Glyndebourne on Tour
BSB director and legalweek.com culture critic Mark Stobbs follows Glyndebourne on Tour for two contrasting but equally entertaining operas
November 06, 2007 at 08:49 AM
4 minute read
Mark Stobbs is director of the Bar Standards Board and unofficial culture critic of legalweek.com
Each year, Glyndebourne spends the autumn on tour, taking three of its productions to places like Woking, Plymouth and Stoke on Trent. Londoners will have the chance to see them at Sadler's Wells in December. It's also an opportunity to do some talent-spotting: the casts are usually made up of young singers and a number of their alumni have made very smart careers indeed.
I missed Verdi's Macbeth because I'd seen it earlier in the summer (it's an interesting, funny but ultimately not quite satisfactory production). I did see the other two, however: Donizetti's l'elisir d'amore and Britten's Albert Herring.
The Donizetti is great, if inconsequential, fun about a simple yokel who buys what he believes to be an elixir of love from a quack doctor in order to win the woman he loves. Win her he does, but it has nothing to do with the elixir. Done properly it's a sparkling piece with wonderful roles, which can also be very touching when she finally admits that she's fallen in love with him.
The Glyndebourne on Tour production has two potential stars in the leading roles. Peter Auty, as Nemorino, has a glorious tenor voice and sang his famous una furtiva lagrima really beautifully, while Alexandra Kucerova was completely charming as Adina – a really very fine voice indeed and a lovely personality. When the two of them were on together it was pretty magical. The rest weren't so good and the production's a bit busy and dull. If you're going to see Elisir this autumn, you might be better off waiting for the Royal Opera to do it in November.
The Britten is one of my favourite comic operas. It's a wonderful, subversive comedy about a shy lad who is awarded the title May King and a prize of £25 because the local girls are all trollops. Helped by his first taste of alcohol, he goes on the razzle with the £25 and makes up pretty comprehensively for lost time – to the disgust of the local worthies who gave him the prize in the first place. The text is very witty and the music is entirely delightful throughout – it fizzes along with loads of good tunes and just enough seriousness to make you realise that this is actually about a man cutting away from the expectations of society and enjoying it.
The production, originally by Peter Hall, is over 20 years old but has been wonderfully rehearsed and the sets and costumes are a treat. The cast is excellent and there are two particularly fine performances. The first is from Robert Murray in the title role, who manages the transition from shy mother's boy to slightly surprised Jack-the-lad wonderfully – he sings it well, too. The second is from Miranda Keyes as Lady Billows, the local Mary Whitehouse: she has a fearsome soprano and the glint of a maniac in her eyes.
I spent those parts of the evening when I wasn't giggling happily with a smile on my face and came out humming the tunes. Most of the audience seemed to love it too, though there were one or two saying they could never see the point of Britten and that the piece was just silly – but this is typical of most Britten operas I've attended. If you're not allergic to Britten and don't think opera has to be about consumptive heroines dying, then I'd urge you to go along: it's joyous fun.
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