The Barber of Seville – a finger-picking and financially-wise Figaro engineers romance (Lyric Opera Ireland at Grand Opera House until Saturday 21 February)

Figaro can fix your love life as well as spruce up your barnet. The barber helps a poor student Lindoro to enter the Seville home of a beautiful woman to woo her. (Nothing remotely suss about that!!) But her grumpy guardian Bartolo has plans to marry Rosina. Cue multiple disguises, cunning plans being rumbled, a true identity being revealed, and an opera-sized heart to end Gioachino Rossini’s comedy masterpiece (with libretto by Cesare Sterbini).

Lyric Opera Ireland’s director and designer Cav. Vivian J Coates has conjured up a modest but colourful production of The Barber of Seville which puts the characters at the heart of the performance without using flashy sets or gimmicks (other than a gorgeous cloud that floats down). After some curtain twitching fun during the very hummable overture, the opening scenes don’t really impose a sense that the show will be comic until Figaro properly bursts onto the stage bringing a warmth and a physical buffoonery that lights up the mischievous wordplay in Sterbini’s lyrics.

The paper programme instructs audience members to “please refrain from unwrapping sweets during the performance”. One gentleman near me with a noisy bag of even noisier individually wrapped sweets competed with the 29-piece orchestra (under the baton of Carmen Santoro) and the cast until being tapped on the shoulder. With neither the singers nor the majority of the orchestra being amplified, the volume levels are lower than you might expect, so distractions are particularly unwelcome. (At Tuesday evening’s performance a mobile phone rang out at the exact moment Fiorello was crooning about “No one is around to interrupt our singing”!)

Morgan Pearse’s finger-picking and financially-wise Figaro plays a mean guitar and is the stand-out presence on stage with a great set of gestures and a winning vitality. His baritone voice cuts through the technically complex Largo al factotum with its rapid-fire lyrics like a hot knife through butter.

With Rosina much talked about but little heard in the first act, it’s only after the interval that we get to hear more of Sarah Richmond’s rich and powerful mezzo soprano voice. Rossini’s women are underwritten and somewhat two-dimensional. So it’s immensely pleasing that soprano Sandra Oman delivers a star turn as Bartolo’s feather-dusting maid Berta who sums up the dysfunction that surrounds her household in the song Il vecchiotto cerca moglie.

Matteo Torcaso manages to look silly but sing very seriously with a big blob of shaving cream on Bartolo’s nose. The character (first introduced as) Lindoro is played by Randall Bills and becomes a man of many disguises whose tenor voice blends so well with Pearse and Richmond.

Wearing maroon berets, the male chorus are the very model of a tuneful paramilitary force, including local lads Dessie Havlin (a regular in the NI Opera chorus) and Harrison Gordon (who only a few years ago was starring in the Belvoir Players panto and a youth theatre production of Footloose).

At times Coates shows great playfulness, allowing lyrics like “quick let’s get going” to become a prolonged joke, getting Figaro to shave off a beard to the delight of the audience, and orchestrating a case of rapid onset Scarlet Fever. Coates has a fine sense of farce and is unafraid to use large props to ridicule a scene or create a very modern-looking (but not too anachronistic) Instagram moment for the finale. Some choreography is less surefooted with no one standing remotely close to the character singing the line “don’t touch me” in the first act.

Heavy, menacing marble columns are made to glide around the stage by the female chorus. Sometimes their reconfiguration adds to the tension in a scene; sometimes the movement becomes a distraction. Large TV monitors for the cast to see the conductor at the side of the stage (rather than their usual location mounted on the front of the grand circle) block sight lines for some of the audience in the stalls.

Sung in its original Italian, English surtitles are displayed above the centre of the stage. Tuesday evening’s performance finished after half past ten, so bear that in mind as some people had to leave early to catch the last bus or train home.

Operas have large casts and require sizeable orchestras. They’re bold, brash and make big statements. Nothing is too ostentatious or outlandish in the world of opera. Everything is magnified … including the costs to design, rehearse and stage. Working within these constraints, Lyric Opera Ireland’s The Barber of Seville is a pleasing no-nonsense production of a classic opera. The costumes are colourful but traditional. The story-telling stays true to classical expectations. The performances are strong, although the compact nature of the cast meant that the final anthem, Amor e fede eterna, si vegga in noi regnar, lacked a bit of oomph and would have benefitted from a greater crescendo.

The Barber of Seville continues its short run at the Grand Opera House on Wednesday 18, Friday 20 and Saturday 21 February. Alongside the annual production from NI Opera (down from two a year to one), it’s great to see a second company bringing opera to a Belfast stage.

Photo credit: Federica Ferrieri (top) & Neil Harrison Photography (all the others) 

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Follies – a night of nostalgia, reflection, great music and brilliant performances (NI Opera at Grand Opera House until Saturday 20 September)

NI Opera’s production of Follies sees a welcome return to its post-Covid practice of staging musical theatre (using a mix of operatic and theatrical cast and voices) alongside traditional opera. Shows like The Threepenny Opera, Sweeney Todd and Kiss Me Kate thrilled audiences in the Lyric Theatre until the pandemic and funding reduced the company to one major production each year alongside its smaller events.

The curtain – distressed polythene the height of the stage – goes up and it’s 1971 in a variety theatre that’s about to be demolished to make way for a car park.

The impresario Dimitri Weismann (Marty Maguire) has arranged a reunion for the showgirls who performed in his ‘Follies’ shows in the years between the two world wars. The women reminisce about the olden, not always golden, days and face up to memories from their younger lives, things that happened, decisions they made, and old mistakes they have struggled to live with. In particular, Sally (Anna-Jane Casey) must confront her unrequited passion for Ben (Alasdair Harvey) – the lad who ultimately married her roommate Phyllis (Annette McLaughlin) in an unfulfilling union – and her own matrimonial shortcomings with Buddy (Mark Dugdale).

