English Touring Opera at the Hackney Empire
10th October 2008
So this year ETO decided to do Rusalka and La tragedie de Carmen. I agree with Violetta (it’s not often I get to write that) the longer version of Carmen is better but like she said it was good to get the chance to see it even though I wasn’t that into it either. But if you’d like to read a more positive review of La tragedie de Carmen check out Lindsey’s comment on this theatre blog. So far Violetta is the only one of us to be invited to join the theatre blog but she’s been in plays like off West End so she probably puts more of an acting spin on her reviews than we do.
Rusalka was miles better than La tragedie de Carmen but I just want to say, why did the ETO choose 2 such depressing operas? The complete Carmen is quite funny in places, so’s stuff like La boheme even though you get people dying in those. Usually they’ve got like a sad one and a funny one which I reckon works a bit better like on the spring tour they did Anna Bolena (serious) and Don Giovanni (mostly funny), another time they did Die Entfuhrung (hysterical) and Eugene Onegin (not a happy opera). The only really funny thing that happened during Rusalka and La tragedie de Carmen was was when Sophie needed the toilet and we didn’t know how long it was till the end of the act so she went out of the auditorium only she couldn’t find the ladies bog so she went in the men’s and she’d like literally just sat down when suddenly the act ended and there was all this applause and she had to run out quick! I wasn’t there or nothing and she probably exaggerated like loads but I thought it was funny. And she didn’t tell us in front of Barry or anything like that.
But Rusalka was still really good. James Conway was the director, he’s the General Director of ETO too so I’ve seen a lot of his stuff, he gets people acting really well and whoever does the sets (it was Paul Wills this time) they do something that’s a bit of a surprise and maybe like pushes the boundaries a bit but it always works really well. Like here there was all this weird stuff with blue sand going on but it looked really good and Donna Bateman who was Rusalka is a brilliant actress so she just got on with it like rolling about in all this blue sand was a normal thing to do and at the time it seemed totally normal, it’s only afterwards you start to think, that’s a bit weird isn’t it.
Alex Ingram was the conductor, Rusalka which is by Dvorak is supposed to have a really huge orchestra, they actually did it with a lot less than a normal orchestra but it really worked. It sounded really good, you really got this strong sense of water everywhere and there was a bit of spookiness going on too.
Donna Bateman like I said was just really really good. Rusalka seemed really like awkward as a human, a bit unnatural and it was easy to see why the Prince thought she’d gone all cold on him and why the Foreign Princess totally looked down on her. Her body language was good, a bit odd but you could still pick up on how she was feeling and stuff. The bargain she makes with Jezibaba, that she can be human and live with her Prince if she wants but she can’t talk and she can’t go back and if she kisses him she’ll die isn’t a very nice thing for her to do and actually it’s really stupid as she doesn’t get anything much out of it either and I was kind of thinking that all the time but you could see where she was coming from. The fact Donna is blonde and hot probably helped me with liking her but I think her acting had a big effect too. Oh yes and she can sing too. Rusalka is usually seen as an opera for big voices but it works really well with quite a light voice as Rusalka, you could hear her and everything and it suited the character.
The Prince was a bit of an a*** the way he treated Rusalka in the second act but to be honest that’s how a lot of people would behave towards someone like Rusalka. Some people are really horrible to Sophie because she’s a bit different, even quite nice people can be a bit funny. So you get people like the Prince who just don’t understand, people like the Gamekeeper and the Turnspit who are actually scared of Rusalka, total bitches like the Foreign Princess who just like get off on being nasty (she does it to the Prince too) then there’s evil people like Jezibaba who just want to take advantage. It’s quite a realistic opera if you think about it, about how it sucks sometimes being an individual instead of some boring person who follows the crowd just for the sake of it.
The Prince is basically just a prat really, Richard Roberts didn’t quite manage to make him seem like a nice guy but he was too pathetic to be a proper villain. And as Rusalka is really a bit pathetic too in a nice way you can sort of see the attraction. The Gamekeeper and the Turnspit are nice people really too, it’s not really their fault they don’t get Rusalka, it’s just how society is. Maciek O’Shea and Jessica Summers both sang really well in those roles. Jessica wasn’t funny exactly, it wasn’t that sort of opera like I said but I reckon she could be funny in a different opera.
The two horrible people were sung by the two people with the biggest voices, that might be a coincidence but it worked well because it helped to show how they were strong in a manipulative sort of way. Camilla Roberts made a brilliant bitchy Foreign Princess but she’s got a really nice voice (and she doesn’t look bad either) so you could see why the Prince liked her. Fiona Kimm was really creepy as Jezibaba. Contraltos moan sometimes about not being sexy and to be honest I don’t think I fancy Jezibaba, bit old and evil for me but there is something really cool about being that powerful. Like Mistress Quickly in Falstaff, the plot wouldn’t get anywhere without her and Jezibaba’s the same apart from being really horrible and not funny.
But there were some nice people in the opera too. Angela Caesar, Abigail Kelly and Alison Crookendale were well sexy as the Forest Girls and sounded really good singing together. Keel Watson as the Water Spirit seemed like a really cool guy as well, a bit moody maybe but this is an opera. Great singer too. I think I’ve mostly seen him in crappy productions, it’s nice to see him in something good for a change.
FitCrit
primi-divi at hotmail.co.uk