From the first moment, when a smiling Ronan Busfield (Cecco) regales us from the front of the stage to explain the synopsis, to “those of you who haven’t been generous enough to buy the programme,” and confides with us that “Soprano Jane Harrington is still in her dressing room worrying about the size of her hips”, we are under no illusion that we are witness to ‘something slightly different’.
It was always director Cal McCrystal’s intention to tease out belly laughs from this preposterous tale of misogyny, delusion, love and come-uppance. And with the Olivier award-winning English Touring Opera, accompanied by the wonderful Old Street Band orchestra conducted by Christopher Bucknall, he has served up a sometimes slapstick but dream-like vision of Goldoni’s original libretto Il Mondo della Luna. None of this would have worked quite so well however without the mesmerising set and costume designs of takis, which brought to mind the styling of Peter Greenaway’s Draughtsman’s Contract, with the retro and gentile feel of a Kate Greenaway illustration. A full moon interrupts a starry night sky, and before it lies a delightful formal garden with rose pergola, stone seats and statue, balustraded walk and topiary, all to be transformed later by lavish white drapes into a make-believe moonscape.
The action spins around the very unpleasant wealthy and miserly misogynist Buonafede (Andrew Slater), who sings about the subjugation of his wife, the beatings he has administered and her early death from his attentions. He keeps his daughter Clarice (Jane Harrington) a virtual prisoner in order to prevent her dowry leaving his grasp and soft porn pics inside his jacket pocket. He sings “What a fine world it would be, with men of sixty and girls of twenty.” Despite being couched within Haydn’s delicious cascades, his diatribes about women are about as un-PC as it gets. Slater doesn’t stint on the toxic.
A plot to undo Buonafede is cooked up by quack astronomer Ecclitico, who exploits the miser’s interest in misogynistic lust by convincing him that there are people living on the moon who agree with his belief in women’s subservience. With an eye on Buonafede’s daughter and the dowry, Ecclitico encourages the hoarder to gaze through his telescope at a lunar ‘peep show’, exciting an interest in travelling to the heavenly body by means of a potion, there to enjoy unfettered access to dubious sexual pleasures. With the help of servant Cecco, who fancies maid Lisetto (Martha Jones) and Clarice, the garden is transformed into a magical white landscape that seduces the old curmudgeon into believing he has indeed gone aloft to a perfect world of male domination, until of course the mischievous ‘actors’ reveal their true identities after tricking him into releasing his treasure and his power over them.
There are flawless performances from Andrew Slater, Christopher Turner, and Martha Jones. Ronan Busfield as the servant and later the Emperor of the Moon always looked like he was enjoying himself and Jane Harrington as Clarice brought powerful coloratura to Haydn’s melodies, creating great mirth with one final low note. Wittily and imaginatively produced and performed, opera lovers will want to put a tick against this English Touring Opera version of Life on the Moon. ★★★★☆ Simon Bishop 28/10/14
