Warmth and humanity: British Youth Opera celebrates its 35th anniversary with Vaughan Williams' Sir John in Love

Vaughan Williams: Sir John in Love - Nancy Holt, Alexandria Moon, Jacob Bettinelli, Jack Holton & ensemble - British Youth Opera (Photo Alastair Muir)

Ralph Vaughan Williams: Sir John in Love; director Harry Fehr, Southbank Sinfonia, conductor Marit Strindlund; British Youth Opera at Opera Holland Park
Reviewed 24 August 2022

RVW's Shakespearean opera gets an anniversary staging in a engaging performance bringing out the work's lovely sense of warmth and humanity 

Vaughan Williams' 150th anniversary has not brought out productions of his operas at major UK opera companies, despite both ENO and Covent Garden having performed RVW's operas within the last 20 years or so. So, it is very heartening that British Youth Opera (celebrating its own 35th anniversary) chose RVW's Sir John in Love for its Summer production this year. 

Vaughan Williams: Sir John in Love - Johannes Moore
British Youth Opera (Photo Alastair Muir)

Sir John in Love has a rather patchy performance history, written in 1928 it was premiered by the Royal College of Music in 1929, it had to wait until 1948 for a professional production. Sadler's Wells Opera performed it in 1958, and then it had to wait until 2006 for another professional outing in the UK, when ENO presented its production. The work has always had rather more student than professional productions. Partly, this is RVW's own fault, the work has a whopping 20 named singing roles which is double the cast of Verdi's Falstaff. 

British Youth Opera's production of RVW's Sir John in Love opened at Opera Holland Park on 24 August 2022. The production was directed by Harry Fehr, with Marit Strindlund (herself a BYO alumna) directing the Southbank Sinfonia, designs were by Nate Gibson and lighting by Chuma Emembolu. 

We saw the first of two casts (and admirably there was a cover cast too), with Johannes Moore as Falstaff, Armand Rabot as Pistol, Phillip Costovski as Bardolph, Grace Marie Wyatt as Anne Page, Eva Gheorghiu as Mistress Page, Jack Holton as Page, Lexie Moon as Mistress Ford, Jacob Bettinelli as Ford, Nancy Holt as Mistress Quickly, Steven van der Linden as Fenton, Joshua Saunders as Shallow, James Micklethwaite as Slender, Matthew Bawden as Simple, Justin Jacobs as Dr Caius, Emyr Jones as Sir Hugh Evans, Toki Hamano as Nym, Edward Kim as Rugby, Patrick Owston as the Host of the Garter Inn.

RVW's own libretto stays far closer to the play than does that of Boito for Verdi, though RVW introduces other poets to provide arias and ensembles, pause points in the mad gambol of plot. He also uses a large amount of folk-song, deliberately so, and whilst the orchestral accompaniment incorporates folk tunes, a lot of the folk material is diegetic; RVW's creates opportunities for the characters to sing the songs themselves. The work has no recitative as such, the dialogue flows as a sort of continuous orchestral accompanied arioso, and the orchestra is important as partner as well as accompanist. This can create challenges for a younger cast, there is a lot going on in the orchestra, but there are rich musical rewards. And the moments when things pause, when RVW introduced extra material are often completely magical.

Fehr and Gibson took advantage of Opera Holland Park's wide stage to present the three sets for all scenes in the first two acts, with the Ford's house at the centre. Scene changes (which are accompanied by orchestral interludes in the score) were effected by the entire cast moving the props so that the centre of the stage was always the scene being played out, but the other two might still have background action going on, thus giving us an idea of the continuing life of Windsor town. 

Making the most of opportunity: a brilliant young cast in Rossini's early farsa with British Youth Opera

Rossini: L’occasione fa il ladro - Laura Fleur, Patrick Alexander Keefe,Sam Harris, Helen Francis Corlett - British Youth Opera

Rossini L’occasione fa il ladro; Aimée Fisk, Laura Fleur, Brenton Spiteri, Sam Harris, Patrick Alexander Keefe, Joe Chalmer, dir: Victoria Newlyn, Southbank Sinfonia, cond: Peter Robinson; British Youth Opera at Opera Holland Park
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 13 August 2021
An evening which mixed light-hearted intent with taking Rossini's music seriously, to brilliant effect from a vibrant young cast

Rossini's opera L’occasione fa il ladro, ossia Il cambio della valigia (literally 'Opportunity Makes a Thief, or The Exchanged Suitcase' but memorably translated by Opera North in 2004 as 'Love's Luggage Lost') is a one-act burletta per musica or farsa which premiered in 1812 at the Teatro San Moisè, Venice (founded in 1620 and where a number of operas by Cavalli, Vivaldi and Galuppi premiered), one of five such one-act comedies that the young Rossini (he was just 20 at the time of the opera's premiere) wrote for the theatre. Based on an 1810  vaudeville by Eugène Scribe (who became a notable opera librettist in the 1820s), the opera was one of the most popular of Rossini's operas during his lifetime.

