8 Monday December 6 2021 | the timesfirst night
opera
A
re we wrong to think of
Leoncavallo as a one-hit
wonder? The Italian
composer’s reputation rests
on his short Pagliacci, but
rare opera specialists Opera Rara are
keen to prove there’s more to him. In
2015 the company dug out the
colourful Zazà; this year it’s the turn of
Zingari (Gypsies), written in 1912 for
London’s buzzing Hippodrome
Theatre, also home to variety shows,
circuses and aquatic entertainments.
Back then, Zingari was a popular
success. Now? Pagliacci is unlikely to
be knocked off its top spot.
Lurid to the point of comedy, Zingari
is more of an interesting failure than a
forgotten masterpiece. Based on a
Pushkin poem of 1824, which also
inspired Rachmaninov’s Aleko, its plot
centres on a love triangle with a free-
spirited Gypsy. So far, so Carmen. Yet it
was hard to care about Leoncavallo’s
four characters. Often, they felt
distanced — quite literally, as well as
emotionally, in this no-frills concert
performance, which tucked the soloists
away behind the orchestra.
The tenor Arsen Soghomonyan,
granted, sang with real passion, and
brought life to the role of Radu, with
whom Fleana (Krassimira Stoyanova),
daughter of the Old Man (Lukasz
Golinski), first falls in love. Lurking
near by, with a knife, is the possessive
poet Tamar (Stephen Gaertner),
Fleana’s next flame. It doesn’t end well.
Yet there’s something particularly
gruesome about the fatal fire lit by
Radu in revenge and, in this
restoration of the original version, his
subsequent escape from the scene.
That said, if anyone is going to make
a compelling case for Zingari, it’s the
conductor Carlo Rizzi. He had the
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra on
zinging form, relishing the music’s
exoticisms and atmosphere; Tamar’s
two offstage “canto notturno” arias
with solo viola (Abigail Fenna) were
rather beautiful. Rizzi also
masterminded the opening Tosca
Symphonic Suite; his arrangement
made musical but not narrative sense.
Given the choice, I’d rather have the
complete Puccini opera and the
highlights of the Leoncavallo.
Rebecca FranksZingari
Cadogan Hall, SW1
{{(((MANUEL HARLANtheatre
LPO/Elder
Royal Festival Hall
{{{{{BBC CO/Tovey
Queen Elizabeth Hall
{{{((concert
As Dame Trot, Clive Rowe has gorgeous off-the-cuff confidenceBow before
this dame
Clive Rowe keeps his crown as king of
panto in Hackney, says Donald HuteraF
or end-of-year regulars at
Hackney Empire, it will come
as no surprise that in its
present production — the
venue’s 22nd pantomime, and
his 14th there — Clive Rowe retains
his crown as panto royalty. As the
buoyant, dairy-owning Dame Trot,
he dominates and drives proceedings
with a gorgeous, generous and often
off-the-cuff confidence. Rowe is
such a masterly mistress of merriment
that doing his/her bidding is our
giddy pleasure.
Rowe is truly at the helm of thisgrand piece of seasonal popular
entertainment, having co-directed it
with fellow panto veteran Tony
Whittle. The pair also contributed
material to Will Brenton’s savvy-silly,
traditional script. The show’s nominal
setting is Hackney or, more
specifically, Hackney-on-the-Verge
— in Cleo Pettitt’s perspective-
skewering designs a cartoon-bright
rural community beleaguered by an
unseen (until Act II, that is) giant
whose onerous dictates are carried
out by Funella Fleshcreep, a glittering,
green-faced slimeball.
Defeating the corrupt powers
that be — a premise for which
parallels can be found in
contemporary governments near or
far — is naturally on the cards,
although it is little more than a
faux-urgent priority. Festive folderol
is the real order of the day. The
show’s first act is an especially
leisurely ball as we get to know the
characters and/or performers whose
job it is to propel the plot while
dishing up lashings of interactive,
call-and-response fun.
Whittle brings a laid-back expertise
to the role of a toupee-wearing local
councillor with a Freddie Mercury
obsession, while Zoe Curlett
embodies the evil Fleshcreep with
a lip-smacking glamour. Julie Jupp
also makes an impression as an
ardent deus ex machina named
Fairy Fuchsia. The younger generation
is represented by Rochelle Sherona
and Ellie Ruiz Rodriguez’s Jack and
Jill, budding sweethearts whose
newly realised devotion is expressed
via a cover duet of Marvin Gaye
and Tammi Terrell’s You’re All I
Need to Get By. Jack is one of
Dame Trot’s sons. The other is Simple
Simon, played by the MTV Base
presenter Kat B with a disarming
magnetic energy.
Apart from that impressively large-
scaled giant, the show also features a
two-person cow and a snappy young
ensemble of six who at one point pop
up as tap-dancing cockroaches. Credit,
too, to the musical director Mark
Dickman leading the five-piece band
in the pit. But, again, it is Rowe,
sporting a series of outrageously over-
the-top costumes (including
milkmaid’s garb, a hooped skirt
adorned with mock bags for life, and a
Welsh dresser complete with porcelain
pottery), who most completely
demonstrates the fine art of nonsense.
