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Music
& Libretto
(after Wedekind's
"Earth Spirit" &
"Pandora's Box") by
Alban Berg
(Third Act
realised
by Friedrich Cerha)
Conductor
Paul Daniel
Director
Richard Jones
Set
Designer
Paul Steinberg
Costume
Designer
Buki Shiff
Lighting
Designer
Pat Collins
Movement
Director
Linda Dobell
Translation
Richard Stokes
Lulu
Lisa Saffer
Dr Schön/
Jack the Ripper
Robert Hayward
Alwa
Jeffrey
Lloyd-Roberts
Schigolch
Gwynne Howell
Countess
Geschwitz
Susan Parry
Dresser/
Schoolboy/Waiter
Anna Burford
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London
Coliseum
English
National Opera
April 29 - May 13 2005 |
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Even
in the lurid world of opera,
no Femme is as Fatale as Lulu.
Each man who tangles with
her finds his fantasies briefly
fulfilled but then ends up
dead, until Lulu herself,
reduced to prostitution in
London, is slain by Jack the
Ripper. We are asked to believe
that this murderous mayhem
arises from her tremendous
sexual allure, which means
that all males who cross her
path are smitten (in this
production, even waiters who
bring her refreshments have
to exit clutching trays to
their groins to hide tumescent
embarrassment).
At the heart of various problems
with this revival was the
fact that this simply didn't
ring true.
Reviews of the productions
first outing praised to the
skies Lisa Saffer's incarnation
of Lulu, dramatically and
musically. An announcement
before the opera told us she
was singing despite a recent
throat infection - no doubt
this accounted for an absence
of the seductive in her otherwise
admirably gymnastic vocal
performance. But dramatically
too, she just wasn't sexy.
Hence the whole dramatic sequence
of events seemed a pretty
empty charade. Things were
not helped by the am-dram
hamming of some of the other
characters (and some undistinguished
singing - in fact woeful in
the case of the singer playing
the Y- front-clad painter).
Sadly there was precious little
seduction to be found in the
pit either - well played enough
by the members of the orchestra,
the overall direction seemed
formless, meaning lost under
a relentless and rather hard-edged
presentation of Berg's music.
It all left one cold, however
eye-catchingly gaudy Lulu's
succession of fantasy costumes
(dancer, schoolgirl etc etc),
mirrored by a resourceful
succession of colourful mid-20th
century interiors.
Just about everyone seemed
to be having an off-night,
if reviews of the performances
two years ago (with substantially
identical casts) are anything
to go by. It is to be hoped
that the run will bring a
return to form, and (final
grumble) an improvement in
comprehensibility - part of
the difficulty of the evening
was caused by 90 per cent
of the sung text being entirely
incomprehensible from seats
in the centre stalls. No doubt
this is partly Berg's fault
(the orchestra pit is a full
one) but if Gwynne Howell
(one of the best things about
the evening) can do it, why
can't others? There's not
much point singing in English
when the audience would have
understood far more from a
performance in the original
German with surtitles.
Nick Armstrong |
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