This version of Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman’s Follies has an enormous cast – cut down from the even larger 52 in the original 1971 production to a mere 32 it still exudes a sense of scale that can rarely be afforded – and suits the expansive Grand Opera House stage. Stripped of its plush curtains and elaborate sets, the wings are left bare, the black walls and pipework visible to all. Niall McKeever’s monochrome set is lit by Jake Wiltshire’s amber lighting design, with some large set pieces dropped in during the second half. A stunning mirrored globe sits stage left during the first few scenes, providing another perspective of the performers and lights for anyone sitting close enough to catch the detail. The moonlit cloud effect in I’m Still Here is a stunning backdrop to Jacqueline Dankworth’s solo as Carlotta.

Ten showgirls parade down the steps and onto the stage, introduced by Roscoe (Darren Franklin). Their sashes indicate the years they worked between 1918 and 1941. Portrayed as ‘women of a certain age’, these fictitious performers are unlikely to still be in demand for starring roles. But during the reunion, they each prove that they still have what it takes to put on a stunning performance. It’s part of Sondheim’s challenge to theatre makers and audiences.

Anna-Jane Casey is a powerhouse throughout, exploring Sally’s more-than-lingering love of Ben before realising the truth as her wellbeing unravels. Young Sally is played brilliantly by Brigid Shine who wows with vocals and acting that complement Casey’s mood and mannerisms.

Sally’s former flatmate Phyllis (married to the aforementioned Ben) is played by Annette McLaughlin who lets her hair down and hits peak sass in her later song The Story of Lucy and Jessie. Anna Violet’s incredibly confident performance as young Phyllis belies that this is her professional debut.

Sondheim’s vocal harmonies jump out from the score in songs like Waiting for the Girls Upstairs and are enriched with moments where the composer ratchets up the number of actors simultaneously singing against each other. It must be a nightmare to rehearse, but the finished result is a dream to listen to.

The ‘old timers’ stage a six-minute song and dance number Who’s That Woman? leaving the audience nearly as out of breath as the actors pretend to be, though some of the lyrics do soften a little during the superbly choreographed tap dance. It’s a mesmerising celebration of talent, and a delight to see Christina Nelson in the middle of the fray as Emily. Earlier in the show she enjoys a song and dance with Theodore/Richard Croxford, cleverly mirrored by their young selves at the back of the stage.

While Cameron Menzies’ direction plays with different ways of having old and young characters on stage together – sometimes in close proximity, other times acting out vignettes to one side – the overall effect is always clear.

With pheromones raging and a path to revived love uncovered, the show breaks at a crucial kiss. When it returns after the interval, the weeds quickly grow over smitten Sally’s dream of “puppy love at 53” as Ben makes his true nature clear. The somewhat noisy scene change during Could I Leave You? can be forgiven when Loveland is revealed and we enter a pink, flowery fantasy world of vaudeville acts as Sally, Phyllis and their spouses get to grips with their individual follies and desires. (Very reminiscent of the fever dream fantasy musical sequences Dennis Potter would create in his TV serials from the late 1970s until his death in 1994.)

One More Kiss matches the acclaimed voice of Lesley Garrett (playing Heidi Schiller and all but abandons her character’s Austrian spoken accent when singing) with young Petra Wells (NI Opera Chorus Development Programme) who more than holds her own in a fine duet.

A traditional opera would likely end with the protagonists at best in tears, at worst dead. A West End musical would see the young lovers reunited and driving off into the sunset. Sondheim and Goldman deliver something more complex yet still complete.

Follies offers the complete package of artists from across the worlds of musical theatre and opera demonstrating their vocal mastery of Sondheim’s lyrics and melodies, matched by the soaring music from NI Opera’s 30-strong orchestra in the pit under the baton of Greg Arrowsmith (the mellow sax during Sally’s Losing My Mind just one highlight from the evening), well-choreographed dance routines (Jennifer Rooney) that really help tell the story, as well as the dazzling costumes from Gillian Lennox and Cameron Menzies topped off with Nuala Campbell’s wigs.

Yet aside from all that creative prowess, one of the greatest highlights of this production of Follies is the visible on-stage chemistry between the older and younger versions of the characters. Core to NI Opera’s remit is the development of emerging local talent, and the generous nods from the Weismann showgirls towards their youthful ghosts during the curtain call suggests that the seasoned artists have been mentoring and valuing their younger colleagues. Women, young and old, are celebrated at the heart of this show.

Every couple of years I review a show that impels me to go back and watch it again before the run is over. Follies is one such production, with almost every other scene turning into a moment of great joy that demands to be experienced again. 

Follies runs at the Grand Opera House until Saturday 20 September. Tickets are selling very fast for the four remaining performances. Given the effort and imagination that has gone into this production, and the infrequency in which Follies can be staged, it seems a shame that there are unlikely to be other opportunities for this cast and version of the show – one of NI Opera’s best productions to date – to travel to other venues and wider audiences.

Photo credit: Neil Harrison

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Eugene Onégin – in which Tatyana stands up to a crushing cad (NI Opera at Grand Opera House until 21 September)

Dreamy young Tatyana falls for the friend of her older sister’s fiancé when the two men visit her rural family home. Fond of romantic fiction, smitten Tatyana spends the night penning a letter full of passion that her nanny arranges to be delivered to Onégin. He crushes her infatuation declaring that he is too flighty to be worth marrying. Not long after, to dismiss rumours about his relationship with Tatyana, he flirts with her sister Olga, arousing seething jealousy in his mate Lensky. Mercury rises and after a duel, Onégin flees, travelling aimlessly, haunted by his actions, and apparently full of remorse. Some years later, by chance he encounters Tatyana once more, now a married woman of nobility. Can she forgive the patronising cad’s contemptuous behaviour (that led to him killing her sister’s fiancé)?

