The admirable Ellen Kent has been delivering high-quality opera of Eastern European provenance to receptive audiences in Oxford for nearly a quarter of a century.
Her welcome return last week brought us polished productions of three popular works, if in the case of the first, Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus, one not often given these days.
The operetta’s last local performance that I saw was from Welsh National Opera in 2003, with spoken dialogue – which constitutes fully 40 per cent of the work – by playwright Mark Ravenhill, of Shopping and F***ing fame.
Ms Kent has likewise supplied new words, giving us witty, up-to-the-minute stuff in a tone ideally suited to the legendary larkiness of the plot.
This, it will be remembered, concerns multiple misunderstandings and deliberate misrepresentations over identity at a champagne-drenched party hosted by Prince Orlovsky, a breeches role taken by Liza Kadelnik.
Turning him into a Russian oligarch in modern style is but one of this production’s variations on a familiar theme. In another, we see heroine Rosalinde (Alyona Kistenyova) disguised as a Romanian (rather than Hungarian) countess and singing in Moldovan.
Her opera-spouting lover Alfred (Ruslan Pacatovici) comes over, with his bristling moustache and fortissimo delivery of famous arias, as a passing imitation of the tenor from the GoCompare TV ads.
As I say, all ludicrous fun, but with the lovely, lilting waltzes impeccably delivered by singers and orchestra under conductor Vasyl Vasylenko.
An imposing new set, presenting a stone amphitheatre adorned with classical statues, was used with suitable adaptations throughout, and remained in place for Tosca on Friday and Bizet’s Carmen (which I did not see) on Saturday.
Ever a joy, Kent's take on the Puccini once more supplied an evening of tense drama, with soprano Kistenyova in superb voice as the opera singer Floria Tosca, whose jealous suspicions over her lover Cavaradossi (Ruslan Zinevych) supply a powerful momentum to the plot.
Baritone Vladimir Dragos, who gave a fine comic turn as prison warden Frosch in Fledermaus, was in marvellous voice as the odious Count Scarpia.
CHRISTOPHER GRAY 4/5
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