Il Tabarro and Gianni Schicchi
Staging these two one-act operas together is nothing new but the sharp difference between them still makes an incisive pairing. The two contrast in more than just theme. Il Tabarro is simply staged against a large monolithic dock that looms over the singers – perhaps hammering home a sense of their insignificance and futility. Gianni Schicchi is cluttered, bustling and lived in. It is looks and feels elaborate. Directors, James Conway and Liam Steel respectively, have pointedly different styles.
Il Tabarro very much does feel bleak. This tale of dying marriage, disappointment, loss, doomed love and plain old unrewarding toil is delivered with all due dourness by the ETO orchestra. Craig Smith stands out as bitter cuckold Michele – his presence does tend to loom on stage.
Gianni Schicchi is a raucous pantomime. The Buoso family have clownish masks of insincere woe painted on their faces and only the characters with some shred of honour (if not quite honesty) aren’t played as clownish grotesques. It’s hard not to prefer Schicchi simply because it’s jubilant silliness is so much easier to swallow than the well-crafted bitterness and pessimism of Il Tabarro.
Thank god there’s an interval to cleanse the palate between the two. ★★★★☆ Fenton Coulthurst 27th April 2018
The Marriage of Figaro
This is certainly a lively performance of Figaro and one that succeeds as a play as much as a musical entity under Blanche McIntyre’s direction. I am happy to wax lyrical about how strong the orchestra and arias are, but actually what sticks with me are the witty and farcical performances. Ross Ramgobin injects Figaro himself with just the right amount of moxy – too clever for his own good and pushing his luck just a bit too far. Rachel Redmond gets the meatiest role with Susanna, easily capturing the truth of the piece: she, not Figaro, is the savviest mind in the palace.
I think for sheer laughs in an altogether very successful comic piece, kudos have to go to Katherine Aitken as Cherubino. The butt of so many of the farcical shenanigans as the character runs around in a mixture of adolescent panic and hormonal lust, Aitken knows how to milk the audience for laughs.
I do retain my old gripe about Figaro – most of the thematic and narrative arcs are essentially resolved by the end of Act III, so Act IV in the garden always strikes me as a bit of an addendum. No performance can ever escape this without gutting the music and for many the plot is not the point anyway. It’s a bearable sin and incumbent on Mozart and Beaumarchais, not ETO.
All told, you are guaranteed a damn good show. ★★★★☆ Fenton Coulthurst 26th April 2018
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Rossini: Fireworks!
There’s a lovely spread of pieces here, with the show encapsulating highlights from Maometto II, Ermione, Otello, Elisabetta, La donna del lago, Guillaume Tell, Semiramide. The scenes have virtues of their own, naturally, and the ETO Orchestra conducted by John Andrews is of course well up to the task of performing, but it is worth giving special praise to the composition of the performance. Despite being an eclectic feature, care has been taken to make sure there’s a natural flow to the proceedings.
This will be a more than satisfying experience for established fans of these operas and might indeed make a nice taster for the uninitiated. The showstopper of the first half is undoubtedly the Gran scena from Act 2 of Ermione, and the Otello duet ‘Ah vieni, nel tuo sangue’ makes a great send off before the interval. Maometto II is sprinkled across the run time and for my money make for some of the best parts of the second half.
Also of particular note are the evocative scenes from Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra, the last of which rounds out the show. These serve as a taster for a full-staging that ETO will be bringing to the UK next year. I, for one, will greatly be looking forward to it. ★★★★☆ Fenton Coulthurst 24th April 2018
