I reckon quite a lot of potential punters were put off this Festival event by the idea that anything to do with opera would be boring highbrow nonsense (Baroque music? What’s that?) suitable only for a few ageing antiquarians. But who could have guessed it would be so wonderfully funny?
Actually I came to opera not through music but through an interest in theatrical staging and discovered that opera is now cutting edge in this respect completely by accident – anyone who saw Graham Vick’s epoch-making Fidelio with its wall of ice will know what I mean. But even so I was surprised and completely charmed here by the clever freshness of everything I saw.
This was no antique heritage–fest. Set firmly in the modern world of chick lit Too Hot To Handel simply updated Handel’s tunes by using the oldest story in the world, boy meets girl, and in the process made a series of brilliant aural and visual jokes with the lightest of touches.
From the initial meting of the lovers in the park, complete with bench, litter bin and various park-life moochers we were firmly in the present. Counter-tenor William Towers was simply brilliant as the handsome hunk with a rugby build, the very essence of a bachelor anxiously piloting his way through the rapids of modern mating while beautiful blonde soprano Yvette Bonner was delightful as the Bridget Jones of the plot. From the moment her lost dog appeared suspended from a bunch of balloons the surprises never let up.
Highlights included the Basil Brush-type puppetry of the said dog, a large section of the audience suddenly springing up to sing the Hallelujah Chorus to celebrate the mut’s return, the hilarious macho tidying of the bachelor flat by simply throwing everything away, the delivery men metamorphosing into tea-drinking char-ladies, and the final snowy reconciliation scene referencing La Boheme.
This was quite simply a lovely evening that wore its sophistication unobtrusively and so remained utterly accessible – I’m sure there were millions of jokes I didn’t know enough to get. This company’s production values are worthy of Glyndbourne. The unexpected row between the two principals in the bar during the interval culminating in the glass of wine thrown in the face was one of the funniest and cleverest things I’ve seen in a long time, a genuine coup de theatre.
Come back soon, Armonico, please.
