Less fairy than feral - the exagerrated features, gesture and voice of Maria Ewing's breath-taking turn as Faerie Queen in Peter Mulloy's production of Iolanthe, are unlikely to be forgotten by its audience for some time. Ewing rules - literally and metaphorically - although quite how her mature physiognomy came to assume today's outrageously feline proportions is a matter between her and her confessor. It is enough that, in the midst of the opera's sylvan eldritch chorus, she takes her character to another level - an astonishingly serpentine, supernatural presence upon Gilbert and Sullivan's Arcadian stage - out-acting mortal and mythic beings alike.
      Delightfully subtitiled 'The Peer and the Peri', Iolanthe is the story of fay versus fey: free-spirited little folk (all female) engaged in light-hearted battle with the ruling class - the preening, posturing lordships of the Upper House in staunchly Victorian times. Subtle satire is not much in evidence here: think jolly japes and endearing whimsy. Much in the manner that The Mikado pointed fun at establishment mores, back-handers, quangos and the like; Iolanthe good-humouredly undermines the peacock-proud, ermine-clad aristocracy. There is even the presence of a 'ward' (Carlotte Page's bucolic temptress Phyllis) the sort of ambivalent, vulnerable, orphan figure that turns heads and hearts in both operas.
      Phyllis loves the half-human son of other-worldly Iolanthe, the shepherd Strephon. Embodied by a hunky Karl Daymond, Strephon looks disconcertingly like a poor-man's David Hasselhoff - which does him no disservice because he sings and postures gleefully. Much camp amusement was had by all, when debating his 'fairy' qualities. These, by all account, extending strictly from the waist upwards. The Queen has pardoned his mother Iolanthe after twenty five years of banishment for marrying a human. When the Lord Chancellor (a dashing Steven Page with bucket-loads of chutzpah and swagger) takes it upon himself to marry his ward Phyllis, Iolanthe reveals herself as his true wife, whereupon (in true happy-ever-after-style) the ecstatic young couple are saved.
      The poignant, delicate overture was well delivered by the Gielgud theatre's small orchestra but the players took a while to get into their stride. At times reminiscent of Morticia Adams by way of Cher, the arresting Miss Ewing was tremulous to begin with; her minions' dancing on the comic side, and the period costumes a little winsome for my liking. The latter grew easier on the eye (especially those of the chorus - de facto, entirely appropriate for puck-crazed (19 England) along with the cookie-cut, countryside sets. Together, the effect was rather like an ornamental decoupage; quaint, but ultimately apposite for the times portrayed. A fetching, flame-haired Iolanthe in the person of charismatic Sophie-Louise Dann sang consistently. Among the nobles, suitors Mountararat and Tolloller provided first-rate entertainment in the first act.
      By Act II, the atmosphere in the theatre was growing electric, and each character's performance greeted with applause. At the onset, Donald Maxwell's Private Willis delivered his famous set piece brilliantly, in what was perhaps the night's star turn. Ewing looked less traumatised and found it within herself the energy to assay a little comedy: references to a passion for 'Mr Brown' provoked middle-English humour; and a temporary (and somewhat inexplicable) deep southern drawl drew smiles all around. Strangely, this all-consuming, cynosure of a diva is both this production's strength and weakness - although by Iolanthe's climax (sanctioned intermarriage between the two once-warring worlds), the spritely Queen, for all her eccentricity, has won our hearts. The performance ended with that peculiar synergy between cast and audience, which indicates not just high spirits, but the unexpected esprit de corps which presages a hit.
Caroline Kellett Fraysse