December 7, 2006
‘featuring a magnificent golden eagle with a seven-foot wingspan’
‘hot-blooded … with a majestic white Andalucian stallion’
‘featuring colour street entertainers’
‘with antique wedding kimonos from Japan’
Ellen Kent’s opera productions have a very distinct flavour, evident not least in their eye-catching marketing slogans (see above). Musical or aesthetic purists may wince at the thought, but her aim is to entertain and to make money: ‘Oh! the dumbing down, the crass commercialisation in the 21st century, so unlike the noble and elevated aims of earlier ages…’ Well, let them wince in their supercilious and uninformed way (and a silly few were doing just that at Oxford’s New Theatre last night). Opera, the most expensive art-form after cinema, has always been a mercenary business. Where successful it has followed the simple precepts of maximising income and minimising costs. Modern opera houses have been led astray when the sources of income – audiences, sponsor and public grants – have irreconcilable demands, and when a managerial desire to control costs is mugged by the institutional desire to persist and grow. So three cheers to Ellen Kent and her bemedalled crusade to return opera to its roots: entertainment and solvency.
‘spectacular, traditional and lavish’
‘hilarious and fast moving’
‘with champagne fountains’
Der Fledermaus is an operetta whose characters prize nothing greater than champagne-fuelled social merriment. The programme-notes helpfully emphasise how closely it reflects late 19th-century Viennese society, but the opera is also the perfect fit for Ellen Kent and her troupe, the Chisinau National Opera. The music is barely more than a parade of show-stopping waltzes (each of which received enthusiastic applause), the plot barrels along so fast that the players have to resort to spoken dialogue to keep up, the humour is undemanding and unflagging, and there is no deeper emotional angst than the characters’ realization that they’ve drunk Prince Orlovsky’s cellar dry (fortunately the prison is open 24hrs a day, and has a plentiful supply to keep them going).
The actors clearly had a ball hamming up their parts and adding broad physical comedy in the best music hall / G&S traditions. The libretto translation was taut, but retained an improvisational quality in many of the spoken exchanges, while the unsteady accents happily fitted the plot’s Slavic locale and characters’ play-acting. The lead singers (notable Rosalinde Eisenstein [Irina], Gabriel Eisenstein [Ruslan Zinevuch] and Zarui Vadanean [Orlovsky]) were excellent, carrying effortlessly over Strauss’ spare orchestration, although some of the minor characters had trouble holding their own. The orchestra followed the conductor by and large and played with great conviction. The direction, sets, choreography and costumes all spoke of one aim: ‘look as though you’re enjoying yourself’, and – as the champagne fountains flowed, the bubbles and confetti floated down and the characters waltzed the night away – so did we.
‘hot-blooded … with a majestic white Andalucian stallion’
‘featuring colour street entertainers’
‘with antique wedding kimonos from Japan’
Ellen Kent’s opera productions have a very distinct flavour, evident not least in their eye-catching marketing slogans (see above). Musical or aesthetic purists may wince at the thought, but her aim is to entertain and to make money: ‘Oh! the dumbing down, the crass commercialisation in the 21st century, so unlike the noble and elevated aims of earlier ages…’ Well, let them wince in their supercilious and uninformed way (and a silly few were doing just that at Oxford’s New Theatre last night). Opera, the most expensive art-form after cinema, has always been a mercenary business. Where successful it has followed the simple precepts of maximising income and minimising costs. Modern opera houses have been led astray when the sources of income – audiences, sponsor and public grants – have irreconcilable demands, and when a managerial desire to control costs is mugged by the institutional desire to persist and grow. So three cheers to Ellen Kent and her bemedalled crusade to return opera to its roots: entertainment and solvency.
‘spectacular, traditional and lavish’
‘hilarious and fast moving’
‘with champagne fountains’
Der Fledermaus is an operetta whose characters prize nothing greater than champagne-fuelled social merriment. The programme-notes helpfully emphasise how closely it reflects late 19th-century Viennese society, but the opera is also the perfect fit for Ellen Kent and her troupe, the Chisinau National Opera. The music is barely more than a parade of show-stopping waltzes (each of which received enthusiastic applause), the plot barrels along so fast that the players have to resort to spoken dialogue to keep up, the humour is undemanding and unflagging, and there is no deeper emotional angst than the characters’ realization that they’ve drunk Prince Orlovsky’s cellar dry (fortunately the prison is open 24hrs a day, and has a plentiful supply to keep them going).
The actors clearly had a ball hamming up their parts and adding broad physical comedy in the best music hall / G&S traditions. The libretto translation was taut, but retained an improvisational quality in many of the spoken exchanges, while the unsteady accents happily fitted the plot’s Slavic locale and characters’ play-acting. The lead singers (notable Rosalinde Eisenstein [Irina], Gabriel Eisenstein [Ruslan Zinevuch] and Zarui Vadanean [Orlovsky]) were excellent, carrying effortlessly over Strauss’ spare orchestration, although some of the minor characters had trouble holding their own. The orchestra followed the conductor by and large and played with great conviction. The direction, sets, choreography and costumes all spoke of one aim: ‘look as though you’re enjoying yourself’, and – as the champagne fountains flowed, the bubbles and confetti floated down and the characters waltzed the night away – so did we.