Tchaikovsky’s music and libretto retains the poetic nature of Alexander Pushkin’s novel which was written in verse. Cameron Menzies’ production of Eugene Onégin for NI Opera frames the story as a series of remembrances of an old woman (Anne Flanagan). The actions of her carers and cleaners become tangled up in vivid hallucinations about old times when a figure violently interrupted her young adulthood.

Ukrainian-born baritone Yuriy Yurchuk is back reinterpreting a familiar role. His Eugene Onégin towers above most of the rest of the cast and conveys a self-absorbed aloofness. Norman Reinhardt impresses as Vladamir Lensky, with acting and vocals to bring his first and second act arias to life. Their snowy duel is somewhat unconvincing, neither brimming with drama nor staged in slow motion atop of three trestle tables.

Mary McCabe plays the overthinking, romantic Tatyana who pours out her heart before accepting Onégin’s harsh response. The talented Downpatrick soprano finally makes her operatic principal mainstage debut in this production and sustains a sense of inner anguish during the elongated ‘letter aria’ in Act One (assisted by the complementary acting of her older self). But it’s the final scene between Tatyana and Onégin that really brings out McCabe’s fieriness and passionate presence. Her mature performance on opening night was rewarded with sustained applause from an appreciative home audience.

Sarah Richmond has great fun with the role of the older and sometimes maligned sister Olga, with playful shoulder shrugs before Onégin’s misbehaviour complicates her life. Another two Northern Ireland mezzo-sopranos play Madame Larina (Carolyn Dobbin) who is mum to Olga and Tatyana, and nanny Filipevna (Jenny Bourke) who was married off at age 13.

Niall McKeever’s set is cryptic. Part barn, part warehouse, part care home, part stately home. It’s a canvass onto which McKeever can project black and white video imagery to heighten the sense of rural living, parties and snow (which works the least effectively). Tube lighting hangs overhead. One fitting descends to become a seat … and teases that it might become a swing (but doesn’t). Without any forced perspective, some of the set’s structural beams hide the recessed doors for some sections of the audience, leaving lighting designer Kevin Treacy to indicate when they open using sunshine and shadows.

Down in the pit, the Ulster Orchestra are absent and NI Opera have assembled their own orchestra for this production, under the baton of Dominic Limburg. Gillian Lennox dexterous use of colour palettes particularly pays off in Act Two when an unexpectedly spritely crowd-pleasing French crooner (Monsieur Triquet played by Aaron O’Hare) – a long-haired dandy with more than a whiff of former MP Michael Fabricant – arrives at the party to sing to Tatyana surrounded by a pastel-dressed chorus. Tatyana’s white fur hat in Act Three is another visual success.

Director Cameron Menzies doesn’t shy away from bold creative decisions and has been longing to stage this opera for some time. But the production risks a number of artistic compromises. The doting Tatyana is dressed in relatively modern slacks, yet her reminisces involve people dressed in a style from well before her birth. When peasants arrive to celebrate the harvest they are wearing fabulously sinister, oversized masks and carrying enormous pitchforks. The visuals are fantastic, but feel completely at odds with everything else in the opera, perhaps only working if seen through the eyes of older Tatyana’s senility. A sung line about “coming indoors” when Lensky and Onégin are already standing in the middle of the room also momentarily falls flat.

“Why’s it not called Tatyana?” asked one audience member leaving the theatre to walk up Great Victoria Street. That’ll be a matter of nineteenth century male creative sensibilities. Despite the title, the heroine did deservedly get top billing in the (anarchic) curtain call(s), and while the title and the story aren’t well known outside operatic circles, it was pleasing to see a production which could showcase so much local talent: not just the four leading ladies, but also casting baritones Matthew Jeffrey and Seamus Brady in named roles.

The interval comes after the best part of 90 minutes, with a shorter second half. Starting at 30 minutes earlier at 7pm and sticking to the old-fashioned but original seven scenes over three acts format with two intervals would have some merit.

Staging an opera is a huge enterprise, with larger sets, more intricate costumes and wigs, more musicians, longer run times, bigger casts to corral, and a very small number of performances to bed everything in. Ambitions are set high and NI Opera once again have pulled off a memorable production. But there’s still room for the intimate affairs of the heart to explode more fully onto the stage in true operatic style.

Eugene Onégin is back in the Grand Opera House with performances on Thuesday 17, Thursday 19 and Saturday 21 September.

Photo credit: Neil Harrison

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The Headless Soldier (The Belfast Ensemble & Outburst Arts at Lyric Theatre as part of Outburst Queer Arts Festival until Saturday 11 November) #outburst23

The Belfast Ensemble premiered their first version of Abomination in the Lyric Theatre as part of Outburst Festival five years ago. It was a thrilling bonus, tacked on the end of a restaging of The Doppler Effect.

At this year’s festival, they’re performing The Headless Soldier, an opera in three parts that began when Afghanistan was in the news, and would have played against the continuing news reports from Ukraine if it hadn’t been for Gaza and Israel taking over the top slot for international conflict reporting in bulletins. This post is more of a response than a formal review.

Future students will probably write essays that remark on the opening line: “This is a mixture of raspberries and cranberries.” It’s mundane, and one end of the continuum presented over the next hour and a bit that stretches from home to more traditional war zones. Though home can also be a war zone, which is partly the point. Is there a point of discontinuity between a parent’s aggressive thoughts, words and deeds and the violent thoughts, words and deeds of a soldier or mercenary? Or the repercussions of any number of inequalities, acts of prejudice, bias and discrimination that we experience in life?

