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Henry Filloux-Bennett appointed executive director in ‘pivotal moment for Opera North’

Henry Filloux-Bennett: New executive director at Opera North. Picture: Samantha Toolsie

HENRY Filloux-Bennett is leaving HOME to be the new executive director at Opera North in Leeds from May 2023.

“I’m thrilled to be joining the team at Opera North,” he says. “Having had a long connection with the company, from first seeing them at the Theatre Royal and Concert Hall in Nottingham to then working with them at The Lowry in Salford, and more recently at the Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield, the prospect of joining as executive director at this really exciting – but also challenging – time is one I absolutely relish.”

Filloux-Bennett, who turned 40 last month, is at present executive director and deputy chief executive officer of HOME, the arts centre, cinema, theatre and gallery complex in Manchester. Previously, he was chief executive and artistic director of the Lawrence Batley Theatre; before that, head of marketing at The Lowry; earlier, head of marketing and communications at Nottingham Playhouse.

Filloux-Bennett also has worked as a producer and general manager for organisations such as the Royal Shakespeare Company, Theatre Royal Haymarket and Bill Kenwright Ltd.

As an author and playwright, he wrote the award-winning Nigel Slater’s Toast, commissioned by The Lowry and subsequently transferred to the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, The Other Place in London, plus a UK tour.

In 2020, his stage version of What A Carve Up!, based on Jonathan Coe’s novel, was chosen as one of the Guardian’s Top 10 theatre shows and the Telegraph’s Top 50 Cultural Events of the year.

In Covid-shrouded 2021, he adapted Oscar Wilde’s The Picture Of Dorian Gray, starring Fionn Whitehead and Joanna Lumley in a digital production for Barn Theatre/Lawrence Batley Theatre that was seen in more than 70 countries.

Opera North general manager Richard Mantle, left, with new executive director Henry Filloux-Bennett. Picture: Samantha Toolsie

He then co-wrote the original screenplay Going The Distance, starring Sarah Hadland, Shobna Gulati and Matthew Kelly in a digital comedy co-produced by the Lawrence Batley Theatre, Oxford Playhouse, The Dukes, Lancaster, and Watermill Theatre, Newbury.

Opera North’s general manager, Richard Mantle, says: “I am delighted to announce that Henry Filloux-Bennett has been appointed as our new executive director, joining the company in May 2023. He brings with him a wealth of experience through his theatre career and as a writer.

“This is a pivotal moment in the history of Opera North as we develop our strategic priorities and re-build our way out of the impact of the pandemic and the current cost-of-living crisis.

“Henry will be a key part of the leadership of Opera North into the future, bringing with him significant experience of business planning, budgetary and financial forecasting, programming, stakeholder management, commercial strategies and food and beverage hospitality. I am thrilled to be able to welcome Henry to the Opera North team and look forward to our collaboration as colleagues.”

Opera North, a national opera company based in Leeds since 1977, tours opera and musical theatre to theatres and concert halls across the north of England, including regular appearances in Leeds, Greater Manchester, Newcastle/Gateshead, Nottingham and Hull.

The company’s wide-ranging education and community partnerships work brings music and performance into the lives of communities across the region.

Opera North also operates and programmes the Howard Assembly Room, a 300-seat performance venue within the Leeds Grand Theatre building that offers an eclectic programme of world music, jazz and folk, classical, talks, film screenings and family events.

Opera North’s new restaurant and bar, Kino, opened last year on New Briggate, adjacent to the Howard Assembly Room and Grand Theatre.

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on Opera North’s Ariadne auf Naxos, February 18

Hanna Hipp: “Firm, intense” as Composer in Opera North’s Ariadne auf Naxos. All pictures: Richard H Smith

Ariadne auf Naxos, Opera North/Gothenburg Opera, Leeds Grand Theatre. Further performances on February 21, 24 and March 1, all at 7pm, then touring until March 24. Leeds box office: 0113 243 0808 or leedsheritagetheatres.com.

HUGO von Hofmannsthal avowedly based his libretto for Ariadne on the idea of Verwandlung, transformation.

Rodula Gaitanou’s ingenious scenario for this co-production with Gothenburg Opera, first seen there exactly five years ago, takes transformation a stage further, relocating the action from nouveau-riche Vienna in the 1910s to Fellini’s Rome of the 1950s, specifically the Cinecittà film studios.

George Souglides’s equally clever set and costumes underline the conceit by virtually duplicating the harlequinade costumes from Fellini’s 8 1⁄2.

Elizabeth Llewellyn’s Prima Donna. “Had to lie on a ten-metre high granite rock, which looked extremely uncomfortable”

The Prologue bustles with pre-cinematic activity, much of it mimed in hilarious detail behind the rantings of the Major-Domo and the Music-Master. So, we have electrician, light operator, make-up artist, painter, paparazzo and cameraman busying themselves alongside a group of sponsors – all named in the programme.