 

It is an engaging piece of fluff, yet like the best comedies requires to be taken seriously as does Rossini's vocal writing, which takes no prisoners. This isn't the first time that British Youth Opera has turned to Rossini's farse for repertoire (in 2009 they did a double-bill of Il signor Bruschino and La scala di Seta which featured Thomas Herford, Michel de Souza, Peter Brathwaite and Hanna Hipp), and for their Summer 2021 season at Opera Holland Park they paired it with their production of Hansel & Gretel [see my review].

Directed by Victoria Newlyn and conducted by Peter Robinson with Southbank Sinfonia, British Youth Opera presented Rossini's L’occasione fa il ladro at Opera Holland Park. We caught the first night of the blue cast on 13 August 2021 with Aimée Fisk as Berenice, Laura Fleur as Ernestina, Brenton Spiteri as Alberto, Sam Harris as Eusebio, Patrick Alexander Keefe as Parmenione, Joe Chalmers as Martino plus actors Helen Francis Corlett and Alaric Green.

The plot's titular accidental exchange of luggage and the resulting impersonation of one character by another is really just a device so that we can end up at the run up to a wedding where neither the bride nor the groom is who they are supposed to be. Two couples, each person falls in love with the 'wrong' person only to find that because of disguises it is the right one.

Victoria Newlyn and designer Madeleine Boyd gave the production a real 1980s vibe from Patrick Alexander Keefe's sub-Adam Ant outfit (thankfully without the makeup) as Parmenione to padded shoulders of the stylish Italian leather jackets worn by Brenton Spiteri as Alberto and by Helen Francis Corlett as the wedding planner, even to the replacement of the first scene's inn by a baked potatoe stand (remember those!).

Theatrical dazzle: Hansel & Gretel re-invented as a modern theatrical fairytale at British Youth Opera

Humperdinck: Hansel & Gretel - Eva Gheorghiu, Fiona Finsbury, Rosalind Dobson - British Youth Opera at Opera Holland Park (Photo Tristram Kenton)

Humperdinck Hansel & Gretel; HIlary Cronin, Ellie Neate, Amy Holyland, Fiona Finsbury, Jack Lee, Rosalind Dobson, Eva Gheorghiu, directed: Daisy Evans, music director: Stephen Higgins, Southbank Sinfonia; British Youth Opera at Opera Holland Park
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 10 August 2021
A brilliantly theatrical evening, though perhaps best to forget about Humperdinck's original opera

British Youth Opera's Summer season this year has moved to Opera Holland Park where the company is performing a pair of contrasting operas, one of Rossini's early farse is being given alongside a very modern remake of Humperdinck's Hansel & Gretel. We caught British Youth Opera's production of Hansel & Gretel on 6 August 2021, directed by Daisy Evans, with Stephen Higgins as musical director and musical arranger, sets and costumes by Loren Elstein, lighting by Jake Wiltshire, sound design by Max Pappenheim and puppetry directed by Matthew Forbes, with Hilary Cronin as Mother, Ellie Neate as Gemma (Gretel), Amy Holyland as Hannah (Hansel), Fiona Finsbury as the Witch, Jack Lee as Father, Rosalind Dobson as the Dew Fairy, Eva Gheorghiu as the Sandman, and an onstage band including Jack Beesley (keyboard, trainee repetiteur), Olivia Shotton (violin, trainee assistant musical director) and members of Southbank Sinfonia.

Daisy Evans is the founder and artistic director of Silent Opera and the evening was very much inspired by Silent Opera's work. We were all given headphones and the sounds we heard were a mix of the live singers, the live instrumentalists, electronic music and pre-recorded symphonic music (mainly the orchestral interludes in the opera), with the arrangement being by Stephen Higgins and Max Pappenheim. The performance featured a new libretto by Evans and was more of a free fantasy on Humperdinck's opera, all the key musical points were there but not necessarily in the right order or as we originally knew them. The singers were sometimes accompanied by the live instrumentalists (keyboard, violin, cello, flute, trumpet) and sometimes by electronics, this latter moved between an evocation of Humperdinck's harmonies to something more modern.

