Primi Divi

Glyndebourne on Tour at Sadler’s Wells

7th December 2007

This isn’t the easiest opera in the world to get into, but it’s worth a little bit of an effort. It’s one of the funniest operas around, and I’d recommend it to anyone. Not sure if Glyndebourne are still touring or not, but go if you get the chance. It’s got a very funny libretto by Eric Crozier. CLV says it was her first opera ever, but the libretto still surprises her every time.

One thing this production did is it proved that singing posh isn’t actually necessary to help you get the words across, but anyone who has heard Lily Allen knows that. Same with Albert Herring, where the singers probably weren’t even singing in their own accents. It was actually the posh lady, Lady Billows, who I struggled to understand.

Lady Billows was sung by Miranda Keys and her voice was very loud and very wobbly. Can see why people are frightened of her, but I don’t really think that’s enough somehow. I don’t know, it just sounded less like music and more like noise. But that could have been the character. Not sure though, the other characters were all real enough. Lady Billows’ housekeeper Florence Pike was sung by Susan Gorton, not exactly a beautiful voice but lots of character and very funny. Kathleen Wilkinson did go over the top at times as Mrs Herring, but it wasn’t embarrassingly over the top, except for poor Albert, I suppose.

Amy Freston was great as Miss Wordsworth – really lovely voice and a proper comedienne. Robert Davies, Lynton Black and especially Adrian Thompson all had funny moments as Mr Gedge, Superintendent Budd and Mr Upfold. Another group who worked well together were the 3 kids, Emmie (sung by Elodie Kimmel, an adult and member of GoT Chorus), Cis (sung by Jennifer Sidebottom who’s a student) and Harry (sung by Jack Morlen who’s a real boy, he’s 12). They all did really well, I wonder why boys are usually sung by actual boys and girls by adults but they all did well as children.

But the stars had to be Albert and his friends Sid and Nancy. They were all funny too, especially Albert, but they were the people you’re probably meant to identify with. Mrs Herring meant well, and Albert could have got himself into all kinds of trouble (and quite possibly did) but there’s no doubt that his adventures turned out to be the best thing for him (not that I’d recommend it to anyone else).

Robert Murray was a very sweet Albert, and he didn’t lose any of that as he gained in confidence. He’s very handsome in a boyish way, and very good at appearing awkward, but he never gave the impression that he didn’t want to be more confident, or that Sid and Nancy were manipulating him. Even Sid only seemed to want to help him, in as manly a way as possible.

Jared Holt was a lot of fun as Sid, and his laddishness made a great contrast with Albert, even at the end. The others say he and Robert Murray appeared in Albert Herring in these roles at the Royal College of Music, and were later on the ROH Young Artists’ Programme together for a while. Sid seems like a typical lad – not as tough as he likes to pretend he is, but fairly convincing on the outside.

Julia Riley was a really lovely Nancy. Really liked her right from the start and she’s got a really beautiful voice. Would really like to see more of her. When I saw this opera before, Nancy seemed a bit of a tart who had a character change later on. It worked, but it adds to the opera to have someone so obviously nice.

Great production.

Madam Caterpillar

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