John Savournin’s no-nonsense Major-Domo rules this roost, rocking back Dean Robinson’s pleading Music-Master and Daniel Norman’s fretful Dancing-Master at every turn. Only Hanna Hipp’s firm, intense Composer offers him serious resistance, impassioned in her aria but soothed into reluctant acceptance of the new order by Zerbinetta’s attentions.

This might have been the last we would see of the Composer. But Gaitanou brings him back for the Opera, where he is a spectator throughout, even bringing realism to Zerbinetta’s emotional tug-of-love between him (her new ‘god’) and her old flame Harlequin.

Jennifer France’s flibbertigibbet of a Zerbinetta turns out to be the fulcrum around which the evening revolves. This owes much to her effervescence, but was partly caused by both the Tenor/Bacchus and the Prima Donna/Ariadne having missed the dress rehearsal for vocal reasons, although no apologies were offered on this opening night. They weathered the Prologue without distress, but for one of them (Ric Furman) the Opera proved a bridge too far.

Ric Furman as Bacchus, Elizabeth Llewellyn as Ariadne, with Amy Freston as Echo, Laura Kelly-McInroy as Dryad and Daisy Brown as Naiad

Nothing, however, should detract from France’s splendid evening. Having blended easily with her comic troupe before the interval, she has plenty in reserve for a tour de force of coloratura in the Opera, managing more than a hint of self-parody at the same time, while in almost perpetual motion. It is riveting.

Here, too, Elizabeth Llewellyn in the title role comes into her own. She was clearly in excellent voice for her initial aria, which was smoothly controlled, no mean feat given that she had to lie on a ten-metre high granite rock, which looked extremely uncomfortable. In duet with Bacchus, she convincingly negotiated the moments of doubt about his true personality before launching into glorious tone when the love-duet finally flowered, her upper middle range particularly gleaming.

Sadly, Ric Furman’s Bacchus was unable to match her. Clearly still suffering, his tenor sounded threadbare in comparison. Presumably distracted by his vocal difficulties, he also acted as if still in doubt about any hook-up with Ariadne, even at the close.

They finished the evening upstage watching the fireworks promised by the unnamed film director, reminding us of the play within a play, as did the cameramen who were present throughout.

Dominic Sedgwick as Harlequin, Adrian Dwyer as Brighella, John Savournin as Truffaldino and Alex Banfield as Scaramuccio

The evening has many other good things to offer, not least the slim-line orchestra under Antony Hermus. He is in his element in the Prologue, bringing a Mozartian jollity to Strauss’s lyrical riches. Yet he also conjures a tender intimacy from the chamber music opening of the Opera overture and velvety horn obbligato for Ariadne’s first aria, before unleashing a boisterous but disciplined finale.

The commedia dell’arte quartet manoeuvres wittily, ably led by Dominic Sedgwick’s Harlequin and Savournin’s Truffaldino. It is also a treat to have three such willowy nymphs – Daisy Brown, Laura Kelly-McInroy and Amy Freston – blending and capering alluringly, even if their constant arm-flapping, presumably suggestive of swimming, outstays its welcome. Victoria Newlyn is the otherwise engaging choreographer.

The Prologue is sung in English (translated by Christopher Cowell), Italian and German, mimicking the polyglot casts of international opera; German is used in the Opera, with English side-titles throughout. Gaitanou must have micro-directed this multi-talented cast. With Zerbinetta leading the way, Hofmannsthal’s transformation could hardly be more persuasive.

Review by Martin Dreyer

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on The Cunning Little Vixen, Opera North, Leeds Grand Theatre, February 17

Stefanos Dimoulas as Dragonfly in Opera North’s The Cunning Little Vixen. Picture: Tristram Kenton

LEOS Janáček’s fairy-tale must be the greenest opera in the repertory, and not only ecologically. It remains fresh.

Equally evergreen is David Pountney’s production, whose origins lie as far back as the Edinburgh International Festival of 1980. It reached Leeds in 1984, the 60th anniversary of this piece.

Happily Pountney, now Sir David, is still around to cast an eye over this revival, although Elaine Tyler-Hall is his associate on the ground. She also resuscitates the original choreography of Stuart Hopps.

The other genius of the founding triumvirate is the late Maria Björnson, her sets and costumes a constant reminder of her supremely imaginative talents.

The rolling hills and downs of the countryside in this multi-purpose set pull back to provide the Forester’s farmyard, the tavern or the foxes’ den. The encroaching forest is cleverly evoked by overhanging branches downstage, in which birds sit screened in rocking-chairs. The ‘melting’ of the icesheets drew a spontaneous round of applause on this occasion.

Elin Pritchard’s lively Vixen Sharp-Ears wins hearts at once with her zest for life, not to say liberation. But it is combined with a youthful innocence in her tone. She and her Fox, Heather Lowe, complement each other ideally in their love-duet, the latter’s extra chest resonance supplying a touch of machismo.

Another mainstay is James Rutherford’s avuncular Forester, underpinning the link with the animal kingdom, a true countryman. Suitably disgruntled as his drinking companions are Paul Nilon’s rueful Schoolmaster and Henry Waddington’s maudlin Parson, each finely drawn.