Humperdinck: Hansel & Gretel - Ellie Neate and Amy Holyland - British Youth Opera at Opera Holland Park (Photo Tristram Kenton)

Evans also brought an element of theatrical magic to the production, including puppetry, shadow puppets, song and dance routines and much else besides. Whatever you thought of the production's concept there was no doubt that the young singers were having a great deal of fun as well as getting a good work out in theatrical techniques. And not just the singers, of course, BYO's Summer course includes a whole technical and musical team too, so everyone was challenged. And all rose to the challenge brilliantly, this was a superbly theatrical evening, full of engagingly inventive moments.

It just didn't always have a lot to do with Humperdinck's Hansel & Gretel.

An imaginative Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress from British Youth Opera

Stravinsky: The Rake's Progress - Frederick Jones
British Youth Opera (Photo Robert Workman)

Stravinsky The Rake's Progress; Frederick Jones, Samantha Clarke, Sam Carl, dir Stephen Unwin, Southbank Sinfonia, cond: Lionel Friend; British Youth Opera at the Peacock Theatre Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 8 September 2018 Star rating: 4.5 (★★★★½)
Strong principals and an imaginative production make this an enjoyable and thought-provoking evening

Stravinsky: The Rake's Progress - Jessica Ouston
British Youth Opera (Photo Robert Workman)

We caught the final performance of British Youth Opera's (BYO) 2018 season at the Peacock Theatre on Saturday 8 September 2018 when it performed Igor Stravinsky, WH Auden and Chester Kalman's The Rake's Progress [see Anthony's review of BYO's other 2018 opera, The Enchanted Island] Lionel Friend conducted the Southbank Sinfonia and the production was directed by Stephen Unwin, with designs by James Cotterill, movement by Natasha Harrison and lighting by Mark Jonathan.

Pedro Ometto was Trulove, Samantha Clarke was Anne, Frederick Jones was Tom Rakewell and Sam Carl was Nick Shadow, with Emma Lewis, Jessica Ouston, Iain Henderson and Thomas Mole.

James Cotterill's striking designs greeted us as we entered the auditorium, a Howard Hodgkin-like drop curtain with a gilded proscenium, painted Hodgkin-like as well. This was used, correctly, between scenes with Mark Jonathan's lighting changing the drop-curtain's colour from scene to scene, and Cotterill's backdrops had painting references too. The scenes were sparesely set, gradually accumulataing objects until the climactic aution, after which the stage was bare again. The setting was the 1950s, with costumes of the period and some quirky furniture designs. It made a striking effect, I do hope someoone else picks up this handsome and intelligent production.

The Rake's Progress is surprisingly tricky to cast, singers need flexibility but they need power too, to float over Stravinsky's lively orchestration (and the acoustic of the Peacock Theatre never helps in this regard). And the principals need stamina too, The Rake's Progress is not a short opera. BYO succeeded admirably, casting a trio of principals who filled the opera's requirements so well that you thought more about their interpretation of the roles than technical requirements. That said, diction was a bit patchy when singers were up-stage.

Just what it says on the tin, an enchanting enchanted island from British Youth Opera

The Enchanted Island - Iúnó Connolly, Alex Bevan - British Youth Opera (Photo Robert Workman)

The Enchanted Island, devised & written by Jeremy Sams; British Youth Opera, dir: Stuart Barker, Southbank Sinfonia, cond: Nicholas Kramer; Peacock |Theatre Reviewed by Anthony Evans on 7 September 2018 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
A young cast add sparkle to the UK premiere of Jeremy Sams' pasticcio

Natalie Davies, Caroline Taylor, Richard Bignall, James Atkinson
British Youth Opera (Photo Robert Workman)

Premiering at the Metropolitan Opera in 2011 with a starry cast including Joyce DiDonato, Danielle de Niese, David Daniels and Domingo, this week The Enchanted Island was given its European premiere by British Youth Opera at The Peacock Theatre.

