| The wow factor... |
Welsh National Opera |
| Welsh National Opera- La Cenerentola (Cinderella) , Wales Millennium Centre , October 9, 2007 |
WHAT a delight it is to report that in a show so obviously supposed to visually thrill us it was the standard of the singing that produced the wow factor.Welsh National Opera's new production of Rossini's La Cenerentola- marketed as Cinderella - is certainly colourful and zany. You won’t be bored for a moment. Already seen in Houston where former WNO boss Anthony Freud who commissioned this show is now at the helm, Spanish director Joan Font and his designer Joan Guillén have gone for a Matthew Bourne-style panto opera. Font, best known as founder of the Catalan theatre company Comediants, and Guillén have created characters that look like dolly mixture novelties with silly wigs and garish costumes all set against a rather basic set where incredibly annoying people pretending to be rats scamper around. The characters grimace and pout, grab a fair few laughs along the way, while the splendid WNO chorus move this way and that in their blue wigs. Maybe someone will one day tell me why they all have to eat a banana, perhaps to produce the skins that this production ultimately slips on. And slip it does because the show is not quite slick enough to bring off what I assume the team intended. The humour, the feel, is just a little too overdone pantomime. Bring it back at Christmas and throw in a fairy lights and the magical charm missing in the piece might appear. Having said that the audience lapped it up and some members even applauded some of the whimsical novelty touches such as a silhouette of the prince’s carriage and a miniature version crossing the stage as he searched for his lost love. Perhaps they have been Christmas shopping early. Carlo Rizzi conducts prettily enough with Rossini’s score driving the orchestra forward those crashing climaxes that leave us gasping for air, adding even more to the farcical flavour of the show. And while some of the cast are forced to ham it up for a titter here and there the impressive cast – particularly our heroic tenor and mezzo - is allowed to do what singers do best, sing. Marianna Pizzolato sang a captivating but thankfully not sickly sweet Angelina, Le Cenerentola in this version of the story. She has luscious mezzo voice with a zesty timbre that we are sadly not often treated to and well deserved the audience approval. She even kept her composure when lugged around in a large golden carriage/sedan chair that most resembled a giant Marmite jar, by those annoying rodents. This marks her British opera debut and one that should secure her plenty of bookings on these shores. Lovers of vocal fireworks that have made Juan Diego Florez flavour of the month will be delighted with Colin Lee singing a delightfully Ramiro that puts him up there with some of the exponents of Rossini acrobatics. His singing is both titillating flamboyant and reliably solid. Roberto de Candia and Robert Poulton were given the lion’s share of playing it for laughs as Magnifico and Dandini making the most of the comic canvass Rossini has given them clearly encouraged by the producer. Both men should be applauded for delivering what was demanded of them as a pair of circus clowns and still give a good vocal account of themselves. Andrew Foster-Williams sang an elegant and suitably lofty Alidoro – the fairy godmother of this take on the famous tale – who spots goodness that has to be rewarded. But as the evening draws to a close and Cinders starts sweeping the floor again has it all just been a dream? If so I’ll have to get some of what she had supper that night. There are further performances at WMC on October 7, 12 before the show tours including Venue Cymru, Llandudno on November 1, 3 and the Grand Theatre, Swansea on November 30. |
Reviewed by: Mike Smith |
This review has been read 2122 times There are 111 other reviews of productions with this title in our database:
|