Callum Thorpe’s vagabond poacher Harašta always carries menace. He freezes in his stance for some time after shooting Vixen, diluting the shock of the event but also allowing pause for thought about man’s treatment of nature; a key moment.

Further cruelty is handled with similar finesse. As Vixen slaughters the cock and five hens – a gleeful ensemble – each throws out red feathers as they collapse. It is no joke, of course, but is made to seem so.

Children people this show as to the manner born, none more so than the squirrels with their parasols and the ten fox-cubs, all the spitting image of their mother. Special praise, too, for the supple dancing of the Dragonfly (Stefanos Dimoulas) and the Spirit of the Vixen (Lucy Burns), as eloquent as the music.

None of these pleasures would have been possible without a conductor alive to the score’s many nuances: Andrew Gourlay is in complete command. An evening as thought-provoking as it is enchanting.

Further performances of The Cunning Little Vixen: Leeds Grand Theatre, February 23, 7pm, March 3, 7pm, and March 4, 2.30pm. Box office: 0113 243 0808 or leedsheritagetheatres.com. On tour to Salford, Nottingham, Newcastle and Hull (New Theatre, March 29, school matinee, 1pm; March 31, 7pm; hulltheatres.co.uk).

Mini Vixen, a shortened family entertainment with three singers, a violinist and an accordionist will be performed at National Centre for Early Music, Walmgate, York, on February 26, 11.30am and 1.30pm. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.

Review by Martin Dreyer

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on Opera North’s Tosca, Leeds Grand Theatre

Opera North beneath Tim Scutt’s cupola in Tosca. All pictures: James Glossop

Opera North in Tosca, Leeds Grand Theatre; further performances on January 28, 2.30pm; February 3, 22, 25 and 28 and March 2, 7.30pm. Box office:  0113 243 0808 or leedsheritagetheatres.com. On tour to Salford, Nottingham, Newcastle and Hull until April 1; more details at operanorth.co.uk.

EDWARD Dick’s updated production of Tosca has returned to Leeds after four and a half years and under his continued aegis on the surface not much has changed.

Still with us, remarkably, is Robert Hayward, who has held onto the role of Scarpia since Christopher Alden’s 2002 production. Giselle Allen is back in the title role. Those two alone are surely enough to bring Yorkshire audiences back in droves. Both have been stalwarts in Leeds for at least two decades, virtually company principals throughout that time.

Otherwise, interest centres on the British debut of Ukrainian tenor Mykhailo Malafii – in fact he had never set foot on these shores until the rehearsals – and the conducting of new music director Garry Walker, taking over from the (now) principal guest conductor Antony Hermus. This quartet makes a tasty combination of the tried and tested on the one hand with innovation on the other.

So, this is no mere rehash. Quite the contrary. From the moment that Callum Thorpe’s lithe Angelotti shins down the rope from Tom Scutt’s central cupola there is the excitement of fear in the air, although it is balanced by Matthew Stiff’s amusingly bumbling Sacristan and Malafii’s smiling Cavaradossi, who seems not to have a care in the world.

Giselle Allen as Tosca and Robert Hayward as Scarpia in Opera North’s Tosca

When the net tightens, the contrast is heightened. We are reminded that Scarpia is not universally despised when the priest at the close of a rousing Te Deum appears to bless him (echoes of Patriarch Kirill’s espousal of Vladimir Putin). More importantly, Tosca and Cavaradossi establish the warmth of their love in their brief rendezvous.

But Act 2 is the real clincher. The scope of Allen’s soprano is breath-taking, thrillingly determined at the top, a chesty growl of revulsion at the bottom. She has surely never sung better. As she and Hayward chased each other over and around Scarpia’s bed – his “office” in every sense – we were on the edge of our seats. This was for real.

Hayward has refined his Scarpia from a straightforward monster into something more nuanced and sinister, a wily pervert. When he wipes a tear from Allen’s cheek with his finger, it is virtually an act of abuse.

He leaves no doubt of his intentions by pleasuring himself against a bedpost. But his baritone tells us that although his lust is up, so is his anger. This is more than menace; it is hell-bent lechery. His death is horrendously gory. When his body twitched just before the curtain, the person in the next seat almost jumped out of their seat.

Bar sales undoubtedly soared in the interval as nerves were soothed. There are not the same shocks in Act 3 although Tosca’s fall backwards through the cupola, now on its side, is hair-raising enough. By now, Malafii’s tenor has reached full flow. His Act 1 sound was dry and quite tight, but as relaxation kicked in his tone warmed and resonated more broadly.

Mykhailo Malafii, in his British debut, as Cavaradossi and Giselle Allen as Tosca

As the run progresses the stars in ‘E lucevan le stelle’ will doubtless glow more brightly. Alex Banfield is a lightweight Spoletta, more PA than gangster, but Richard Mosley-Evans’s thuggish Sciarrone compensates. Bella Blood (double-cast with Hattie Cobb) is a sweet-toned Shepherd Boy. The modern tech paraphernalia of mobiles and laptops only serves to underline that there are plenty of despots still around.