Helen (Sarah Richmond) says sings that she is intolerant of caffeine; but that turns out just to be the tip of her iceberg of irritation and hate. Acupuncture. Therapy. She’s tried it all to manage her issues, and perhaps wanted to take matters into her own hands too. The second act properly introduces her husband Thomas (Ed Lyon) and son Zach (Shea McDonnell) and we discover that while personal conflict consumes Helen, Thomas is torn apart by global concerns. Meanwhile young Zach has been drawing pictures of a soldier with no head.

The interval allows the themes to settle. The man off the TV news report visits – there’s a beautiful reveal of Christopher Cull’s character – and disturbs Zach’s reverie in his bedroom. Zach’s torch shines a light; the man’s brightly coloured toy rifle extinguishes what light is left on his battlezone. It’s a dark final act with well-directed movements that are made to look so much more disturbing because there’s a child on stage.

If a mother loses her head over seemingly small things, is she just fighting in a different battleground to those protesting at housing provision, or the soldiers in khaki who are fighting for freedom and democracy? But whose freedom and whose democracy? And maybe what seems like adult behaviour actually starts with us as children railing against what aggravates and annoys Maybe Zach is no more innocent that his parents or the headless soldier? Is it futile to fighting against all this?

There’s a 15-strong orchestra under the stage, a teak platform that provides a number of domestic spaces, a plastic box full of Lego bricks that find their way to the floor, and some harsh blinders from lighting designer Mary Tumelty who switches mood in time with the music. Gavin Peden’s two-layer projections add contemporary context to the universal. Projecting some of the lyrics onto the back wall – made to look like chalk on a blackboard – is effective. Every singer’s diction is excellent, but there’s an extra playfulness and sense of poetry when the words are in vision. And there’s plenty of good acting in this opera.

Theatre allows lines to be drawn between unusual dots. The act of sitting in a seat for an hour or more gives space to recognise yourself in the story, or to question whether what you’re seeing and hearing is universal or just applicable in some situations. The Headless Soldier plays with that freedom to stir up settled thoughts. And it proves that swear words were surely made for opera!

The fact that this work has been co-produced and programmed as part of Outburst festival also raises unspoken questions of how the conflict experienced by queer communities – and not forgetting the conflict between queer communities – fits into the human tendency towards intolerance, fear, misery, war and peace.

With music (and direction) by Conor Mitchell and the libretto by Mark Ravenhill, The Headless Soldier is a provocative operatic triptych. The final performance as part of Outburst Queer Arts Festival is on Saturday 11 November ... assuming the blood can be washed out of the costumes in time!

You can find some other recommendations in my preview of Outburst festival.

Outburst Queer Arts Festival preview (9–18 November) #outburst23

As always at this time of the year, there’s lots to catch your eye in the Outburst festival programme. Previous festivals have gifted audiences with performances like Damage, Scorch, Tactics for Time Travel in a Toilet, There’s a Bishop in my Bedroom, Abomination (originally a concert version that returned with full staging the next year), This Sh*t Happens All The Time (which later returned in a full production), and lots, lots more.

Here’s a few highlights that jumped out of the 40 or so events in the programme:

The Belfast Ensemble is a frequent collaborator with Outburst and artistic director Conor Mitchell has teamed up with Mark Ravenhill to create the music and libretto for an exciting new triptych of short operas: The Headless Soldier [reviewed] from Thursday 9–Saturday 11 in the Lyric Theatre.

The international cinema strand features The Lost Boys/Les Paradis (Sunday 12), Rivière (Tuesday 14), All the Colours of the World are Between Black and White (Wednesday 15) and Orlando, my political biography (Saturday 18).

New for this year is the JUNTES project, a collaboration between a number of organisations to explore new approaches to changing the narratives around gender that has sprung out of a festival in São Paulo earlier this year. JUNTES will include performance (Grace Petric’s Butch Ado About Nothing on Thursday 16 in the Black Box), panel discussion (The Dramaturgy of Politics looking at whether art can really make a difference when it comes to changing hearts and minds on Saturday 18 in the Black Box) and performance (It Was Paradise, Unfortunately [reviewed] examines where and why the idea of theatre began in the Western World and whether theatre has ever changed the world on Saturday 11, Friday 17 and Saturday 18 at Ulster University).

This year, the organisers are conscious of the opportunity – perhaps the imperative – for festival goers to talk, informally before and after events, as well as through organised panel discussions. New dialogue around queer issues is encouraged, lifting heads up from polarisation and disinformation to find hope.

The full festival programme us available on the Outburst Arts website.

Tosca – a chief of police gets his comeuppance at the hands of an opera diva (NI Opera at Grand Opera House until Saturday 16 September)

Northern Ireland Opera’s autumn production is Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca, a tale of illicit love, jealousy, police brutality, murder and suicide set in Rome and running from the afternoon of one day to just after dawn the next in June 1800.

An already jealous opera singer Floria Tosca is further tricked into believing that her lover, painter Mario Cavaradossi, has been unfaithful. Instead he has been sheltering a political prisoner Angelott inside a church undergoing renovation. The corrupt chief of police Baron Scarpia twists everyone’s fear – aided by a spot of old-fashioned torture and sexual coercion – to extract the information he needs to find the on the run convict. By the end of the third act, the body count reaches a suitably operatic high.

Niall McKeever’s sets for each act are surrounded by three floors of modern scaffolding. Cavaradossi is seen to be restoring a huge painting of the Mary Magdalene’s face which stares out at the audience from within a ring of stone. After the first interval, a two-storey villain’s lair sees Scarpia back in his swish office above a prison cell/torture chamber whose walls are replete with bullet holes. All that’s missing is a white cat for him to stroke. And for the final act, we’re up on a rooftop to watch an execution, with the stone eye once again encircling the action and glaring at the audience, as if demanding our response to the on-stage subterfuge.

