A very modern Robin Hood: Dani Howard's new opera at The Opera Story

Dani Howard: Robin Hood - Oliver Brignall, Cliff Zammit Stevens, Nicholas Merryweather - The Opera Story
(Photo Robert Workman)

Dani Howard Robin Hood; Nicholas Merryweather, Lorna Anderson, Sian Cameron, dir: Polly Graham, cond: Berrak Dyer; 
The Opera Story at CLF Art Cafe  
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 28 February 2019 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
Dani Howard's passionate music overcomes a schematic libretto in this striking re-invention of the folk tale

Dani Howard: Robin Hood - Lorna Anderson
The Opera Story (Photo Robert Workman)

Having given use new operas based on the fairy tales of Snow White in 2017 [see my review] and Goldilocks and the Three Bears mashed up with the Three Little Pigs in 2018 [see my review], The Opera Story returned to the CLF Art Cafe in Peckham on 27 February 2019 with a very modern operatic take on the folk-tale of Robin Hood with music by Dani Howard and a libretto by Zoe Palmer and Rebecca Hurst. Directed by Polly Graham, the production featured Nicholas Merryweather as Robin Hood, Lorna Anderson as Joanna, Sian Cameron as Marian, Oliver Brignall as Little John, Cliff Zammit Stevens as Will Scarlett and William Barter-Sheppard as the Boy. Berrak Dyer conducted the instrumental ensemble, and designs were by April Dalton.

Palmer, Hurst and Howard's take on Robin Hood was very contemporary. The plot centred around The Greenwoods, an area of ancient forest under pressure from contemporary society. Robin (Nicholas Merryweather) was politician, Lord of The Greenwoods, who also belonged to a secret society The Merry Men, an all-male hunting group with echoes of both the Masons and the Bullingdon Club. He is fighting a property developer, Joanna (Lorna Anderson) who has designs on The Greenwoods but who has lost a son, who it turns out was killed by Robin in a hunting accident. Robin's sister Marian (Sian Cameron) is a pro-Greenwoods activist.
The result was to turn the folk-hero into something of an anti-hero, whilst the ostensible villain was made sympathetic by her powerful response to the loss of her son. Even Marian was compromised as she does a deal with Joanna at the end. And it is Robin who ended the piece, finally paying the price for his killing of Joanna's son.

Palmer and Hurst's libretto was admirably concise, but it was far stronger on poetic allusion than on presenting details of the mechanics of the plot, which remained somewhat hazy. Also, the characterisation of Robin and his Merry Men as Country Life reading, tweed wearing toffs who slum it by hunting in the woods seem rather lazily approaching caricature, and I did wonder whether Palmer and Hurst actually liked their hero. Robin's final atonement for his crimes was rather badly prepared for, and other details such as Robin's intimate relationship with Little John were left undeveloped. The whole had a slightly earnest tone which sat uneasily with the element of caricature and the sending up of aristocratic mores.

Dani Howard: Robin Hood - William Barter-Sheppard, Nicholas Merryweather - The Opera Story (Photo Robert Workman)

Thankfully, the music, performance and production all rather supplied these lacks, to create a striking evening of music theatre.