Described as a ‘pasticcio’, this ‘juke-box’ opera is lovingly plundered from a treasure trove of your favourite baroque composers including Handel, Vivaldi and Rameau amongst others. Inspired by The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Jeremy Sams casts us ashore and weaves a tale of shipwrecks, spells and lovers. The performance of Stuart Barker’s elegant production this Friday September 7 was consistently finely sung by a cast of budding professionals who sank their teeth into this baroque island mash-up with gusto.

Malcolm Williamson's English Eccentrics

English Eccentrics – British Youth Opera at the Peacock Theatre. Kieran Rayner (Lord Rokeby) with William Thomas and Steven Swindells. Photo: Clive Barda/ArenaPAL

Malcolm Williamson English Eccentrics; dir: Stuart Barker, Southbank Sinfonia, cond: Peter Robinson; British Youth Opera at the Peacock Theatre
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Sep 08 2016
Star rating: 4.0
Malcolm Williamson's anti-opera entertainment in an enterprising and imaginative staging

English Eccentrics – British Youth Opera at the Peacock Theatre.
Edward Hughes (Beau Brummell) and Kieran Rayner (Etienne).
Photo: Clive Barda/ArenaPAL

For its second opera as part of the season at the Peacock Theatre, British Youth Opera hit upon a real rarity, Malcolm Williamson's 1964 opera English Eccentrics with a libretto by Geoffrey Dunn based on the book by Edith Sitwell. Directed by Stuart Barker with Victoria Newlyn as movement director, and sets by James Cotterill, costumes by Laura Jane Stanfield and lighting by David Howe, the cast featured Iuno Connolly, Polly Leech, David Horton, Edward Hughes, Kieran Rayner, Matthew Buswell, Maria McGrann, Sian Griffiths, Steven Swindells and William Thomas. Peter Robinson conducted with members of the Southbank Sinfonia in the pit.

Malcolm Williamson (1931-2003) was born in Australia, studying at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music with Eugene Goosens and moving to London in the 1950s where he studied with Elizabeth Lutyens and Erwin Stein. His jobs at this time included that of organist, proof-reader and cabaret pianist, a combination which perhaps is reflected in the eclecticism of his music.

'Eccentricity', wrote Edith Sitwell, 'exists particularly in the English, and partly, I think, because of that peculiar and satisfactory knowledge of infallibility that is the hallmark and birthright of the British nation.' Her book, technically a work of non-fiction but highly poetic in its language, was published in 1933. English Eccentrics was Williamson's second opera, written in 1964 (it was preceded in 1963 by Our Man in Havana). The opera was written for the Aldburgh Festival and performed in the Jubilee Hall, as such it was always intended as more of an entertainment (Peter Pears described it as something of an 'anti-opera'). Edward Greenfield in his 1964 review of the opera in Tempo describes it as being akin to a sophisticated game of charades.

Rising to the challenge of Britten's problem child: British Youth Opera's production Owen Wingrave

Owen Wingrave -  British Youth Opera at the Peacock Theatre.
Dominic Sedgwick (Owen Wingrave).  Photo: Clive Barda/ArenaPAL

Britten Owen Wingrave; Dominic Sedgwick, John Findon, Carrie-Ann Williams, Charlotte Schoeters, Katie Coventry, Harry Thatcher, Alexandra Lowe, Andrew Henley, James Liu, dir: Max Webster, Southbank Sinfonia, cond: Alex Ingram; British Youth Opera at the Peacock Theatre
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Sep 3 2016
Star rating: 4.0
Britten's anti-war opera in a production which spans the ages

Owen Wingrave -  British Youth Opera at the Peacock Theatre.
Katie Coventry, Charlotte Schoeters, Carrie-Ann Williams.
Photo: Clive Barda/ArenaPAL

With its exploration of youthful rebellion against the power tradition, Britten's Owen Wingrave would seem an ideal opera for young opera singers to perform, so that the characters of Owen Wingrave, Kate Julian and Letchmere are sung be singers approaching the characters' ages. Having been written for television in 1971, Owen Wingrave has not received the stage attention that Britten's other operas have and British Youth Opera's staging at the Peacock Theatre on 3 September 2016 was most welcome, especially in the way the young singers rose to the challenges of performing this complex piece.

Directed by Max Webster and designed by James Cotterill with movement by Liz Ranken and lighting by David Howe, the production featured Dominic Sedgwick as Owen, John Findon as Sir Philip, Carrie-Ann Williams as Miss Wingrave, Charlotte Schoeters as Mrs Julian, Katie Coventry as Kate Julian, Harry Thatcher as Spencer Coyle, Alexandra Lowe as Mrs Coyle, Andrew Henley as Letchmere, James Liu as the narrator, with the Southend Boys Choir, and the Southbank Sinfonia conducted by Alex Ingram.

