Opera della Luna

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Opera della Luna, founded in 1994, is a British touring theatre troupe of singers and comedians. Led by artistic director Jeff Clarke, it takes its name from Haydn's operatic setting of Goldoni's farce Il mondo della luna. The company presents innovative, small-scale productions and adaptations of Gilbert and Sullivan, other comic opera and operetta, in English, and tours them to mid-scale venues all over the UK. Opera della Luna is a registered British charity.

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[edit] History and description

The company undertakes two major tours each year, visiting over a hundred venues countrywide. Occasionally the company has toured overseas. Artistic director Jeff Clarke directs all of the productions, which are small-scale adaptations performed without chorus.[1] In 1986, Clarke had founded The English Players, a touring opera ensemble. Clarke's productions for that company included English-language adaptations of Il mondo della luna and Robinson Crusoé. After four years, Clark disbanded The English Players while he planned for a new, better-funded company. With the help of marketer Graham Watson, Clarke established Opera della Luna as a registered charity with a growing base of regular supporters. Opera della Luna's first production, in 1994, was Robinson Crusoé.[2]

[edit] Gilbert and Sullivan adaptations

The company struggled financially at first but achieved a financial success in 1995 with Clarke's adaptation of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance, built around comedian Richard Gauntlett and choreographed by Jenny Arnold, called The Parson's Pirates, about the vicar of St Michael's Under Ware, who is tasked with raising church funds through an amateur production of Pirates. Since then Richard Suart and Ian Belsey have performed in the production numerous times. Critic George Hall wrote that the production "is an evening of brilliance, both a tribute to and an affectionate send-up of [Pirates], done with verve, style, some excellent voices and a hefty quotient of camp. With Richard Suart ... we know we’re in for a treat.... Ian Belsey [and the rest of the cast] are all great fun and Jeff Clarke directs the whole at a cracking pace.... This is a show both for Gilbert and Sullivan devotees and for novices.... In short, a total treat – irresistible and unmissable."[3] Three other G&S adaptations soon followed, with direction by Clarke and choreography by Arnold: The Ghosts of Ruddigore (1997; a couple with car trouble, like Brad and Janet in the Rocky Horror Show, find themselves in spooky Rederring, where they discover their ancestors and become embroiled in the tale),[4][5] The Mikado (1998; set in a hip tailor/design shoppe and inspired by the sexy, flashy world of fashion),[6] and H.M.S. Pinafore (first presented in 2001 on the QE2 cruise ship; a zany version, but in Victorian dress with fewer textual and musical changes from the original), all adapted for a cast of 6 to 8 and no chorus.[7] The company was invited to perform The Mikado at the Covent Garden Festival in 2000 and has performed all of these Gilbert and Sullivan productions at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival as well as touring them extensively.[2][8]

Another G&S-related piece is The Burglar's Opera, with a script by Stephen Wyatt, based on W. S. Gilbert's 1890 short story, Burglar's Story, mixed with elements of The Threepenny Opera. The music was adapted by Jeff Clarke from Arthur Sullivan's orchestral music. This toured in 2005 and 2006.[9] In 2007, the company introduced a new piece called Nightmare Songs in which Simon Butteriss plays an understudy to the principal comedian of a fictionalised D'Oyly Carte Opera Company during World War II and finds that he must go on at very short notice to play ten patter roles in repertory. Clarke plays another resident of his lodging house, an itinerant "variety" performer who assists and hinders the patter man's nightmarish rehearsal.[10] A review of the company's 2009 adaptation of The Sorcerer, which is updated to the 1970s, called the show "one of the most delicious musical feasts on the circuit".[11] Another review enthused, "Sharp and witty, it oozed fun and inventiveness while satirising the class structure of English village life and marriage. [It] breathed new life and fun into the work. The uniformly good cast have fine voices, allied to stagecraft and excellent comic acting skills. They delivered the piece with pace and panache. Clever use of tableaux and excellent sung and spoken diction (a sine qua non for G&S) ensured total enjoyment."[12]

[edit] Other pieces

Early on, the year after its first success with The Parson's Pirates, the company produced a Donizetti adaptation, Lucia, The Bride of Lammermoor. As it turned out, the opera would be the company's only non-comic piece, and Clarke decided that the company was better off making a name for itself through its zany comic productions than competing in the standard repertoire against the other small touring British opera companies. After introducing its first four Gilbert and Sullivan productions, the company turned to other works, beginning with its updated chamber adaptation of The Merry Widow, based on Jeremy Sams's Covent Garden translation and including puppet elements. The company toured this extensively, often to larger theatres.[2] In 2003, the Iford Opera Festival commissioned the company to create a chamber version of Offenbach's La Belle Helene, which the company later toured. Ilford later commissioned productions of Robinson Crusoé (2004), The Tales of Hoffmann (2005) and Lucia.

