Opera lavish, moving

Press, 6 March 1978, Page 6

Opera lavish, moving

By-

HOWARD McNAUGHTON

“Orfeo ed Euridice,” by C. W. Gluck. Directed by Elric Hooper. James Hay Theatre, March 5-6, 8, toil. Running time: 8.1510.50. A large and appreciative audience attended the opening of the festival opera last night and, predictably, its attention and enthusiasm focused on Heather Begg in the part of Orfeo. This casting, it is explained, follows a modern tradition necessitated by a lack of castrate voices, which means that all three soloists are female. From the first chorus, it was obvious that we were in for a superb evening’s opera, and that the festival committee’s decision to do the work on a reasonablv lavish scale and bring in a top quality soloist was to be fullv vindicated. Everything that Heather Begg does is magnificent: her singing is delightfully modulated in itself, the gives an obvious inspiration to the

,chorus, and in her acting she, affects a postured stiffness: which suggests a male qual-i y ity and also an element of 1 « sustained torture. ). This opera seems particu-. j. larlv challenging from the production point of view. ■ Not only is the mythology I e modified to give it a happy! '.ending in accordance with its. . occasional origin, but a num-: n her of other elements seem to! impede fluidity of develop-! ment. ’ Elric Hooper, however.] ( musters all his directorial 0 skills to achieve a degree of II cohesion that one would scarcely have thought pos-i sible. so that there is not a; p single uneasy transition in! s the whole thing. First, he has designed an! q excellent multi-level set! v which he exploits for a wide! a diversity of effects but which j e keeps the motif of descent] and ascent in our minds] r.throughout Then, he uses* r Amor (Heather Taylor) and i- Pluto (Derek Crowther) as] n highly stylised presenters —I e the latter in Mycenean cos-i

;,tume which gives the piece >: historic depth, and the former ■i in the common neo-classical ’■war costume. ] Many of the individual (episodes are highly mem-, orable — the Furies in Hades in the Second Act, the mag- ■ nificent duet between Orfeo land Euridice (Nicola Waite) ,in the Third Act, the bril- | liantly functional transition : from" Hades to the Elysian I Fields, and the fusing of levity with poignancy in the ! finale. However, one’s strongest memory after that of Heather Begg’s arias must be that of I the production’s wholeness — the way that the high standards of Dobbs Franks’s musical direction of the Can- ! terbury Orchestra and the j Christchurch Harmonic Society blend together with the j visual design of Elric Hooper and Peter Lees-Jeffries, so that, combined with direc- ! tion that is impeccably thought out from start to ■ finish, we are given an opera that is delightful and highly (moving throughout.