To Jan 2, hackneyempire.co.ukJack and the
Beanstalk
Hackney Empire, E8
{{{{(handsome, boyish face on screen
decades after he disappeared was
heartbreaking.
Wire thanked the audience for
giving him an excuse to get out of his
tracksuit. Frontman James Dean
Bradfield, note-perfect even when he
screamed, was in playful mood, telling
fans how nice they smelt and
dismissing his bandmates to play a
lovely solo acoustic rendition of their
1993 hit La Tristesse Durera.
The surprise highlight was a
storming cover of the Cult classic She
Sells Sanctuary, dedicated to the
former Manics producer Steve Brown,
who died this year. “He produced
Wham!, he produced the Boomtown
Rats, he produced Motorcycle
Emptiness,” Bradfield declared. “And
he produced this f***ing song.”
The crowd howled along, and for a
few glorious minutes those empty
seats were forgotten.
Lisa VerricoI
was overwhelmed when I heard
the world premiere of James
MacMillan’s Christmas Oratorio
broadcast from the Netherlands in
January. What’s the next step up
from overwhelmed? Hearing this
100-minute modern masterpiece
performed live in its British premiere,
with the London Philharmonic
Orchestra and Choir surmounting its
profound challenges superbly under
Mark Elder’s direction, was as
powerful an experience, musical and
spiritual, as I expect to hear from a
living composer for years.
MacMillan’s approach to the
Nativity story is neither chronological
nor purely Biblical. Some of the most
intense moments are when the two
soloists (the impassioned Lucy Crowe
and immaculate Roderick Williams)
deliver white-hot settings of
metaphysical poetry. Yet it has a
completely convincing dramatic arc
and music that is sometimes
laceratingly violent, sometimes
idiosyncratic yet inspired (the
orchestral leader is given a kind of
choral-accompanied violin concerto atone point), and sometimes reduced to
exquisite chamber-like wisps.
There is ancient plainchant in there,
but also cataclysmic declamations, like
Belshazzar’s Feast on steroids. The
harmonic language ebbs and flows
from disarming tonality to scrunching
discords, but it’s always perfectly
matched to the words. After the
ethereally beautiful ending a standing
ovation greeted the composer.
The previous evening, another
composer from the user-friendly
school of modern music was featured
in a BBC Concert Orchestra
programme conducted by Bramwell
Tovey. Dobrinka Tabakova’s Earth
Suite comprises three pieces and was
written during her four years as this
orchestra’s composer-in-residence.
Born in Bulgaria, brought up in
Britain, she isn’t exactly an original
voice: her fast, fizzy movements sound
like John Adams’s early minimalist
orchestral pieces, her slow meditative
ones like Arvo Part’s lusher moments.
She does, however, have panache,
technique and the knack of selecting
trendy ecological subjects as her
starting points (her recent violin
concerto was titled, and about, The
Patience of Trees). Her Concerto for
Cello and Strings, performed here
with Laura van der Heijden the
excellent soloist, has a gorgeous slow
movement that summons up the
mystical elegiac spirit of Tavener’s
The Protecting Veil, and doesn’t suffer
from the comparison.
Richard Morrison
The BBC CO concert is broadcast on
Radio 3 on Dec 7, then available on
BBC SoundsAt times, it’s like
Belshazzar’s
Feast on steroids
didn’t always translate to the crowd.
The problem was a woefully undersold
Wembley Arena. Even with the back
curtained off, there were swathes of
empty seats sapping the atmosphere.
At a packed venue this would
have felt like a victory lap
for the band whose
14th album, The
Ultra Vivid Lament,
became their first
chart topper in
23 years in
September and
boasts their
strongest songs
since the
Noughties.
Among the
standouts were a
psychedelic Happy
Bored Alone, the Abba-
influenced Orwellian and
a dramatic Still Snowing in
Sapporo, dedicated to Edwards, whoseN
o one would be more
appalled to see a middle-
aged Manic Street
Preachers on stage than the
Welshmen themselves in
their younger years. What they would
have made of the fiftysomethings
walking on to Abba, showing adorable,
vintage footage of themselves on
screen and reminiscing about Richey
Edwards, their famously missing,
presumed dead bandmate, is probably
unprintable.
Yet for much of their final gig of the
year, Manic Street Preachers proved
that their punk rock roots remain.
Motorcycle Emptiness was a fast and
furious opener, If You Tolerate This
Your Children Will Be Next bristled
with as much anger as ever and
Motown Junk was majestic. Bassist
Nicky Wire, right, still able to pull off
tight white trousers, at least at a
distance, incessantly scissor-kicked.
Unfortunately, the energy on stageManic Street
Preachers
Wembley Arena
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