Primi Divi

Opera Holland Park

2nd August

If the top price seats at Opera Holland Park are compared with those at any other venue, Opera Holland Park do come out the best value. However, if you have a very low income, and are used to buying seats for less than £10, £21 seems quite a lot. It seems a bit odd, in theory, to pay double your usual price for an opera company that employs relatively few high-profile singers. It’s true that Yvonne Kenny sang the title role in Fedora, but many cast members are only just out of music college, and OHP’s stars are lucky to get a walk-on at the ROH. It’s true that OHP’s Lady Macbeth, Mirian Murphy, made a stunning debut in the same role for the ROH. But there are always brilliant young exceptions. What you don’t realise until you actually arrive is that, at Opera Holland Park, brilliant exceptions are the norm.

£21 is still, in theory, a lot of money. It’s more than a fifth of my weekly income, as it happens. (No, opera fans aren’t all rich!) I could go to the ROH 4 times, and spend less money. But, based on The Queen of Spades and Rigoletto, it’s worth it. Perhaps not if you’re Hairy McMungo, but it’s worth it if you’re anyone else. Just pay your £21, or even your £39 or £41, and you’ll probably find it was worth the money. If you really can’t afford that, go to Holland Park and sit outside on one of the benches, and hear the opera for free. You won’t get to see anything, of course – but it sounds so good, you might decide you could buy a ticket next time after all. (I came and listened to a sold-out Rigoletto performance a few days after The Queen of Spades. Next year, I think I’ll see everything, and risk going into debt.)

The Queen of Spades could have been a bit of a disaster. On opening night, it became clear that their leading tenor needed to be replaced, but the company apparently had no understudy in place, or at least none that was able to take on the role immediately. Luckily, the Mariinsky opera happened to be performing at the ENO, and they were able to lend a tenor. It was difficult to believe that Viktor Lutsyuk had had little or no rehearsal. It perhaps wasn’t so surprising that he was completely confident about the music, and sang it so gorgeously but he managed to move around the stage with great confidence, and had a strong rapport with Orla Boylan, in the role of Lisa. They seemed very comfortable working together. Lutsyuk’s Hermann is still a total prat who makes Hairy’s love of Money seem quite reasonable, but he was still a likeable character.

Not that I would have dumped Yeletski for him if I’d had a choice. Mark Stone wasn’t as physically active as he could have been – Yeletski does spend a lot of time just standing still and he tends to blend in with the crowd if he’s not careful – but it was a beautifully-sung performance. His baritone was stronger than usual: this is a singer with great vocal verstility. Not many singers could change their vocal weight so dramatically and still sound natural. I hope it won’t do his voice any damage in the long run.

The lady in the centre of the love triangle was Orla Boylan’s Lisa. It’s true that she has dreadful taste in men, but she was almost a different character with Hermann, so, lovely as Yeletsky was, it’s difficult to believe she’d be happy with him. She was a very sweet and vulnerable character, but somehow she was never an innocent who had been seduced by tenorial charms.

Another powerful performance came from Carole Wilson as the Countess. She was excellent when she was alive, and her death, although expected, of course, was very effective, but her best appearances were as a ghost. It was very creepy. I never saw her walk onto the stage – she always seemed to appear out of nowhere. This was probably mostly to do with the intensity of the other singers’ performances, but, even so, it’s very easy to catch the movement of an entering singer out of the corner of your eye.

I always get confused between all the men who aren’t either Hermann or Yeletski, but they all sang brilliantly. Matthew Hargreaves (Tomski), Chekalinski (Aled Hall), Surin (Omar Ebrahim), Chaplitski (Robert Burt) and Narumov (Mark Saberton) could be faulted for not making the differences between the characters clear, but perhaps I just need to see the opera a few more times. I’ve accidentally managed to acquire three tickets for the ROH’s Queen of Spades, so I’m sure I’ll be able to tell them apart very soon. I especially liked the one who was table dancing.

Stephanie Bodsworth, a member of the Opera Holland Park Chorus (which seems to comprise either of music college undergraduates and/or recent graduates, judging from the names I recognise) gave the small role of Masha surprising character. Antonia Sotgiu and Harriet Williams also gave good performances as Polina and the Governess. The City of London Sinfonia, under Stuart Stratford, sounded excitingly Russian. It was an amazing performance, and the ROH will have to work very, very hard to equal this.

Cunning Little Vixen

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