In the overall analysis, Garry Walker’s orchestra is a character in its own right and pulls no punches. The horns, deprived by retirement of their legendary principal Robert Ashworth, are still right on the button at the start of Act 3; the brass in general are fiercely edgy. One can only admire the way Walker’s orchestral punctuation, especially in Act 1, is so tautly disciplined.

In last November’s round of Arts Council England grants, Opera North was “awarded” a stand-still £10.677 million per annum until 2026, effectively a serious cut. Amid the general whingeing in the British operatic world, Opera North has remained silent and simply got on with it. It’s called Yorkshire grit (as a transplanted southerner I can afford to say that). The proof of the pudding is a Tosca that any company would have been proud to mount.

Review by Martin Dreyer

Opera North’s Tosca plays Hull New Theatre on March 30 and April 1, 7pm. Box office: 01482 300306 or hulltheatres.co.uk.

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on Opera North’s La Traviata, Leeds Grand Theatre

Nico Darmanin’s Alfredo Germont and Alison Langer’s Violetta Valéry in Opera North’s La Traviata. Picture: Richard H Smith

ALESSANDRO Talevi’s production, first seen in September 2014, returned without any revival director, so we must assume that he took full responsibility for any shortcomings that remained.

To enable the maximum number of performances, the three principals were double-cast, as were the conductors.

We were spared the bacilli behind the all-seeing eye that dogged Violetta’s every move – it began as a moon – but the slow handclap from masked males behind a screen at her death was still there, as tasteless and inexplicable as ever. Was this supposed to be a judgment on the courtesan and her trade or misogyny pure and simple? The Carmen charade at Flora’s party also stayed in, complete with explanatory signs.

Alison Langer as Violetta Valéry, centre, with the Chorus of Opera North © Richard H Smith

Fortunately, there were musical compensations, not least in the Violetta Valéry of Alison Langer. Her quiet organisation of her Act 1 double aria seemed to emanate from a singer of much wider experience: her coloratura was calmly controlled and her phrasing succulently spacious, where others so often seem anxious to get it out of the way.

She also looked young enough for the role – a rarity in itself – with a touch of frailty that was engaging. On this showing, she is at the start of something really big. Certainly she looks and sounds ready for it.

Nico Darmanin was a diffident Alfredo Germont at the start, almost as if embarrassed by his affair. His tone was also pinched. To give him the benefit of the doubt, it is possible that Talevi saw him as an angry young man in the lead-up to throwing his winnings at Violetta. But we saw the real Darmanin – and Alfredo – in Act 3 when he sounded altogether more relaxed. We needed more of this resonance earlier on.

“On this showing, Alison Langer is at the start of something really big. Certainly she looks and sounds ready for it,” predicts reviewer Martin Dreyer

Damiano Salerno, like Darmanin making his company debut, is an experienced Verdian and brought a certain finesse to his Giorgio. But there was a sense in which he was holding back, that there was more to give.

The conductor for this threesome was Jonathan Webb, certainly a safe pair of hands and ever conscious of balance. The climax of Violetta’s duet with Giorgio in Act 2 needed better preparation and for once he might have let the orchestra off the leash a little. A little untidiness in the cause of bravura is excusable.

The minor aristocrats were given plenty of vim, and there were distinctive contributions from Amy J Payne’s Annina and Victoria Sharp’s Flora. For the record, the other team of principals were Máire Flavin as Violetta, Oliver Johnston as Alfredo and Stephen Gadd as his father, with Manoj Kamps taking the baton.

Review by Martin Dreyer

Further performances on tour in Newcastle, Nottingham and Salford until November 17

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on Opera North and South Asian Arts in Orpheus, Leeds Grand Theatre

Nicholas Watts’s Orpheus and Ashnaa Sasikaran’s Eurydice. Picture: Tom Arber

OPERA North originally billed this collaboration as ‘Monteverdi reimagined’. In the absence of much explanation, our own imaginations were allowed to run wild with fears of an East-West confrontation, with Monteverdi’s magic – as near as we regularly get to the fountainhead of opera, after all – irreparably diluted and the Orpheus myth literally shot to hell.

That was the gamble these companies undertook. A brief press release sent to all punters more recently looked like special pleading. One feared the worst. The reality is much different.

For seekers after truth – as we all must be when we undertake to see a new production – there turn out to be many pleasing parallels between music of the Baroque and that of the sub-continent.

It is often forgotten that Venice sits handily at the crossroads of ancient trade routes between East and West. Modal systems of music, typified by Gregorian chant, were another obvious link between the two, surviving as they do in Indian raga procedures, even if some have been gradually ironed away in western tonal patterns.

As Neil Sorrell points out in an exceptionally penetrating programme note, the voice was central to Monteverdi’s musical imagination and remains so in Indian music. Indian players routinely expect to be able to reproduce vocally what they express through their instruments.