It’s good to see an increasing number of creatives who regular feature in theatre and opera on this island getting to work behind-the-scenes on NI Opera productions. Ciarán Bagnall’s razor sharp beams back- and side-light much of the action, casting atmospheric shadows and emphasising the black, white and grey set and the many subdued costumes. Designer Gillian Lennox saves the colour for Tosca’s exquisite dresses and cloaks which dazzle throughout.

Svetlana Kasyan brings her powerful soprano voice to the role of Tosca – a celebrated opera diva of her day in Rome – projecting with particular power, though a bit too much wistfully facing the audience rather than towards the other characters. This is operatic theatre and not a concert performance, and Kasyan is not afraid to add a tonal roughness that the character’s emotional state deserves. Her Act II aria Vissi d’arte (I lived for art) is gritty and potent. While the Tosca/Cavaradossi coupling never quite passes the chemistry test between Kasyan and Peter Auty (who looks so much older than his on-stage lover, a late change in NI Opera’s casting of this tenor role), the pair are a brilliant match vocally, particularly in Qual’occhio al mondo (What eyes in the world).

Irish baritone Brendan Collins has strong vocals and conveys a sense of menace from the first moment Scarpia struts on stage. Revealed to be a cop unafraid of using extreme methods – physical and psychological distress – as well as being a sexual predator, Collins digs deep to keep the audience interested in the different sides to villainous Scarpia.

With most musical theatre productions that tour through the Grand Opera House relying on close-miking performers and the use of big PA systems, it’s a treat to hear unamplified singers filling the extensive auditorium over the top of the Ulster Orchestra’s sensitive playing in the pit under the baton of Eduardo Strausser.

The use of live surtitles at the sides of the stage to translate the Italian libretto into English helps enormously with comprehension. Programming two intervals between the three acts gives time for new audiences to settle the plot in their heads and gives time for the impressive sets to be swapped around. Bolstering the NI Opera Chorus with adult and child singers from the Belfast Philharmonic Choir adds greatly to the sense of occasion for the limited number of scenes requiring a crowd. (Tosca’s plot is quite straightforward for an opera, and the small cast means that there are rarely even a handful of characters on stage at any one time.)

Cameron Menzies has created a Tosca production that has visual flair and vocal forte. Aside from the many pluses, one of Scarpia’s henchmen is noticeably quieter than their peers in certain scenes. While McKeever’s concrete chic is very contemporary, some of the sight lines to the side chapels in Act I and the torture room in Act II are poor for a significant minority of the audience. And Tosca’s final leap was somewhat anticlimactic and might have benefitted from the thud a certain prop allowed in NI Opera’s 2019 production of Sweeney Todd.

While Tosca isn’t blessed with the most hummable of scores, its condensed plot and compact cast of characters makes it a good beginner’s production to try out if you want to dip to dip your toe into the opera bath for the first time. Standing up to applaud the performers during the final curtain call, someone in the row behind me likened Tosca to an episode of EastEnders! A Christmas special, perhaps. Director Menzies is giving a free (ticketed) short pre-show talk at 6.30pm before the Tuesday 12 and Saturday 16 performances. That said, the sold-out performances mean it’s too late for you catch this production in Belfast if you don’t already have a ticket unless you join the box office waiting list.

Photo credit: Neil Harrison & Philip Magowan/PressEye

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The Queen In Me – a passionate and entertaining plea for an end to stunted diversity in the world of opera (The MAC until Wednesday 19 as part of Belfast International Arts Festival) #BIAF22

For 231 years, The Magic Flute’s Queen of the Night has been going around in circles, with similar casting choices, similar direction. Stuck in a rut, the Queen is having no more of it. And so begins The Queen In Me, a 50-minute dissection of how opera has by-and-large become stuck in a whole series of ruts.

The curtain rises and Teiya Kasahara occupies the centre of the stage, wearing a distressed black dress with tarnished gold detailing that merges with the material bunched up around the podium below. Joanna Yu’s design – costume and set design are one and the same thing – adds long rubber sleeves, perhaps some six metres in length, that flow from the shoulders down to the ground, disguising the performer’s arms and hands for much of the show.

Behind the solo performer, Laura Warren’s video wall is gently pulsating, its animations supporting the words and the colour scheme setting the mood, picked up by the spotlighting that catches the Queen’s dress material so effectively. Visually, it’s quite a spectacle.

The iconic Der Hollë Rache aria from the second act of Mozart’s The Magic Flute – the one with the fast-running quavers that you’d be able to hum to – quickly establishes Kasahara’s talent and technique. But then Kasahara halts the song and the hilarious monologue starts to strip away the pretension and problems with the opera scene.

There’s the limited dramatic range of women’s roles in the traditional opera canon. By the end of the performance the main female character should expect to have been raped, pillaged, killed … or merely married off to someone twice their age. None of these frequent conclusions are fulfilling for the character or the cast member. There’s never a chance of someone being left to live a fulfilled singleton life.

But it’s not just about the characterisation. Certain looks are more likely to get a performer through to the other side of auditions to play these parts. Costumes and stage directions lazily cry out for a character to ‘be more sexy’. The monologue suggests that casting can be racist, ableist and filters out people with some sexual orientations. Many companies tend to be predominantly white, male, heteronormative and elitist.

Accompanied by pianist David Eliakis, the vocals are captivating with the included arias and excerpts – from works by Puccini, Verdi, Strauss and more – demonstrating Kasahara’s range and versatility. In the Q&A afterwards, Kasahara explained that many of those roles would not be regularly offered to them: so it’s a bit of a treat to build them into the show and perform them.

Kasahara’s bottom line is that there is a lack of imagination, inclusion, innovation in the world of opera. So expect a takedown of the worst aspects of opera – particularly, but not just limited to a performer’s perspective – and then expect a twist as Kasahara makes it personal and steps out from the dress that has thus far dominated proceedings.

