appeal to the vivacious gods on Mount Olympus, he lands up at their luxury spa. The end, swift, inevitable and so terribly comes as it must and leaves everyone awkward, struggling with the death of Mimi, filled with regret and angst but my mind turned to Musetta, the only one who really cares for Mimi, who looks out for her, this is the real triumph of this production. When Eurydice is also killed and taken to the underworld, Orphée is given the chance to rescue her. Music: Jacques Offenbach. The music that was adopted by the Can-Can craze comes from Offenbach's light-hearted take on hell. Rather this complexity is an invitation into to repeated viewing and listening to a mysterious spectacle which pushes unusual emotional buttons. Orpheus in the Underworld transports us to a hedonistic, party-filled Underworld. Maybe it is those contradictions, that very ambiguity, that lifts this Orpheus in the Underworld from Offenbach's anarchistic frolic to give it a sharp bite. Soraya Mafi who is also appearing in the season in the Mikado was a lovely cameo, she is so full of energy it's infectious. Leading Performers: Mary Bevan, Ed Lyon, Lucia Lucas, Alan Oke, Alex Otterburn, Willard White.
Orpheus must try to win his wife back to him. So far, 3 Orpheus operas (a fourth, Orphée is coming imminently) have premiered, all with different directors from different theatrical fields, but all sharing a set designer. The directorial impulse to make a definitive statement with a work so rarely performed is understandable. The ENO's production of Orphée is at the Coliseum until 29 November. Balloons feature heavily – always a bad sign – Bacchus lets out a huge fart and several glitches and prolonged pauses suggest under-rehearsal. She has, apparently, rewritten it. It's a formidably school-marmish piece of character acting: during the overture she scurries hyperactively around the theatre searching for the stage entrance, imperiously regaling the audience in her role as iron-girdled guardian of civic decency and decorum.
Or is it more an audio-visual-percussive experience? The Mask of Orpheus was last fully staged before this reviewer was born. The director was Emma Rice, making her ENO, and, indeed, her opera directing debut after her short and controversial spell at the Shakespear Globe. The insouciance of the music scarcely bears the weight of this "realistic" scenario, but the even deeper problem is that Rice tries to have her cake and eat it by maintaining the original idea that the show is being run by the classical deities – here mysteriously operating out of a white-tiled swimming pool and dressed as though about to appear on Sunday Night at the London Palladium. Compared to the rest of the programme, this opener, Gluck's 1762 opera, is a pussycat, and presented pretty well, despite the usual ENO misjudgments. At last, some good news at English National Opera.
For someone with such a glowing reputation for theatrical ingenuity, Rice's stagecraft is disappointingly lame, clumsy and uninventive. There's a star turn from Alan Oke as the unfortunate John Styx and ENO Harewood Artist Alex Otterburn makes a seriously strong impression as a charismatic Pluto (pictured above). My biggest problem with this is, is it really opera? Now, Rice does return to the Offenbach sense of ridicule. Lez Brotherston's costume designs squirm with delight across Lizzie Clachan's set is great fun, starting off worryingly school play like before exploding into a daft Arcadian swimming pool party on a Tarantino Cruise ship and then plunging into a seedy Soho peepshow world of London in the 1950's. Coliseum, 23 October 2019.
But what needs to survive is charm and lightness of touch and neither of these is in evidence for the first half hour of the evening or indeed for much of the finale set in Hell. The other stand-out performance of the evening is that of Dublin mezzo-soprano Máire Flavin in the role of Public Opinion. Shudder-inducing stuff, but Eurydice's exploitation doesn't end there, for Jupiter has designs on her. Moreover Rice weighs the work down with oceans of repetitive and pointless dialogue. And so they should be, for Ed Lyon is a personable Orpheus, and his heart-felt singing of "Who am I without Eurydice? " But despite such spirited performances, the comedy is laboured, its heavy-handed gags megaphoned to the cavernous house.
And then there's the sex. On the other hand, if you really find Philip Glass hard going, I can thoroughly recommend the other recent ENO offering, which is their usual winter treat of Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado. And other data for a number of reasons, such as keeping FT Sites reliable and secure, personalising content and ads, providing social media features and to. Having said that; this production by the Theatre de la Monnaie in Brussels, although slow by comparison, does have some fine singing. The concluding two Acts were crammed full of present-day issues, not least the way that many men treat a woman. 1 Thank Silverflora. As always the ENO orchestra coped impeccably with Glass's difficult score under conductor Geoffrey Paterson. Live elements are complemented by electronics, devised by Barry Anderson at IRCAM, splintering and reprocessing the sounds of a harp. English National Opera at the London Coliseum until 19th November. Hell indeed, and made worse by the omnipresence of her gaoler, the drunken John Styx.
She believes she is going there to flatten the corn with Aristaeus and sings "I have dreamt of love again". A successful stint in the West End from 1986 to 1989 was long overshadowed by a Broadway disastrous run of two months following vast rewrites as US producers insisted that the American must beat the Russian at the end of Act One, and not as the story originally dictated.