To that extent, western musical education has been straitjacketed, not least in the dichotomy between ‘classical’ and ‘pop’, the partial result of the separation of vocal and instrumental musics. For a full rapprochement, perhaps we in the West need to broaden our approach.

Composer, sitar player and OPera North artist-in-residence Jasdeep Singh Degun. Picture: Justin Slee

This production, which has been several years in the making and delayed by Covid, forcefully reminds us of these parallels. Its moving spirit as composer – apart from Monteverdi – is Jasdeep Singh Degun, who worked in close co-operation with Baroque ace Laurence Cummings.

Singh Degun’s work adds almost an hour to Monteverdi, although the result morphs seamlessly between the two. He allows the various Indian singers to use their own languages so that we have eight, Hindu and Urdu foremost among them, jostling alongside Striggio’s Italian. All are helpfully side-titled.

The staging is in the hands of Anna Himali Howard, whose task is undoubtedly lightened by having Leslie Travers as her set and costume designer. Together they work out a way of connecting the real world with the underworld, the living with the dead.

The professed aim of their co-production is to move from a celebration of love through the darkness of grief-laden despair to the eventual rekindling of hope.

Nothing particularly unusual there, you may suppose, except that their true goal is to communicate the universality of the Orpheus myth via musical means far more wide-ranging than Monteverdi ever could have envisaged.

Travers’s set is the back garden of a semi-detached suburban house, with all the instruments arranged down the sides of a ‘V’ which opens embracingly towards the audience. So Cummings’ harpsichord rubs shoulders with Singh Degun’s sitar, Kirpal Singh Panesar’s bowed esraj with Emilia Benjamin’s lirone, while Céline Saout doubleson harp and the zither-like swarmandal and Vijay Venkat covers no less than five instruments from both camps.

Kaviraj Singh: Plays in the orchestra and takes the role of the resolute Caronte in Orpheus. Picture: Tom Arber

There are 19 players in all. From a western standpoint, the juxtaposition of instruments is undeniably exotic, adding a magical, other-worldly aroma, while the extraordinary Indian percussion supplies positively addictive momentum.

In the first half (Acts 1 & 2), the garden is the venue for the wedding of Nicholas Watts’s Orpheus and Ashnaa Sasikaran’s Eurydice, with friends and relatives happily congregating with candles and balloons. Their joy is cut tragically short with the arrival of Kezia Bienek’s Silvia, carrying Eurydice’s red and gold sari, signifying her demise.

After the interval, the sky is black, the buildings expunged and the profuse flowers (‘head gardener’ Ali Allen) disappears, resurfacing only when Orpheus returns home as the Apollo of Singh Panesar offers spiritual relief from his pain.

The earlier guests have become spirits in the underworld, which adds a touch of the uncanny. Choral traditions are slight in India, but all the voices meld well, and the differing solo vocal ornamentations sound complementary rather than antagonistic, implying compromise on both sides.

Watts began nervously but gradually blossomed on opening night until reaching a peak of emotional resonance in ‘Possente spirto’; Sasikaran makes a charming, gentle Eurydice. Bienek is a forthright Silvia and Chandra Chakraborty a lively Proserpina. Kaviraj Singh offers a resolute Caronte and Singh Panesar an equally persuasive Apollo; significantly, both also play in the orchestra. Dean Robinson’s Pluto strikes the right conciliatory note.

Just about the only mild disappointment is the dancing, which is largely circular and rudimentary. But overall, this is a happy conjunction of two powerful traditions, a cross-fertilisation that promises further musical riches.

Review by Martin Dreyer

Further performances on tour in Newcastle, Nottingham and Salford until November 19.

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on Parsifal, Opera North, Leeds Grand Theatre, June 1

Katarina Karnéus as Kundry and Toby Spence as Parsifal in Opera North’s Parsifal. All pictures: Clive Barda

THERE is a point in Act 2 of Parsifal where Kundry, having failed to seduce Parsifal with her kiss and describing her reaction to witnessing the Crucifixion, lets out a blood-curdling ‘lachte’, attacking a high B natural and descending nearly two octaves to a low C sharp: she laughed.

Anyone not expecting it must have jumped out of their skin when Katarina Karnéus delivered it here. This spine-chilling moment, mentioned in his Parsifalkreuz by Wieland Wagner and helpfully recalled in a programme note by Neil Sorrell, is pivotal to understanding Kundry and thus to the success of the whole opera.

The scream revealed the anger, the anguish, the remorse, the manic personality of one who is not easy to read. But for all her faults, she has set Parsifal on the path to enlightenment: he is forced to shed his innocence, like Adam in the Garden of Eden. He begins to suffer – like Christ – and views the world differently, as does Kundry when baptised by him in Act 3.

Robert Hayward as Amfortas: “Sustained an admirably full-blooded howl but could have afforded to tone down the self-pity”

Since the whole work is a Bühnenweihfestspiel (stage festival consecration play), we are forced to take on board its religious significance: the very act of consecration implies holiness. It spoke well for Sam Brown’s production that these ideas came through so clearly.

