VENEZIANA !
Buongiorno to Venice 1730, a metropolis stage topped with the golden winged lion of St Mark, arched and curtained and lit with candelabras . Overhead a twelve-piece orchestra full with harp is seen within the galleries. Below, our hero a decided younger castrato – offered and gelded in childhood – is cheeking the maestro Faustino who taught him to sing excessive and girlish for the operatic stage, to not point out taking different benefits in return. Marco (Jack Chambers, boyish and vigorous) is bold, however when he meets the attractive and decided Giola – daughter of a black slave – he decides to again her profession, and defy racist and classist snobberies by taking her to the court docket of his patroness Assura. Whose corrupt husband Pietro and his accountant Luigi are, by the best way, embezzling her fortune in a hospital challenge whereas a camp stout cardinal giggles by way of her soirées.
It’s a musical – model new, lyrics and music by Matthew Wilder with a thumpingly Panto-melodrama guide by Tim Luscombe – so that they sing. And how they sing! with killer dedication. Apart from a few gentler, magically period-pastiche numbers sung from behind a positive gold and feather masks by Jennie Jacobs (as Marco, it’s a neat doubling) the numbers are full-on aggressive and divergent in model. . There’s rum-ti-tum retro Lionel-Bartish jollity, some startling sub-Sondheim moments, and plenty of plain musical-pop-LloydWebbery. Fine: we will digest a little bit of selection, however the issue is that within the first half particularly too many numbers are simply plain overwrought: lurching from climax to climax with no nuance between. Marco is ambitous and hopeful, Giola decided, Faustino insanely jealous, Azzura predatorily nymphomaniacal, Pietro bossy, they usually all underline it by too quickly rising to a critical belting excessive money-note. No nuance.
At one level you assume ooh, maybe that is providing a bravely transfriendly-fetishist theme, as Marco in his gilt diva cloak pronounces that castrati are literally higher than girls , as a result of they’ve each feminine grace and male power. Seen that on-line a number of occasions, sigh.. But no, that’s countered by his backing of Giola and willingness to be seduced by Assura (not all castrati are impotent). It actually isn’t a really deeply thought-through guide. But issues enhance terrifically as the primary act ends, as a result of in case you’re going to do some cheery hokum like this, it’s finest to go excessive as quickly as doable. So Faustino bursts into Giola’s proposed efficiency for the nobles and causes a lot chaos that the Cardinal finally ends up stabbed and the younger individuals arrested.
Even higher, the second half begins with a pleasant row between a drunken Pietro together with his wig off and Luigi who’s sitting mournfully at a harpsichord, pondering accountancy-thoughts. And there’s a positive quarrelsome duet between Assura and Pietro, a dramatic poison suicide elsewhere and a greater quantity from Faustino, however Luigi will get the primary actual hooting stamping applause of the present, as Sam Barrett within the function does the complete heroic-opera self reproach and regrets his collaboration with Pietro. There’s a trial scene, a threatening noose, a revelation, and a last-minute (somewhat touching) miracle for a tragic elective-mute Nicolo, who we had hitherto forgotten existed however who is critical for justice to be achieved.
Under the arches, the outdated Players theatre has a style for staging small, usually brand-new musicals at below half the seat-price of the large West End simply up the highway, and I’ve lengthy had somewhat a weak spot for the place. Sometimes there’s a treasure – TITANIC the musical began there, with twice the historical past and ten occasions the center of that terrible movie. Sometimes it’s an interesting imported oddity, like GeorgeTakei’s ALLEGIANCE. This one is barely definable as a kind of melodrama-pantomime mini-opera, and never an precise treasure. But it’s superbly set by Ceci Calf and dressed by Anna Kelsey, and if it has somewhat extra soggy coronary heart than onerous genius it does keep sufficient self-awareness to stay to about two hours together with interval. And present us with a cheerful ending and a giant joyful ensemble curtain-call. People left smiling. So did I.
charingcrosstheatre.co.uk to 14th June.
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