As the Queen quips early on, don’t expect an expensive nap at this opera. The Queen In Me is fast-paced, entertaining, and aptly challenges the status quo of an artform that sometimes isolates more than it innovates. And it celebrates this Queen’s talent and potential in a way that is neither dismissive or dehumanising. Perfectly suited for opera lovers and opera loathers alike: everyone will get something out of the message and the performance.

You can catch the second performance of The Queen In Me on Wednesday 19 October in The MAC as part of Belfast International Arts Festival. It’s a co-production by Amplified Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Nightwood Theatre and Theatre Gargantua. Directed by Andrea Donaldson & Aria Umezawa.

Check out the preview post from a few weeks ago to find out what else the festival is serving up between now and 6 November.

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Propaganda – truth, lies, politics, survival and a brilliant night of musical theatre (Belfast Ensemble and Lyric Theatre as part of Belfast International Arts Festival until Saturday 5 November)

It’s rare to go to the theatre and be confronted with the full package. When the pinpoint lighting and the projection are fully integral to the storytelling, when the wingless stage floating on top of scaffolding built up from the subfloor below the orchestra pit is an essential part of the discourse, when the music has emotional impact as well as an arresting stylish dissonance with the subject matter, when the lyrics and dialogue all come together to sell the plot to the audience.

From a couple of minutes into the performance, it’s apparent that Propaganda: A New Musical is a very special piece of musical theatre from the pen of Conor Mitchell. The main cast of seven are supported by a band of 14 players, some of whom are four metres down below the action, the rest tucked out of sight of all but the audience in the side balconies.

It’s the late 1940s and parts of Berlin are under Russian Blockade. Slavi and Hanna, a photographer and his muse, scrounge a living by selling glamour shots. Always under pressure from their photographic publisher and profiteer Ruddy, an American smuggler whose silver tongue circumvents the closed supply routes, Hanna con(vince)s a talented actress, Margot, into posing for a glitzy photoshoot. But her sudden enthusiasm for the stunning talent behind Slavi’s portfolio brings the artist and his work under the critical microscope, throwing everyone’s life, safety and future into doubt.

The action never leaves the elevated apartment, with characters entering via a staircase from below. After fifteen minutes the audience discover that there’s also a ramp running across the width of the back of the stage, providing a second stage for the B story to develop.

Musically, all seven principals have great voices that can carry Mitchell’s lyrics. Slavi and Hanna’s co-dependency is modelled by Darren Franklin’s depiction of an aggressive and stressed snapper with Joanna O’Hare taking her character on an adept journey from vulnerability to confidence. Their first act What Kind of a Life is This, Hanna? showcases the pair’s vocal talent.

The orchestra rarely stop playing, booming out big band numbers, soulful Soviet songs, big anthems and even Mitchell’s riff on simple piano scales, all under the enthusiastic baton of Bob Broad and heard through the crystal clear PA and Ian Vennard’s sound mix.

While former concert pianist Magda is heard to play in her downstairs flat, Rebecca Caine’s character is forever popping up to the upstairs apartment-cum-studio, wearing glamorous attire from her heyday. Celia Graham’s Margot is a savvy operator, making pragmatic tacks when the waters around her get choppy. Both women have fabulous voices, teaming up with O’Hare for the particularly memorable Comrade Chaplin.

Gerhardt is the willing butt of Margot’s jokes, but there’s a twist in his tale and Matthew Cavan’s solo Oh, Rodina in the second act is a spine-tingling performance. Oliver Lidert’s Del Boy character is somewhat neglected in the middle of the first act, but Ruddy returns with vengeance and vocal power in Don’t Panic and later in the unexpected but apt 1916.

Sean Kearns’ first speech introduces the concepts of truth, facts and lies into the show, the standards against which the other characters should be judged. Later we discover the role that his Comrade Poliakoff will play in manipulating the artists and creating a truth that suits his purposes.

I’m unsure why Slavi and Hanna speak with Irish accents, sounding more like they were liberated from a concentration camp in South Armagh rather than Ravensbrück. It’s an odd stylistic choice that jars amongst the other characters’ accents, instead of defaulting to a spot of received pronunciation or a nondescript European accent. Though it does set the scene for a glorious second act demonstration of Soviet-style Irish historical revisionism.

Having enjoyed the original concert performance by the Belfast Ensemble back in April 2019, my bar for Propaganda was set very high. I was not disappointed. Mitchell has found a way to tastefully direct what seemed three years ago like an impossible to stage opening scene. The Russian anthem at the close of Act One is perhaps more muted, but no less powerful as the stirring theme is wrapped around the characters whose lives have abruptly taken a difficult turn. The rejigged ending ditches the temptation for a flash, bang, wallop finale and instead stays true to how the characters are learning to handle their own truth, lies and freedom.

Aside from the holistic production values, what makes Propaganda stand out is the multi-layering of the story. You could simply enjoy it for the character story: a young couple ambitious for each other and willing to put themselves in harm’s way to protect their lover. The analysis of the politics of the time and place also bears examination. And then there’s the meta-narrative about the relationship between truth, lies and propaganda. It’s like biting into a rich cake and not always knowing which taste or texture to savour first before the next sensation hits you.

Some shows are written with the cleverness proudly exposed. Propaganda is more laid back in its brilliance, letting the audience feel good about connecting the dots of how the balance of truth and lies is shifting across the characters, and sniffing out the scent of modern resonances some seventy years after the action, whether in post-conflict Northern Ireland or Russia’s at war with Ukraine.

It’s a complex juggling act, and while there’s room for a nip here and a tuck there to tweak the flow or accentuate a blin-and-you’ll-miss-it clue in future runs, the balls are never dropped, it feels incredibly mature for a first run. (Particularly when compared with some West End shows that are currently touring around Britain and Ireland and carry with them enormous plot and pacing issues.)