Brown was working with a number of constraints, not least that the augmented orchestra was taking up most of the stage. This was partly overcome through a lower extension of the stage over part of the orchestra pit. But it still left precious little space for the principals.

The chorus appeared either ranged around the back of the stalls, as in Act 1, or on the extension, which allowed the knights to line up three-deep but forced the ladies into the upper stage boxes.

Toby Spence as Parsifal with the Orchestra and members of the Chorus of Opera North

Less easy to accommodate from an audience perspective was Bengt Gomér’s dark lighting, particularly the multiple small spots twinkling almost incessantly behind the orchestra. They cast the conductor into silhouette and when fully lit, as at the uncovering of the Grail on a rostrum downstage, shone straight into our eyes. They were a distraction, not to say a discomfort, whether deliberate or no.

There was no set to speak of, but Klingsor’s spear was lowered on a suspended platform, which reappeared later as Titurel’s bier, a good space-saving device.

Nevertheless, having Richard Farnes’s orchestra in full view was an inestimable benefit. His dozen years as music director here, which culminated in a full Ring cycle in 2016, meant he had no need to cajole his players; they followed him with near-religious devotion.

Opera North music director Richard Farnes : “No need to cajole his players; they followed him with near-religious devotion”

Textures were everywhere transparent, none more so than in the Good Friday music. There was a masterly crescendo at the healing of Amfortas’s wound, but it was the moments of calm, with magical swells and diminuendos, that really hit home. Farnes’s attention to detail was immaculate, each occurrence of the ‘Dresden Amen’, for example, seeming to carry slightly different significance.

Toby Spence made a powerful debut in the title role. His youthful features made his journey from innocence through trial to enlightenment all the more credible. He was a naïve, headstrong youth at the start, moving jerkily, but assumed a more adult poise after learning of his mother’s death when “confession turns guilt to remorse”.

Having sought solace with his head in Kundry’s lap, his now-pungent tone took on greater resonance. As he relaxes into the role, he may have yet more to give, but needed no more in this arena.

Brindley Sherratt as Gurnemanz and Toby Spence as Parsifal. “Sherratt’s German diction was faultless, matched by musicality that kept his narrative absorbing”

He had been set a frankly superb example by Brindley Sherratt’s Gurnemanz, whose German diction was faultless, matched by musicality that kept his narrative absorbing. Returning much aged in Act 3, his avuncular tone inspired renewed confidence.

Karnéus adapted fluently to the many facets of Kundry’s mysterious character, making her something close to sympathetic, even seeming relevant when having little to do in Act 3.

Derek Welton’s incisive baritone spat menace as Klingsor, looking devilish in wide slashes of red and grey, courtesy of Stephen Rodwell’s costuming. Robert Hayward’s wounded Amfortas sustained an admirably full-blooded howl but could have afforded to tone down the self-pity; Stephen Richardson fashioned a suitably hoary Titurel.

Toby Spence as Parsifal: “A powerful debut in the title role”

The six Flowermaidens were an oasis of pure delight, as if parachuted in from Gilbert & Sullivan. The chorus was typically forthright, taking every opportunity on offer and sustaining a keen blend.

The touring dates were due to be concert stagings. It was hard to imagine that this marginally reduced format, so successful in the company’s previous Wagner outings, would be any less gripping.

Review by Martin Dreyer

Further performance at Leeds Grand Theatre on June 10, 4pm, then on tour from June 12 to 26. Running time: Five hours 30 minutes, including two intervals. Full details at: operanorth.co.uk.

Robert Hayward’s Amfortas with the men of the Chorus of Opera North and the Orchestra of Opera North. “Augmented orchestra took up most of the stage. This was partly overcome through a lower extension of the stage over part of the orchestra pit”

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on Opera North’s Alcina, Leeds Grand Theatre

Máire Flavin as Alcina in Opera North’s production of Alcina at Leeds Grand Theatre. Picture: James Glossop

Opera North in Alcina, Leeds Grand Theatre, further performances tonight and Thursday, 7pm, then on tour until March 24. Leeds box office: operanorth.co.uk/whats-on/alcina. Also live-streamed on www.operavision.eu

HANDEL’S operatic audiences must have had stamina. Alcina, his most popular success at the box-office, clocks in at over three and a half hours, when given complete.

Nowadays we seem unable to treat Handel’s operas with the same reverence we extend to the parts of Wagner’s Ring, by giving them in full. Hence in Tim Albery’s new production – Opera North’s first attempt at Alcina – the dance music is omitted and the role of Oberto excised altogether. Both contain some top-class Handel.

Covid constraints are doubtless to blame, although not for the conversion of Melisso from bass to mezzo – henceforward Melissa – on the grounds that this was how she originally appeared in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, two removes distant from the anonymous libretto Handel actually preferred.

Other considerations apart, the presence of a bass helps to provide a better balance between upper and lower voices.

