It was adventurous for recently formed Southern Opera to undertake a touring programme, scheduled for performances in Dunedin, Invercargill, Queenstown and finally Christchurch where I saw the production on its second night in that city.
The repertoire chosen was a bit out of the mainstream, which may have accounted for a less than full house on the night I went. This was a shame as it was a very smart, hugely entertaining, witty and stylish presentation, and with an outstanding cast of some of New Zealand's top opera performers it deserved full houses and standing ovations.
Equally disappointingly this initiative was not as well patronised in the other southern centres as it should have been.
Maybe the virtues of this two act comic opera presentation had not been promoted strongly enough, perhaps the sophisticated and stylish publicity and images were not fully understood and the artful comedy of the idea sold well enough to audiences? I don't know but what I do know is that this was a superbly executed, wickedly funny farce, performed by five of our best singing-actors at the top of their game. In an ideal world how could it fail?
I also hope that this production sees that light of day again, throughout New Zealand, sometime in the future.
Sung in English as The Spanish Hour, this version of Maurice Ravel's opera L'heure espagnole is set in the 1950's, in clock maker Torqemada's shop, full of various clocks ticking out of time, all cleverly reflected in Ravel's masterful score.
An errand boy Ramiro (the excellent Jared Holt), riding on his bike, brings a family heirloom watch into the shop for repairs.
As the watchmaker Torqemada (Richard Greager) looks at the watch, his elegant and sensuous wife Concepción, played with delicious glee by the inimitable Helen Medlyn, comes in to remind him that this is the day when he has go out and regulate all the government clocks; the day has a secret agenda for her, as it is also the day she entertains her lover. When the lover hovers outside, and with all of this in place already, the ingredients for a classic French farce are there, and when another gentleman calls into the shop after the husband has left the fun begins.
The timing of all players was so deft and razor-sharp, that they, and we, didn't miss a trick.
When Concepción's tongue-tied and love-struck poet lover Gonzalve arrives and recites his bad romantic poetry, she has to desperately clear some time for him, so enlists Ramiro to move a grandfather clock to her room to divert him. Another would-be suitor, the wealthy banker Don Inigo Gomez (Richard Green) arrives. Organised chaos ensues as Concepción hides him in a clock and gets the trusty errand boy Ramiro to move it with Don Inigo inside up to her room to clear a space for Gonzalve. The clocks hiding Gonzalve and Don Inigo are constantly on the move as the reliable Ramiro shows his strength and flexes his muscles with comic abandon.
Holt does a magnificently funny turn as Ramiro showing a relaxed humour and demeanour, far from his usually serious roles, while singing wonderfully well.
Gonzalve was sweetly sung and wittily acted by tenor Derek Hill who was sounding the best I have ever heard him.
Richard Green's resonant bass as Don Inigo resounds from the stage and inside the clock!
Richard Greager's theatrical instincts bring dignity and gravitas to his small cameo role as Torquemada and his characterful singing was a delight, especially as Terence in the backstage second half Ticked Off!
And in outrageously good form Medlyn sensuously owns the stage in a true star turn and in a sexy corset in the second half beguiles eveyone on and off the stage.
This whole production is a delicious entertaining romp.
Director Linda Kitchen has devised a terrific double bill. Her production is full of little details and nuances that constantly delight and surprise and have us aching with laughter while marvelling at all the singers' ability to sing difficult music while hilariously acting their socks off.
The Spanish Hour is in the end a morality tale and the assets of a reliable, practical, strong delivery boy as a lover are shown to outweigh the qualities of a romantic poet, and the husband is resigned to the disadvantages of having a beautiful wife.
The very clever set design by Harold Moot was fully revealed in the second half when we saw the reverse of the set as the backstage drama in the newly devised Ticked Off! was played out. The limitations of designing a set for ease of touring, here provided a virtue in a construction which in no way inhibited the constant to-ing and fro-ing required in a classic musical bedroom farce, while helping to evoke the essence of a languid time of day in Spain, despite all of the frantic reorganising of the gentleman callers going on.
The burnt orange and brown shaded colour scheme perfectly reflected the fifties (and sultry Spain) as did the props and clocks. The lovely costumes by Alistair McDougall, particularly Medlyn's wonderful white and black polka dot Fifties style "frock", completed the picture.
The set was atmospherically lit by lighting designer Sheena Barnes.
This opera was superbly done.
In Ticked Off! with the set reversed we see the performers going about their lives backstage, interrupted by their need to go onstage to sing in the production "proper" with snatches of Ravel's music coming through from "out front".
Essentially we experience The Spanish Hour twice, first from out front and second during the performance from backstage. There is more comic genius here as each individual and distinctive character is revealed. Greager as Terence fusses over his wife Carlotta, the leading lady, while he ticks off items on his checklist. He brings all his extensive histrionic skills to a brilliant realisation. Medlyn preens herself in the mirror, wandering around in her underwear driving the others wild. An hilarious assumption of a role. As a dissolute and distracted young man Gaz - Hill - displayed his excellent comic skills, while the virile young Roger - Holt - again going against form - is great.
The solid down to earth bloke Ian is perfectly caught by Green.
Devised by Kitchen, this is a masterful little piece dovetailing perfectly in to the "real" opera going on onstage. Snippets of a mix of musical styles are woven in to match each character. So while sorting the bouquet of roses, the thorns do their thing, and while having his rose-thorn pricked and bleeding hand bandaged Greager gives us a beautiful, appropriate, straight rendition of 'The Flower Song' from Carmen, in French.
The selection of pieces and variations of styles here is astute and imaginative, from Cole Porter's 'Another Op'nin', Another Show' from Kiss me Kate to Donizetti, Schumann, Mozart and Rossini through to Lerner and Loewe and Sondheim; a magnificent amalgam.
The Ravel is a very complex and quite difficult score that requires a big orchestra so some people wondered how the music would fare with a reduced orchestra of ten players plus keyboard. In the event they needn't have worried, for Michael Vinten's reduced orchestration was masterly, full of interesting tonal colour and instrumental variety despite there being only a few players. The orchestration easily captured the essence and feel of Ravel's great score and was well adapted to the excellent instrumental qualities of the Christchurch Symphony players. His arrangements in Ticked Off! were equally adept.
For production purposes the orchestra were placed onstage to the side of the performance space, which didn't always help projection and although they played very well indeed, occasionally I wanted them to play out more.
I was a little surprised when I entered the theatre twenty minutes before the start of the show to see conductor Louise Clark going over the score. Was this nervous conscientiousness or was this part of the production? It did become clear though, that at times she wasn't really fully on top of all the music and occasionally seemed a little out of her depth, particularly in some of the pieces in the second half. A lesser cast might well have floundered so it was a tribute to their professionalism that things went as smoothly as they did.
This aspect was my only disappointment in this show.
I can't say enough what a smart and sophisticated idea this whole presentation was, and though it was a small scale touring production this was probably the best opera production I have seen in Christchurch for a long time.
Maybe some audiences aren't ready for this style yet, or possibly those who were didn't realise that this wasn't frightening "opera" but great and enjoyable musical entertainment of the highest calibre.
So perhaps this was the wrong venue and the wider audience needed to be tapped into to make this the financial success it deserved to be, for it was a resounding artistic success.
Congratulations to Southern Opera tackling something different and for doing it so well.