SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Other Links

Editorial Board

Google Site Search

The Beggar’s Opera:  Ballad Opera in three acts – Benjamin Britten, realized from the original airs of John Gay’s ballad opera. Soloists, The Beggar’s Opera Ensemble dir. Stephen Westrop, musicians from the City of London Sinfonia cond. Christian Curnyn. Director Justin Way, Linbury Theatre, The Royal Opera, London 22.1.2009 (ME)

Tom Randle (Macheath) and Leah-Marian Jones (Polly Peachum)
 

‘How happy could I be with either, were t’other dear charmer away’ - where have I head that before? Ah yes - Dennis Price murmured it as he departed from prison in Kind Hearts and Coronets,  to be faced with both the women in his life. The Beggar’s Opera is full of such moments – was that Purcell’s ‘I attempt from Love’s sickness to fly?’ – no, but pretty near it – was that yet another Handel motif aria? Again, close.

It was a pretty revolutionary work, in its day  - sung in the vernacular, focusing not on gods or emperors but thieves and sluts, with no opera-style recitative, and with a cynical, jaundiced edge to it- and in 1728,  58 years before Mozart put ‘.a piece about real people…in a real place! A boudoir! the most exciting place on earth!’ (Shaffer, Amadeus) onto the operatic stage in the shape of The Marriage of Figaro.

The problem with this production was that it gave the impression that the director had been resident in a Yurt in Outer Mongolia for the past, ooh, 15 years, thereby entirely missing out on all the exciting possibilities for using tawdry scenery / slags / obscenity onstage, and on being given a free hand had suddenly gone wild  - flashing neon? Knock yerself out, mate - sleaze? -  pile it on  - gaggles of slagettes? – go mad, why not? -   Now I have to remind readers once more that I am not a fuddy-duddy, objecting to all but the most trad productions – far from it, I love reworked opera and new productions, but they need to actually work, the new version has to have something to say, and this one did not. The one clever notion was the partial imitation of the main house with its gilt –edged balconies and deep red curtains, here slightly frayed, if not foxed – it’s the beggar’s opera, you see…oh, yes…

The trouble was, it didn’t gell, and Britten’s fussy orchestration did not help although it was at one with the fussy production. Pepusch’s basic continuo works well, in my view, and Christian Curnyn would surely have been happier with it – not that he didn’t give Britten all he had. There was some fine singing to savour during the course of this long evening – ‘Over the Hills and far Away’ was sweetly done by both Tom Randle and Leah-Marian Jones, and all those scathing little satires aimed at Handel came across as naturally as it was possible to conceive. Sarah Fox was a convincing Lucy, Donald Maxwell his usual tower of strength as Lockit, and Frances McCafferty added yet another show-stealing cameo to her growing gallery.

However, it would help to make the dialogue a natural part of the music and vice versa. Most of the jokes fell totally flat, being delivered in a declamatory style which I wince to recall from my own Am-Dram days   -  ‘The hor –ses  are rea – dy, SIRE’ – not much of a step up from ‘The ANGEL  tole us to COMEANSEE ther ba -by JE -SUS’ -  and it was impossible to work out why Polly and Lucy were both Vicky Pollard in terms of diction, whilst Macheath, supposedly a highwayman, sounded as though he were auditioning for membership of the Bullingdon Club.

A line such as ‘That Jemmy Twitcher should ‘peach me, I own surprises me’ should  at least get a smile or two, but we seemed frozen – and when invited to plead for Macheath’s freedom there was only one voice (guess whose) in evidence, and that was saying ‘the moral’ rather than ‘redemption.’

Why was Macheath conceived as Alan B’stard, I wondered? Why were both his ‘wives’ got up to look like tarty versions of Marsha Fitzalan? Didn’t Tom Randle used to bear a resemblance to President Obama rather than to Rik Mayall? Why was Peachum envisaged as Ray Winstone? Why was Mrs P straight out of Soap Opera Central Casting? Search me. The question we should not be asking is why revive this work? – and despite my qualms about the production, I did not need to ask it: the Linbury is the perfect setting for such a piece, and staging it is exactly what the ROH ought to be doing as a counterpart to its main house productions.

Melanie Eskenazi

Picture © Johan Persson

^{Back to Top                                                    Cumulative Index Page}