There was one other constraint. The general manager was at pains to point out in his introductory note that this was the company’s first sustainable production, en route to full Carbon Neutrality (his capitals) by 2030. This was not so much virtue-signalling as a smokescreen smudging the reality that décor and costumes would be ultra-low budget.

So Alcina’s island was experienced only via a video cooked up by Ian William Galloway. It mainly provided a jungle backdrop to the ten armchairs that were virtually the only props in Hannah Clark’s set, barring a bear rug that Alcina briefly ‘wore’, as if joining the ex-suitors she had turned into animals.

That was virtually the only magic on display. There was no sign of her palace. Clark’s costumes, recycled of course, were more appropriate to a 1950s’ nightclub than a desert island, a deliberate excursion into vintage. All of which suited the budget and was doubtless easy to believe if you had worked through it in rehearsal, less credible for someone encountering Alcina for the first time.

These reservations apart, Albery’s particular achievement is to fill the arias with plenty of action, even bringing on stage characters who are merely in the minds of the singers rather than intended to be present. So, there is never a dull moment.

Máire Flavin’s handling of the title role is a work in progress and promises much. But at the moment she has not quite assumed its full potential. The notes are all there and she looks determined enough, but there is not much emotion behind them and her affair with Ruggiero is short of electricity.

Her Act 2 scena, where she fights conflicting emotions, carries theatrical conviction but not the musical punch to match.

Ruggiero is played by the American countertenor Patrick Terry, making his company debut. His best effort is his departure aria, ‘Verdi prati’, where he relaxes into its cantabile line. Elsewhere, there are too many occasions where he tries to produce more sound than suits his voice and pushes himself out of tune. He is persuasive as Alcina’s puppy-dog, but less so thereafter.

The Norwegian mezzo Mari Askvik, another company debutant, delivers the purest Handelian style as Bradamente, the fiancée of Ruggiero who spends much of the show disguised as her brother. Her height and blonde bob reinforce this impression and her coloratura is splendidly clean.

Fflur Wyn is marvellously fiery as Morgana, Alcina’s sister, and tears into her big aria, ‘Tornami a vagheggiar’, with relish. Her on-off affair with Oronte, sung by tenor Nick Pritchard, is the crowning glory of Act 2, underlining what we have been missing from the other principals. Pritchard matches her fervour to a tee. Claire Pascoe makes the most of the shadowy role of Melissa, another enchantress.

Laurence Cummings is stylish in his conducting of a slightly thinned-down orchestra from the harpsichord, with two theorbos adding extra spice. This is a show that will probably mature as the run progresses, but presently does not compensate for its lack of magic.

Review by Martin Dreyer

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on Opera North’s Rigoletto, Leeds Grand Theatre

Sir Willard White as Monterone in Rigoletto, his first Opera North role since 1984. Picture: Clive Barda

EXPECTATION ran high in advance of this new Rigoletto from theatre director Femi Elufowoju Jr, not least because it marked his first venture into the world of opera.

Opera North’s last skirmish with Giuseppe Verdi’s piece was a grubby gangland affair in 2007 that eliminated aristocratic titles along with Giovanna. This time, according to an interview in the programme, the setting was present-day ‘Mantua, UK’, adding racism to the work’s already heavy load of problems in society.

There was absolutely nothing wrong in choosing black singers for all the “outsider” roles, headed by Rigoletto, Gilda and Count Monterone, and including Countess Ceprano and Marullo, but it became a dodgy move.

During the prelude, we saw Rigoletto being primped in a dressing-room, for what seemed like a play within a play; there was a purfling of lighting round the proscenium. Attendees at the Duke’s orgy were a scruffy lot, mainly in everyday clothes, with men in paint-splattered overalls as if they had accidentally strayed in from backstage workshops. So far, so egalitarian.

Rigoletto’s moanings about his deformity (supposedly a hunchback) fell on deaf ears: here was the tallest man in the cast, a striking figure, standing tall, albeit occasionally writhing and twitching as if having an epileptic fit.

Sharp-eyed programme-readers might have gleaned that his was mental disfigurement caused by Monterone’s curse – hard to believe. To everyone else, it looked dangerously as if skin colour was the cause of the scorn he endured, quite the opposite of the intended effect. In any case, directors should not rely on programme notes to explain what they put on stage.

Jasmine Habersham as Gilda and Eric Greene as Rigoletto. Picture: Clive Barda

There were further difficulties. The whole kidnapping episode had an aura of farce. The (mainly white) thugs were far from menacing in their vermillion onesies, brandishing electric torches in synchronisation like Keystone Cops.

Retreating, they reappeared in Coco the Clown masks. It was hard to tell whether they were intended to be figures of fun or if this was simply a directorial misjudgement. Either way, it had little to do with Verdi, still less his librettist Piave.

Gilda had to be clumsily kidnapped from astride the life-size zebra in her bedroom (her menagerie also included a toucan). Like the duke’s palace, it was gaudily decorated in red and gold designs by Rae Smith more redolent of Bollywood than Brentwood.

