Benjamin Britten: The Beggar's Opera, with new dialogue by Robert Farquhar. Artists of the European Opera Centre, the Royal Northern College of Music and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Nicolas André and Richard Farnes, Directed by Bernard Rozet. Presented at the Epstein Theatre Liverpool.
In this Britten Centenary year, we are told that his 1948 re-working of John Gay's18th century Ballad Opera is only getting two outings as far as we can tell; a production by Opera Montpelier and this one in Liverpool. By all accounts the work has a chequered history and maybe the lack of performances this year is down to the problems of simply making it work.
One failing of the 1948 version is considered to be Tyrone Guthrie’s spoken dialogue that links it all together, and so the European Opera Centre have excised that dialogue altogether and replaced it with a newly written version by Liverpool Playwright Robert Farquhar (God’s Official, Dust to Dust, Bad Jazz, Dead Heavy Fantastic). This is intended to liven things up, keep the piece moving more quickly and to make more of the role of the Beggar, all of which it seems to achieve pretty seamlessly. He has used modern vernacular and a good deal of humour, which was certainly appreciated by the audience that packed the Epstein Theatre on Friday night.
The RLPO’s collaborations with the EOC over recent years have so far been concert or semi-staged performances at Philharmonic Hall, with full scale orchestral forces. Moving this production to the smaller theatrical setting of the recently refurbished Epstein Theatre created more intimate surroundings that suit these forces which may well have been swallowed up in the Phil’s acoustic, but were a good fit for this venue.
With the band of 5 string players, 5 winds, harp and percussion set to the rear of the stage, the forestage with covered pit gave space for plenty of stage movement. Designs were simple, with some movable platforms and a few items of furniture (some borrowed from the theatre bar, I see) but this fitted the work’s putative setting, in which the Beggar gets his cohorts to act out the scenes of his tale.
Stephen Colfer in the speaking part of the Beggar ably kept the story moving, and on occasions took the opportunity to throw in a few ad-libs,something that the technical crew making a live recording were probably cursing him for, but which added some additional humour.
The cast of singers drawn from the EOC and the Royal Northern College of Music were all in excellent voice. Special note must be made of Louis Hurst (Peachum) Michelle Daly (Polly) and Daire Halpin (Lucy Lockit) all of whom had great voices and great stage presence. Finest of all, however, was Alexander Sprague as Macheath, who really did command our attention with the role. Parts written for Peter Pears are always terribly difficult to cast and sing due to Pear’s unusual voice type, but Sprague had this one nailed completely. I believe he is singing Albert Herring later this year with Opera North and this is something to watch out for. Romanas Kudriašovas as Lockit has an astonishing voice with real depth, although he was a little hard to swallow as Lucy’s father unless you closed your eyes.
The choral segments had been well prepared and the assembly of Ladies of the Town and Gentlemen of the Road made a fine sound, and the whole was supported with the usual panache by the collection of musicians from the Phil, including some particularly lovely Cor Anglais playing from Ilid Jones.
Assistant Conductor Nicolas André found himself unexpectedly in the limelight conducting the first act, whilst Richard Farnes fought his way through traffic to arrive in time to take over after the interval, so we got two conductors for the price of one, much to the amusement of our Beggar, who took this as another opportunity to make one or two additional comments at the expense of “The ever punctual man with the fancy hands”.
It was good to see this performance sell out, and a reprise takes place tomorrow afternoon, with only limited ticket availability remaining.
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