The dialogue and lyrics are littered with word play, fast-paced witticisms and sacrilegious statements that tickle the audience and play up farcical scenes. A dance break adds elegance to I Could Take It All Away which beautifully combines two different couples’ conversations into one continuous piece of storytelling.

Truth, freedom and lies that can protect, enslave, destroy and liberate. The characters all prove to be artists and actors. Their lives are living theatre. So when all Mary Tumelty’s spotlights clunk off and the working fluorescent lights above the Lyric stage flicker on, it’s a sign that it’s maybe time to ‘spill the T’ … or will it just be an opportunity for a creation of a new revisionist truth? Or a sign that the act of staging a performance in a theatre is also propaganda? Yet another layer to deconstruct.

Propaganda’s plot puts imperfect and broken people under severe stress. Everyone seems to be living a lie, twisting survival around their ambitions, covering for each other, unpicking the truth from the debris around them. Collusion and collaboration become the norm as “life is just a game” of survival.

It’s a masterpiece, probably Mitchell’s best work to date. And Propaganda didn’t roll off a ferry in a couple of articulated lorry. It was formed here in Belfast, with local talent on stage, in the pit, and behind the scenes. It jumped from concert version to full production with the investment of local money. Funding for new professional musical theatre doesn’t come easy to The Belfast Ensemble, but they deliver every time.

Propaganda: A New Musical is produced by The Belfast Ensemble and the Lyric Theatre and is running until Saturday 5 November as part of Belfast International Arts Festival.

Photo credit: Ciaran Bagnall

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Previewing Belfast International Arts Festival 2022 (5 October to 6 November) #BIAF22

Belfast International Arts Festival is back from 5 October until 6 November. 60 years on from its inception in 1962, the programme combines the best of home grown international talent with international acts that often would normally be seen on these shores.

There’s a bounty of theatre shows in this year’s festival, a strand much disrupted by COVID. Frank McGuinness’ Dinner With Groucho (The MAC) opens the festival on Wednesday 5 October (running until Sunday 9). Groucho Marx and TS Elliott meet for dinner in an evening of wit and buffoonery, presided over by a controlling proprietor. [reviewed]

How To Fail As A Popstar (The MAC, Thursday 6 and Saturday 8 October) is a cabaret-style one-woman autobiographical show about Vivek Shraya’s journey to the margins of fame. [reviewed]

Three and a half years on from its thrilling concert reading, Conor Mitchell Propaganda: A New Musical will be stage in the Lyric Theatre (with Belfast Ensemble) from Saturday 8 October to Saturday 5 November. The impact of the fences going up in 1953 Berlin is seen through the eyes of Stanislav and Hanna, a photographer and his muse. Expect a live 14-piece orchestra, stellar cast and a great evening of musical theatre. [reviewed]

Cahoots are masters of walk-through theatre experiences packed with special effects, digital technology, magic and old-fashioned performance. They’re back in their Cityside Retail maze of corridors and rooms with a Halloween special from Friday 14 to Monday 31 October. The Ghost House reappears every century. Join the ghost hunter to discover the legend of Black Hearted Benjamin. [reviewed]

Big Telly Theatre Company take a fresh look at the myth of Frankenstein with a provocative black comedy that promises to be topical and warm your heart. Frankenstein’s Monster Is Drunk And The Sheep Have All Jumped The Fences is playing at the Brian Friel Theatre (that’s at the back of Queen’s Film Theatre) from Friday 14 to Saturday 22 October. [reviewed]

The Scorched Earth Trilogy (outside the Ulster Museum on Friday 14 October at 7pm/8pm/9pm) is a 30-minute blend of opera, contemporary orchestral music, street art and animation, presented via mapped video, a sound installation, silent-disco headphones, and including an unexpected new example of ‘trickle down economics’!

Ron Mueck’s amazingly sculptures are fascinating visitors in The MAC’s gallery. Stephen Beggs will perform a specially commissioned piece Ron’s World to imagine the stories that could lie behind the sculptures, some tiny, some monumental in scale. Suitable for festival goers aged six and above. Saturday 15, Sunday 16, Saturday 22, Sunday 23 October at The MAC.

The Queen in Me (The MAC, Tuesday 18 and Wednesday 19 October) finds out what happens when The Magic Flute’s iconic Queen of the Night refuses to keep singing, theatre and opera combine for a thrilling performance that sheds light on the restrictive notions of race and gender within the opera industry.

How do we understand romantic relationships? Another Lover’s Discourse (The MAC, Saturday 22 and Sunday 23 October) encourages audiences to shake off stereotypes and free themselves from traditions. A new inventive multimedia performance from Riham Isaac, one of Palestine’s most exciting contemporary artists. Part of the festival’s focus on artists from the Middle East and North Africa.

Festival regular Oona Doherty is back with the Irish premiere of Navy Blue (The MAC, Tuesday 25 and Wednesday 26 October) which uses dance, music and colour to reflect the pain, loneliness, struggles and exploitation of working-class people in a search for healing, redemption and societal change.

Conversations on Impermanence (Irish Secretariat, Thursday 27 October at 7pm) sees Maria McManus, Gail McConnell and Neil Hegarty in conversation about the new collection of essays by writers connected with Northern Ireland. Impermanence is published by No Alibis Press.

Paul McVeigh’s new one-handed play Big Man (Lyric Theatre, Thursday 27 October to Sunday 13 November) explores love at first sight and asks whether it ever truly works out. What if the very things that attract end up pulling us apart? Performed by Tony Flynn and directed by Patrick J O'Reilly.

Having closed the festival in 2018, the all-male New York-based ballet company Les Ballets Trockadero De Monte Carlo (generally known as “The Trocks”) are back in the Grand Opera House (Friday 28 and Saturday 29 October) with their immaculate technique, comic timing and sassy spoofs of classical ballet routines.