Though David Matthews has produced a reduced orchestration of the opera, which has gained some currency, this performance was a welcome chance to hear Britten's original full orchestration (with the caveat that the Peacock Theatre, with its shallow pit, does not lend itself to a natural balance between singers and orchestra) and the Southbank Sinfonia overflowed out of the pit so that piano and tuned percussion were in the stalls.

Based on a Henry James story and with characters whose behaviour depends on particular late Victorian / Edwardian attitudes, Owen Wingrave is one of those operas which would seem to defy updating. Max Webster wisely kept the main characters firmly in period, but decided to explore two time periods, and in the prelude we saw the members of the Southend Boys Choir in modern dress, playing with guns. The boys also brought on large boards, which set out the places and times, mentioning both the Boer War (the context for James's story) and the Vietnam War (which was occurring whilst Britten wrote the opera). All this took place against a backdrop which displayed a long list of the dead, a sort of cenotaph.

The Little Green Swallow

Ed Ballard, Adam Temple-Smith and the Singing Apples
photo Bill Knight

Jonathan Dove The Little Green Swallow; British Youth Opera, dir: Stuart Barker, cond: Lionel Friend, Southbank Sinfonia; The Peacock Theatre
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Sep 11 2014 Imaginative staging of Jonathan Dove's first full length opera

For their September season of opera this year, British Youth Opera has chosen to perform Jonathan Dove's 1994 opera, The Little Green Swallow. With this year's season restricted to one opera (and a programme of public master-classes), Dove's opera was a good choice because it requires a cast of 14 so that total number of young people involved was 28 singers (14 soloists and 14 covers), plus 18 backstage, musical and directorial assistants. The opera was directed by Stuart Barker and conducted by Lionel Friend, with designs by Simon Bejer and lighting by David Howe; Victoria Newlyn was the movement consultant and Darren East the puppetry consultant. The Southbank Sinfonia was in the pit.

Filipa van Eck, Adam Temple-Smith and the Little Green Swallow
photo Bill Knight

Dove's opera was written for Musica Nel Chiostro in Batignano and, as such, had to be in Italian. Dove adapted Goldoni's play L'Augellino Belverde himself. The tale is a follow up to the one which supplied Prokofiev with the libretto for The Love of Three Oranges and re-visits many of the same characters some 20 years later. King Tartaglia (Joseph Padfield) has been away at the wars, during which time his mother Tartagliona (Elizabeth Karani), advised by the seer Brighella (Dominick Felix), has buried Tartaglia's wife Ninetta (Emma Kerr) alive in a sewer and thrown the twin children Renzo (Adam Temple-Smith) and Barbarina (Filipa van Eck) into the river. The twins have been adopted by Truffaldino (Ed Ballard), now a sausage vendor, and his wife Smeraldina (Rozanna Madylus). The subsequent plot involves two (possibly three) quests, the first is Renzo and Truffaldino's in search of the Singing Apples (Hazel McBain, Llio Evans and Katie Coventry) and the Dancing Waters and the second is Barbarina and Smeraldina's as they go in search of Renzo and Truffaldino, who have actually gone on a further quest. The whole is complicated by two talking statues Calmon (Matt Buswell) and the Little Green Swallow (Tom Verney).

A Swallow does make a Summer

British Youth Opera's Summer season this year gives us the chance to hear Jonathan Dove's first full length opera. The Little Green Swallow was written in 1994 and has a text based on the 18th century writer Carlo Gozzi's tale which was a sequel to The Love of Three Oranges. Setting an English translation of Gozzi by Adam Pollock, Dove gives us a fairytale world of singing apples, talking statues and dangerous quests which picks up 18 years after Prokofiev's opera. BYO's production is directed by Stuart Barker and conducted by Lionel Friend. It runs at the Peacock Theatre on 8, 11 and 13 September and uses a cast of 14.

Dove's The Little Green Swallow was commissioned by the Batignano Festival and premiered there in 1994. It received its UK premiere 2005 when it was performed by the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (who recently performed Dove's Pinocchio). BYO have already performed Dove's opera Flight, giving the third UK production of the opera in 2008 (Flight was premiered at Glyndebourne). You can see part of BYO's production of Jonathan Dove's Flight on YouTube.

