The Necklace: a new musical in concert (The Belfast Ensemble at the Lyric Theatre)

New music from Conor Mitchell and The Belfast Ensemble never disappoints, and tonight’s concert première of The Necklace was no exception.

It’s a musical based on Guy de Maupassant’s tale of Parisian couple whose social mobility is not on an upward trajectory. As a clerk in the Department of Finance, Gustav receives an invitation to the Minister’s ball. The pair fork out their savings so Camille can wear a new dress. She wows the other guests. However, a borrowed necklace turns their fortunes and health into sharp decline and the couple pay a heavy price for vanity.

Much like the original performance of the work that would become Propaganda – another European tale from the pen of Mitchell – this early version of The Necklace feels very complete and demands a full production.

While Camile (powerfully voiced by Christina Bennington) and Gustav (Charlie McCullagh) are struggling to make ends meet – cabbage soup is constantly on their menu for dinner –their maid Colette (performed brilliantly by Brigid Shine with open-mouthed shock, flirting and amazing presence) and her beau Alain (Darren Franklin) are about to step into an elevator to financial success.

Ciara Mackey brings her soulful voice to the role of narrator, while Nigel Richards plays the underdeveloped menacing character of Vernier. Chanice Alexander-Burnett and Tom O’Kelly get some of the wittiest songs (Façade/charade and You can’t rush art) playing the Minister’s wife and a jeweller respectively. Camille’s best friend from school days is Jean Forestier, a widow with a biting tongue whose main song Christ has been good to me aptly sums up her situation (and foreshadows what could be around the corner for her friend). The remaining cast member is Mark Dugdale.

The ten cast members double as the ensemble in some of the numbers and relish the overlapping vocals that Mitchell injects into key moments of the story. Behind them on the main Lyric stage, a 21-strong orchestra play under the baton of the composer.

Before the performance begins, a quick lesson from Mitchell about the importance of ‘cadence’, gives the audience some insight into how to read the characters’ individual motifs match the sounds to the story. (His impromptu theory class reminds me that on top of all his other work, Mitchell needs to contribute to a podcast series about musical theatre and opera, boiled down to 5–10-minute digestible morsels.)

The Necklace is a work of great promise. A musical with hummable tunes and a story filled with angst, consequences and regret. The musicians and singers brought it to life in our imaginations this evening. Hopefully in a year or two’s time there will be a full production where we’ll see Camille chatting to the Minister’s wife on the side of the beautiful ball, and we’ll see how her standard of accommodation visually degrades during the story.

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