Playing his body like Polish-born musician Elisabeth Chojnacka played the harpsichord, Jan Martens returns to the festival with Elisabeth Gets Her Way (The MAC, Friday 28 and Saturday 29 October).

During the early days of the pandemic lockdown, Big Telly Theatre Company forged ahead of with digital productions, recognised internationally as pioneers. Their productions became ever more elaborate, weaving the technology into the audience experience and the ways stories could be told. Big Telly’s director Zoë Seaton is in conversation with Young at Art’s Eiblín de Barra in All the Screen’s a Stage on Tuesday 1 November at 4pm (available to watch online afterwards).

BIND is a sumptuous poetry and dance film set in the exquisite Robinson Library in Armagh. It’s a collaboration between dance choreographer Eileen McClory and poet Maria McManus that explores the binds between past and present, the tension between elevation, elites and access to knowledge, progress and change, the visibility and constraints on women, and how a visionary institution contributes to progress in the modern world. The film is available to watch online for free between Sunday 23 October and Sunday 6 November. A special screening (tickets £4) in the Queen’s Film Theatre on Saturday 22 October will be followed by a Q&A with Eileen McClory, Maria McManus, filmmaker Conan McIvor and composer Katie Richardson.

Critic and playwright Jane Coyle’s new work After Melissa (Brian Friel Theatre, Thursday 3 to Saturday 5 November) is inspired by and reimagines the storylines of Lawrence Durrell’s The Alexandria Quartet and the themes of homecoming, love and family through the eyes of a poet. Returning home to Donegal, bringing with him the orphaned daughter of a nightclub dancer, he’s writing a memoir of his years in the Egyptian port of Alexandria and his relationships with its exotic, cosmopolitan residents.

The 141st Royal Ulster Academy exhibition runs from Friday 14 October until Tuesday 3 January 2023. Work from acclaimed artists and emerging talent – painting, drawing, sculpture, photography and video – will be showcased in the galleries of the Ulster Museum.

Check out the full online programme for details of even more dance, theatre, music, visual arts, film, talks and walking tours.

La Traviata – the opera’s not over until the frail lady sings (NI Opera in Grand Opera House until Saturday 17 September)

The door to the circular ball room opens and every head turns as a woman wearing a striking scarlet dress walks in. Violetta is a Parisian escort – a ‘courtesan’ in polite opera parlance – and she is hosting a social soiree to celebrate her return to good health. Her current client, a possessive baron, is among a throng of darkly dressed, glamorous women and men in attendance. But when Alfredo arrives, Violetta is immediately besotted with the handsome poet who, unbeknownst to her, has been visiting her sickbed daily. His only flaw is an interfering father who is none too amused at the prospect of Violetta’s career besmirching the supposed good name of his family and throws a scurrilous spanner into the romantic works. Can Violetta’s willingness to put others first overcome the twin hurdles of patriarchal misogyny and a relapse of her life-threatening illness?

Giuseppe Verdi’s opera La Traviata is a study on class and hypocrisy. It’s countercultural for 2022, never mind 1853 when it premiered to a tough audience in Vienna. The heroine of the piece, with the greatest moral backbone, is Violetta, played with vigour by soprano Siobhan Stagg. Rarely off-stage during the four scenes, Stagg at first oozes self-assurance. Then she is coerced into breaking off her for-once loving relationship and sacrificing her own desires to placate another man’s feelings, before staging a passionate fightback against her ticking body clock to.

Whether the centre of attention at a party, or a sweating mess in bed with tuberculosis, Stagg’s Violetta demonstrates real strength of character alongside her soaring arias and balanced duets with Alfredo. If Violetta turns heads, then Alfredo is a good match; his patent shoes are just about the only shiny thing on the stage. Noah Stewart brings poise, his fabulous tenor voice, and a commanding presence and great body language in Alfredo’s scenes with Violetta. Ukrainian-born Yuriy Yurchuk gives Alfredo’s father Giorgio a sense of derision. Local baritone Seamus Brady stepped into the role of Baron Douphol with confidence and aplomb, though extra menace could be added during the run.

The walls of Niall McKeever’s crucible set are distressed, the windows smudged, and what once may have been classy statues and fixtures are instead twisted and melted, hanging ominously from the wall, one with a chair impaled in its mess. Violetta’s poverty of finance and wellbeing is all around, and the muted costume choices and severe wigs amplify the sense of loss that hangs over this opera that’s truly not over until the frail lady sings.

Fifty players from the Ulster Orchestra fill the pit under the athletic baton of Rebecca Lang. Sitting in the middle of the front row provided me with an unexpected upstairs/downstairs view of the performance, watching the animated playing below stage (including some of the chorus arriving with tambourines to augment one song) at the same time as the cast hold director Cameron Menzies’ freeze-frame poses above their heads. Good to spot Clara Kerr amongst the stamping flamenco dancers that bring colour and movement after the interval before Doni Fierro struts on as the matador.

La Traviata is one of the most commonly performed operas. Its plot is relatively straightforward to follow. Sung in Italian, English surtitles are visible at each side of the stage. And the gaps between acts are long enough to read ahead in the synopsis to piece together the next stage of the story. Given NI Opera’s history of risk-taking, the La Traviata feels at times to be quite subdued, lacking the brashness and shock of productions like Salome or Turandot. Playing it safe artistically will be popular with local audiences who’ll flock to the Grand Opera House to enjoy the excellence of the talent that comes together to play, act, sing and create a production of this quality. However, this approach does perhaps play down the wonderfully villainous sense of high drama and pantomime that opera can conjure up when the art form is pushed to extremes.

NI Opera’s La Traviata will be back on stage in the Grand Opera House on Tuesday 13, Thursday 15 and Saturday 17 September. 

Photo credits: Philip Magowan and Neil Harrison

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