Rigoletto’s arrest by two heavily-armed British constables was doubtless intended to evoke the law’s use of excessive force based on colour. Uncomfortable, of course – but also irrelevant here. Indeed, so many superimposed details seemed to cloud the director’s intentions.

Eric Greene carried the title role with surprising grace, given the wide spectrum of attitudes he was supposed to strike. In mid-range, his baritone was flexible and clean, less so higher up where his focus was more diffuse.

His duet with Gilda was touching. She was Jasmine Habersham, who made a virtue of her light soprano in a poignant, delicately ornamented ‘Caro nome’. She also looked every bit the ingénue, kept apart and therefore out of her depth, even if she needed to soar more in ensemble.

Alyona Abramova as Maddalena in Opera North’s Rigoletto. Picture: Clive Barda

Roman Arndt’s self-regarding Duke seemed bent on Italianate tone at all costs, attractive enough but also mannered. Sir Willard White, returning to Leeds for the first time since 1984, injected authority as a stentorian Monterone. Callum Thorpe’s tattooed Sparafucile looked and sounded ruthless, pleasingly complemented by Alyona Abramova’s statuesque Maddalena.

They were certainly masters of the squalid landscape of Act III, with its corpse of a car, assorted detritus and shadowy lighting (Howard Hudson), a stylistic improvement on the tasteless décor earlier.

Despite the upheavals on stage, Garry Walker maintained a cool head and a decisive beat in the pit, and his orchestra reacted with discipline and confidence; the chorus was typically ebullient, if not quite as taut an ensemble as the orchestra.

But sight and sound were rarely synchronised: the director might have paid more attention to what is actually in the score. Opera audiences enjoy and understand history, even – given the chance – that of 16th century Mantua. They do not react well to having modern precepts constantly forced down their throats, especially when these have little or nothing to do with the original opera.

We still await the arrival of a director with the courage to be traditional in this work.

Martin Dreyer

Further performances: January 29, February 4, 11 and 19, then on tour until April 1. Box office: operanorth.co.uk

Zebra crossing stage: part of a Rae Smith design landscape “more redolent of Bollywood than Brentwood”. Picture: Clive Barda
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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on Opera North and Phoenix Dance Theatre, Bernstein Double Bill, Leeds Grand Theatre

Sandra Piques Eddy: “Brings a nimble soprano to Dinah in Trouble In Tahiti”. Picture: Richard H Smith

LEONARD Bernstein’s music is always dance-infused and largely dance-inspired, as we are powerfully reminded by this double bill of Trouble In Tahiti coupled with the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.

Bridging the two is ten minutes of poetry with percussion, in Halfway And Beyond, written and recited by Khadijah Ibrahiim. All of which offered the perfect opportunity for Opera North to rekindle its relationship with fellow Leeds company Phoenix Dance Theatre.

 Matthew Eberhardt’s production of Tahiti, revived from 2017, keeps everything neatly in period – 1950s’ American suburbia – with Charles Edwards’s revolving sets replete with billboard life-style ads, complemented by the period outfits by Hannah Clark.

The relentless jocularity of the smooth ‘Greek chorus’ Trio of Laura Kelly-McInroy, Joseph Shovelton and Nicholas Butterfield, with their close-harmony advertising-style jingles, contrasts pungently with Sam and Dinah’s humourless marriage and failure to identify with son Junior.

Their American dream – all the latest household gadgets topped off with chlorophyll toothpaste – is turning sour. Sam may even be tempted to stray at work, with Kelly-McInroy quite the frisky secretary.

Quirijn de Lang’s clean, macho baritone neatly fits the slick all-American guy whose life is bound up with muscle-building and making deals. Sandra Piques Eddy brings a nimble soprano to Dinah, wondering why her perfect lifestyle is letting her down even as she yearns for the Technicolor escapism of the title film.

Quirijn de Lang as Sam and Sandra Piques Eddy as Dinah in Trouble In Tahiti. Picture: Richard H Smith

While Island Magic has all the fizz you would expect, it is her wistful There Is A Garden that really touches the heart. Anthony Hermus conducts with boundless energy but finds touches of nostalgia when needed.

Ibrahiim’s poem deals with belonging and alienation and gains a cutting edge from the accompanying percussion, which is spare but telling. Its topic makes an ideal transition between the opera and the dance; it also offers Phoenix Dance a good opportunity to warm up.

Bernstein’s nine Symphonic Dances are keenly reinterpreted in the choreography of Dane Hurst, who brings his own South African experience of apartheid to bear on the original Jerome Robbins dance style, all wide stances and swaying torsos.

The athleticism is breath-taking, but the passion and poignancy of conflict, Jets against Sharks in West Side Story, has fiery depth. The 11 dancers of Phoenix deliver stunning ensemble, which must owe a good deal to the orchestra’s innate feel for the music’s tortuous rhythms: Hermus’s enthusiasm shines through.

Now that the two companies are back together, let us hope to see something of these dancers in a full-length opera. That would really be something.

Now on tour to Newcastle, Salford and Nottingham until November 20.

Review by Martin Dreyer