In 2006, at Ilford, the company revived Il mondo della luna. Clarke's English translation hews closely to the original libretto, but some material is cut.[13][14] The next year, the company produced a new English version of Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore set at a health spa.[15] The next year, the company toured Verdi's Un giorno di regno ("King for a Day"). In Clarke's broad English adaptation, the story is moved to post-war Italy around the reign of Umberto II, infused with elements of organized crime, and political humour is added. One reviewer commented that the production "makes up for what it lacks in bel canto elegance by being a riotously funny, enormously enjoyable evening's entertainment".[16] In 2009, the company produced its version of Die Fledermaus (in Clarke's English translation).[17][18]

In addition to Butteriss, Richard Suart and Ian Belsey, the company's performers have included the Opera Babes. Jenny Arnold has continued to choreograph the company's productions since 1995.[2]

[edit] Critical reception

The press generally praises the company for its innovative, irreverent small-scale productions. Musical Opinion wrote, "Who needs grand opera when you can have Opera della Luna? The scale of their performances ... is so small as to be miniscule, but they are so skilfully conceived and realised as to be totally engaging. In their way, they are every bit as rewarding as far more ambitious, not to say pretentious stagings. Director Jeff Clarke can be relied upon to provide a whole new perspective on a piece through his brilliant translations".[15] A review of the company's 2009 adaptation of The Sorcerer in Bucks Free Press stated, "Opera Della Luna is innovative, imaginative and inventive. Its grasp on musical theatre is astounding and director Jeff Clarke should be applauded for bringing a new spirit of the age to G&S."[11] Opera Now magazine wrote, in its review of the company's 2009 production of Die Fledermaus:

Jeff Clarke’s Rocky Horror version of The Bat ... turned out to be rather brilliant, not to mention hilarious.... As is his wont, Clarke, panjandrum of Opera della Luna and its nifty pianist too, had not only translated but rewritten the show so as to be actually funny.... Clarke's hallmark is a cheery vulgarity underpinned with a subtle but distinct moral eye.... But this was all very good-natured.... This non-preachy evening was a success, in the end, mostly because of an inspired cast.... Clarke's little band moved things along at a terrific lick. The most enjoyable evening for ages.[17]

Typical of reactions to the company's many appearances at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival in Buxton is this Manchester Evening News review of the company's H.M.S. Pinafore in 2006:

[The] festival proper opened with this inventive and entertaining production by M.E.N. Award-winning Opera della Luna. It's a cleverly pared-down version to suit the mere eight-strong company, plus [its five-person orchestra] (and how haunting to hear Dear Little Buttercup as a violin solo by Rachel Davies). Jeff Clarke directs from the keyboard.... The cast is led by the irrepressible Simon Butteriss as Sir Joseph Porter. He gestures, minces and trips around to great comic effect, splendidly aided and abetted by the others... Ian Belsey makes an imposing and funny Captain.... Between them, they entertain hugely."[19]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Opera della luna official website, accessed 12 November 2009
  2. ^ a b c d Clarke, Jeff. Opera della Luna: 15th anniversary commemorative booklet, Opera della Luna (2009)
  3. ^ Hall, George. "The Parson's Pirates", The Stage, 19 September 2002
  4. ^ Darvell, Michael. "Theatre Reviews: The Ghosts of Ruddigore", What's On (London), September 4, 2002, p. 51
  5. ^ Hanning, Elaine. "The Ghosts of Ruddigore: Belly laughs, baronets and more than a touch of Blackadder", Jersey Evening Post, 19 June 2002
  6. ^ Beale, Robert. Review: The Mikado, Manchester Evening News, p. 10, 18 January 2008
  7. ^ Beale, Robert. "Luna-tic Pinafore is a shore-fire triumph", Manchester Evening News, 25 March 2009.
  8. ^ Lewis, Peter. "Pirates are such a curtain raiser!", Hexham Courant, 19 October 2007
  9. ^ Gillan, Don. "The Burglars Opera", stagebeauty.net, 2006, accessed 4 November 2009
  10. ^ Lisle, Nicola. "A nightmare that's a dream come true", The Oxford Times, 5 April 2007
  11. ^ a b "Review: The Sorcerer", Bucks Free Press, 14 October 2009
  12. ^ Wilkinson, Lyn. "Sparkling performance will ensure popularity", Newbury Weekly News", 6 August 2009, p. 2
  13. ^ Theatre programme for Il mondo della luna, Ilford Arts, June 2007
  14. ^ Christiansen, Rupert. "Elixir just as potent in the Northern smoke", The Telegraph, 26 June 2006
  15. ^ a b Evans, Rian. "L'Elisir d'amore at Iford Manor, Bradford-on-Avon", Musical Opinion, September/October 2007, accessed 16 November 2009
  16. ^ Shirley, Hugo. "Verdi: Un giorno di regno", Musical Criticism, 26 July 2008, accessed 15 November 2009
  17. ^ a b Thicknesse, Robert. "Die Fledermaus: Theatre Royal, Winchester", Opera Now, July/August 2009, p. 96
  18. ^ Campling, Katie. "Opera Della Luna perform Die Fledermaus at LBT", Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 16 March 2009
  19. ^ Radcliffe, Philip. "G&S: HMS Pinafore @ Buxton Opera House", Manchester Evening News, 2 August 2006

[edit] Other sources

  • Bradley, Ian (2005). Oh Joy! Oh Rapture!: The Enduring Phenomenon of Gilbert and Sullivan. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195167007. 

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_della_Luna"