BYO is all about giving young singers opportunities and help, so the season also includes three public masterclasses, with Susan Bullock (7/9/2014), Edward Gardner (7/9/2014), and Diana Montague and David Rendall (9/9/2014). Full information on all the events from the British Youth Opera website.

Vivid comedy - Cimarosa's The Secret Marriage

Rosalind Coad (Elisetta), Matthew Durkan (Servant),
Bradley Travis (Count Robinson),  Frazer B Scott (Geronimo),
Nick Dwyer (Servant),  Heather Lowe (Fidalma) , Alice Rose Privett (Carolina)
in BYO's The Secret Marriage [Credit: Clive Barda / ArenaPAL]

Cimarosa's Il matrimonio segreto (The Secret Marriage) could not be more different than British Youth Opera's first opera in their 2013 season, Britten's Paul Bunyan. But both operas span the range of talents required of young opera singers. British Youth Opera's production of Cimarosa's 1792 opera buffa premiered at the Peacock Theatre on 11 September 2013, directed by Martin Lloyd-Evans, designed by Ellan Parry with Nick Pritchard, Alice Rose Privett, Frazer B Scott, Rosalind Coad, Heather Love and Bradley Travis with Roy Laughlin conducting the Southbank Sinfonia. The opera was sung in Donald Pippin's English translation.

With just a cast of six, and full of arias, duets and ensembles, Cimarosa's lively opera requires a different degree of communicativeness to Britten's early operetta.  Arias are long and sometimes complex for a start and there is also the issue of recitative, which in opera buffa requires a particularly vivid projection.

Britten's Paul Bunyan - British Youth Opera

Prologue to Paul Bunyan, British Youth Opera
[Credit: Clive Barda / ArenaPAL]

Britten and Auden's choral operetta Paul Bunyan was written for student performance at Columbia University and its large number of roles means that it is idea for performance by a company like British Youth Opera and their production at the Peacock Theatre forms an ideal contribution to the Britten Centenary year. We caught the second performance (10 September 2013) of William Kerley's production, designed by Jason Southgate. Peter Robinson, artistic director of British Youth Opera, conducted a huge cast including Christopher Jacklin, Will Edelstein, Timothy Connor, Alex Aldren Oskar Palmblad, Samuel Smith, Emily Vine, Grace Durham, Ayaka Tanimoto, Peter Kirk and Louise Kemeny.

I had never seen Paul Bunyan on stage before, and it is certainly a curious and fascinating piece. Britten and Auden's longest collaboration, it is a highly eclectic piece with both words and music referencing popular culture. But Auden's text is often high-falutin' (especially Paul Bunyan's pronouncements) and the final Litany with its lists of the evils of modern living, takes the piece to a different place both musically and dramatically. Britten revised the work in 1974-75 for its performance at Aldeburgh in 1976, but what we hear is substantially what he wrote in 1941.

British Youth Opera - A Night at the Chinese Opera

Louise Kemeny (Little Moon),
Johnny Herford (Chao Lin),
Helen Bruce (Mrs Chin) and
Thomas Elwin (Old P'eng)

Over the last few years, British Youth Opera has expanded its repertoire to include contemporary operas, alongside the classics and 20th century masterworks. Jonathan Dove’s Flight and Stephen Oliver’s Euridice have already featured in its summer season at the Peacock Theatre and for its 25th anniversary season there was Judith Weir’s A Night at the Chinese Opera. We saw the opening night on 12 September, in a production directed by Stuart Barker, designed by Simon Bejer and conducted by Lionel Friend.

British Youth Opera - The Bartered Bride

Matthew Stiff (Kecal), Luis Gomes (Jenik) and chorus

For their first production in their September season at the Peacock Theatre, British Youth Opera chose to present their first ever production of Smetana’s The Bartered Bride, sung in Kit Hesketh Harvey’s English translation (originally made for the Royal Opera House production). We saw the first night, on Saturday 8 September.

For all its infectious music and apparently light-hearted popularity, The Bartered Bride remains a problematic piece. There is the depiction of Vasek, which though sympathetic, depends for its comic value on the character’s stutter. Plus the awkward fact that for a chunk of acts two and three, Jenik blithely assumes that Marenka will blindly trust him and quietly go along with his deception. Either he is horribly manipulative or simply egotistically selfish. But this is fundamentally a comedy, and if played straight the piece can be made to work well. This does, however, require the director to trust the piece.