Marvellously dotty overtures below the earth
Orpheus in the Underworld
Iford Arts
★★★★ ★
I’ve never had a eureka! moment with Jacques Offenbach’s operettas. I can’t help feeling that once you’ve skimmed away the sweet froth, there’s nothing much left – not even the dregs of Victorian prejudice and inhibition that make his imitators Gilbert and Sullivan so fascinating.
Yet abetted by the beautiful environment of Iford’s cloister and garden near Bath, the Opera della Luna company has almost broken my block – I can’t think of a performance of Orpheus in the Underworld that I’ve ever enjoyed as much as this rumbustious, unpretentious and jolly version, executed with tremendous verve and without vulgarity.
Director Jeff Clarke has been running Opera della Luna for two decades now, dedicating it to the operetta repertory, and he knows how to pace the action and keep the bubble factor sparkling.
As translator, he delivers a crisp, fluent text complete with awful jokes and rhymes, as well as a dash of contemporary satire – John Styx’s ditty, for instance, becomes a lament for Greece’s travails over the euro. One small reservation: I did regret the transformation of Orpheus’ lilting air “Au mont Ida” into a violin solo.
The staging takes place in fantasy panto land, and the designer Nigel Howard comes up with some marvellously dotty costumes for the quartet of dancers who kick merry mayhem in the final can-can galop.
Trapped between lubricious Pluto (Carl Sanderson), pompous Jupiter (Ian Belsey) and ineffectual Orpheus (Tristan Stocks), Suzanne Shakespeare makes a deliciously empty-headed Eurydice with a nice line in insouciant coloratura. Among several amusing cameos, I particularly enjoyed Katharine Taylor-Jones’s Public Opinion, presented in the guise of an Arts Council assessor.
It’s all good clean fun, underpinned by the vivacious playing of a sprightly band ably conducted by Toby Purser. I may not be persuaded of Offenbach’s genius, but what a pleasure it was to be part of such a happy audience genuinely enjoying themselves rather than stoically enduring an improving night at the opera.
The Iford Arts Music Festival is a threemonth season (June-August) of Opera, Festival Proms and Classical Concerts, near Bath. Box office 01225 868124, ifordarts.org.uk