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A performance just lost for wordsThe Merry Widow
Tinkers Farm Opera Crescent Theatre,
Birmingham
*** IT must have been a nerve-wracking first
night, although the company did not show it. More particularly, leading
lady Susan Bushby – not giving a hint of anxiety – and soprano Katie
Leaver, sitting with the libretto and the score on the apron stage-left,
were surely battling with butterflies. After all, Katie had only learned by telephone at
10.30 pm the previous night, when she was in bed, that Susan had lost
her voice and that Katie – please, Katie! – was being asked to speak and
sing the part of Anna while Susan would be doing some purposeful miming. Let it be said at once that they both acquitted
themselves with distinction. Only once did I think I detected a bit of
Susan’s lip-work slightly out of synch. I am sure that if it had not
been for the announcement before the show started, hardly anyone in the
audience would have suspected a thing. Susan showed professionalism and Katie is
a professional. Together, they made an impressive team and it was good
to see Susan leading the applause for Katie at the final curtain.
It should also be said that it cannot have been
easy for the rest of the company – particularly those who were required
by the script to engage Anna, Madame Giavari, in conversation – when
their every utterance was followed by a mimed reply of complete silence
while the words arrived over their left shoulder. Frightening, or what?
That they came through so convincingly is a tribute to everyone involved
in Pam Harley’s colourful production. That said, this alarming first night was not best
served by its sound. Voices were intermittently elusive, even in the
all-singing-all-dancing Women! Women! Women!, despite the obvious
energy that eight singers were putting into them, backed by the
orchestra under musical director Roy Lancaster. One voice was nevertheless reliably audible and
therefore identifiably good, and it belonged to Diane Geater (Valencienne).
Bob Atkins – a persuasive Danilo who, rather ironically in the light of
the attendant problems, was required to shout, “Stop this frightful
noise!” – also sang to good effect and was joined in You’ll find me
at Maxim’s by six excellent Grisettes. Rex Wheeler (Baron Zeta), Ben Swift (Camille) and
John Leaman (the amiable Njegus) made reliable contributions on a night
when every shoulder had to be to the wheel, and Bob Clarke (St Brioche)
and Peter Bushby (Cascada) made a pleasingly squabbling double act. The
smaller parts and the chorus, meanwhile, backed the action to the hilt. I am sure it was a performance that no one involved will forget in a hurry. They can all take great satisfaction from the way they tackled it. To 13-11-10. John Slim |
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