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Stars explained: * A production of no real merit
with failings in all areas. ** A production showing evidence of not
enough time or effort, or even talent, and which never breathes any real
life into the piece – or a show lumbered with a terrible script. *** A
good enjoyable show which might have some small flaws but has largely
achieved what it set out to do.**** An excellent show which shows a
great deal of work and stage craft with no noticeable or major
flaws.***** A four star show which has found that extra bit of magic
which lifts theatre to another plane. |
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An enjoyable night amid the canals
Bubbly and ball gowns: The chorus in their Sunday best for a masked ball and carnival A Night in Venice Tinkers Farm Opera Crescent Theatre, Birmingham **** READERS of
Private Eye
would be right at home
with this irreverent opera based, loosely, on Johann Strauss II's three
act operetta Eine
Nacht in Venedig. The satirical magazine had a regular column with
a spoof plot of an Italian grand opera starring the wonderfully
entertaining Silvio Berlusconi – with Bunga Bunga a regular feature You would have had to have been living on Mars not to have spotted that the opera's Prime Minister, Aurelio Bellacroni, played with a powerful baritone and in a truly awful wig (it was meant to be obvious) by John Clay, was in fact a thinly disguised Silvio - this is almost Berlusconi - The Musical. The action takes place around Bellacroni's party
in Venice on carnival night when his main interest is playing bunga
bunga with Barbara , played by Rose Rowley, the English wife of Senator
Alessandro Dell'Acqua, played by Geoff Evans, who, knowing his PM, sends
his wife off to Murano out of harm's way – Plan A. Now keep up for this bit. Barbara meanwhile
changes places with her friend, oyster seller Annina so she can spend
time with her admirer Enrico, a naval officer – Plan B. Meanwhile the
PM's barber Caramello looking to move up in the Government pecking
order, with the help of his friend the macaroni cook Pappacoda, played
with a great sense of fun by Julian Bissell, hears of plan A and waylays
the booked gondolier with gallons of vino, to take his place witha view
to delivering Barbara to the PM instead of the island of Murano not
knowing it is really his heart's desire Annina. Meanwhile - still with us at the back? - Senator
Dell'Acqua who is trying to wangle the €200,000 year post as the PM's
administrator, has persuaded Barbara's maid Ciboletta, sung by Diane
Geater, to pretend she was really his wife Barbara, presumably on the
basis that the honour of maids is more expendable than that of his wife.
But, rather than pleading for a job for her boss Ciboletta makes a case
for the PM employing her lover, who is, just to keep it simple,
Pappacoda.
When the real Barbara also turn up to make it the
third Senator's wife of the evening and with Caramello, Pappacoda and
the Senator all trying to protect their women, and push their own case
for jobs, it all becomes a little confusing for Aurelio, not that he is
bothered when as far as he is concerned it is just a sort of bunga bunga
three for one offer.
Opera is perhaps the hardest theatre for amateur
groups. Musicals have a little more leeway in terms of singing – even
some professionals have talked their way through songs – but in opera
there is no hiding place and in the three female leads Tinkers Farm have
three gems. All three Barbars not only have clear
and pleasing voices they also have power and hit the high notes with
apparent ease. The men are more variable in power and
performance but none let the side down and sang with some gusto although
I am not sure about Richard Lloyd Owen appearing as an opera singer to
give us Nessun Dorna. It has been the party piece of just about every
tenor since Calaf first belted it out in Turandot in 1926. It brooks comparison with the likes of everyone from Pavarotti to Mario Lanza, Gigli to Domingo, Paul Potts to even Michael Bolton and although it is a crowd pleaser and there are no complaints about Richard's performance, if liberties are being taken with Strauss's music, I wonder if perhaps a Neapolitan song, with the audience encouraged to clap along might fit in better with a Venetian carnival theme and would not have people assessing it against other versions. The main players produced some nice duets and quartets and there was a notable sextet with the three Barbaras, the PM, Carmello and Pappacoda in the supper scene.
Pappacoda also produced some good laughs with his
Italian accent and sayings and worked a nice double act with Caramello
while the chorus did a sterling job with some neat choreography from
director Janet Phillips to make them look like a crowd rather than a
rabble. Having trod the amateur boards I know how
difficult it is to create something pleasing for an audience to look at
from a mix of actors, like myself, with dyslexic feet to people who can
actually dance. It was simple enough for the chorus to follow but with
enough movement to make it interesting. Other choreography was by Claire
Reay, Lesley Stocker and Christine Clay. While we are on dancing the nine dancers from
Woodlands School of Dance were a delight and we even got an excellent
Can-Can, presumably from the time when Strauss was moonlighting as
Offenbach, which really is a difficult, high energy routine - fun but
exhausting for the dancers. Perhaps at just over three hours the show might
benefit from a little pruning – some patrons left before the end purely
to catch trains - and when Caramello is plying the gondolier with wine
it might help if our water boatman was to at least to make some effort
at drinking, His glass was topped up with copious amounts four or five
times without it coming within an arm's length of his lips as he sang
Come, Heart's Delight. But these are minor quibbles in what was a good
production helped by an attractive set designed by Janet Phillips again,
which changed seamlessly from bridge and canal to square to palace
without a break in the action. And an opera needs music and the Tinkers Farm
Orchestra, under musical director Peter Bushby, took half a dozen bars
to warm up on opening night but then kept things moving and with some
lively playing. This new version is fun, topical and with a good
cast with bags of enthusiasm who all seem to be enjoying themselves it
makes for a most enjoyable evening. To 03-11-12. Roger Clarke |
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