SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Chabrier, L’Étoile: Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Sherman Theatre, Cardiff, 2.7.2008 (GPu)

Conductor: David Jones
Director: Vivian Coates
Assistant Director and Choreographer: Caroline Lamb
Set designer: Molly Einchcomb
Costume Designer: Oliver Townsend
Lighting Designer: Steven Bartlett

Cast:

Lazuli: Martha McLorinan
Laoula: Elin Pritchard
Aloès: Sarah Reynolds
King Ouf: Karl Scully
Hérrison de Porc Épic: Matthew Ibbotson
Tapioca: Jorge Navarro-Colorado
Sirocco: Tom Bates
Patacha: Aled Morgan
Zalzal: Cian Brenan-Gavin
Oasis: Joy Cornock
Asphodele: Joanne Morris
Youga: Lesley Bouza
Adzal: Sonya Knussen
Zinni: Gemma Coleman
Koukouli: Kirsty Douglas
Executioner: Jacob Sherlock
Guards: Nathan Trevett, John Wilson


Chabrier’s L’Étoile is a minor masterpiece (Stravinsky called it, straightforwardly enough, a masterpiece), one of the great works in the opera bouffe tradition. With its splendidly silly plot – the Marx Brothers would have loved it! – and Chabrier’s constantly inventive music; with its mildly risqué elements (as in the quartet about kissing, the duet about tickling and Lazuli’s aria in praise of adultery); with its witty disjunctions between libretto and music and its allusions to the conventions of grand opera, the effect of the whole is of a kind of French Gilbert and Sullivan on speed, crossed with surrealism and the theatre of the absurd!

In the hands of the young singers and musicians of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, conducted by the experienced figure of David Jones and directed by Vivian Coates of Lyric Opera, it all made for a thoroughly entertaining evening in the theatre. The original’s witty libretto by Eugène Leterrier and Albert Vanloo was presented in Jeremy Sams’ lively adaptation, full of improbable (or sometimes comically probable!) rhymes and some fresh jokes of his own invention.

Student opera productions usually have a particular charm of their own – for all of the inevitable limitations too. The sheer joi de vivre here, the youthful gusto, the sense of pleasure that emanated from the stage – all were winning and richly inviting. From the impudent élan-filled overture to the self-conscious theatricality of its epilogue, L’Étoile is a perfect exemplar of French musical sophistication. This production and performance perhaps broadened some of Chabrier’s subtleties a little, but in ways – and for reasons – that made every sense. For the most part the student orchestra acquitted itself very well, especially the woodwinds for whom Chabrier wrote some glorious passages. The music’s unexpected jumps and sometimes unpredictable changes of direction make this a score which is far from easy to play (though its complexities are not always obvious or flaunted) and it is much to the credit of David Jones – and to the abilities of the young musicians under his direction – that so much of the panache of Chabrier’s writing was there to be enjoyed.

Karl Scully’s King Ouf first appeared – as if he had wandered in from a production of Ubu Roi – like a berserk Cardinal in bright yellow robes. From that point on the costumes were fiercely colourful and witty – so much so that Oliver Townsend deserves to be singled out for praise. The wit was evident in many aspects of the production, the whole conceived by Vivian Coates in a constantly vivacious fashion, full of undistracting stage business, all happening inside Molly Einccomb’s elegant recessed box, from the walls of which the heads of King Ouf’s previous victims (richly various in the colour of their hair!) watched over the action and well equipped with doors, windows and trapdoors that allowed for amusingly choreographed entrances and exits of things both animate and inanimate. The descent of the royal throne – a kind of solium ex machina – and the ascent of a torture chair, designed for impaling its victims from beneath (an idea apparently suggested by Chabrier’s friend Paul Verlaine) were both fine stage moments.

I have to say that I didn’t leave thinking that I had definitely heard any operatic stars of the future. Most of the voices seemed to me as yet too immature for one to make any very confident judgements about the way they might develop (or not) in the future. But having said that, and judging by the relevant standards, it has to be said that nobody let the side down and there was – fortunately – not that one very poor performer who sometimes sticks out rather embarrassingly in youth or student opera productions. What was also pleasing was how many of the cast seemed genuinely comfortable on stage, how many of them could (in the kind of generic mode that L’Étoile demands at any rate) actually act. Mezzo Martha McLorinan was an engaging Lazuli who was at her best in the sentimentality of the romance de l’étoile in Act One (though she struggled just a little with the pace of some of the patter songs – as did one or two other members of the cast). As Lazuli’s beloved Princess Laoula, soprano Elin Pritchard perhaps inhabited the role a little less convincingly than some of her colleagues, but was impressive in the tender ‘rose’ aria in Act III, which was sung with flair and sensitivity. As Aloès her fellow soprano Sarah Reynolds was a splendidly flirtatious and knowing presence and the vocal interplay between the two in the tickling duet was assured and well characterised. For the most part Chabrier gives the men rather fewer memorable musical moments, and many of the male roles involve at least as much (if not more) speaking than singing. When we heard it Karl Scully’s Oufian tenor sounded gratifying to the ear, as did that of Jorge Navarro-Colorado as a rather gormless Tapioca (if you don’t know L’Étoile you will gathered how much the Marx-Brothers seem to be anticipated in some of the character names!). Inevitably, it is in the lower voices that student companies are often least convincing, but in Tom Bates (as Sirocco) and Matthew Ibbotson (as Hérrison de Porc Épic – try repeating it aloud rapidly) this company was fortunate to have two singers who could carry the lines Chabrier wrote for them with confidence and fair resonance. Bates and Scully revelled in their drunken duet in praise of Green Chartreuse, full as it is of parodic allusions to Italian bel canto opera.

All in all, then, a thoroughly entertaining evening. Perhaps the highlight, for all the real enough qualities of the soloists, belonged to the chorus (who were excellent throughout). In Act II news of the (supposed) impending death of their king gives the chorus the perfect opportunity for the kind of lamentingly sympathetic expression of distress written by opera composer after composer across the centuries. Chabrier is not, of course, one to give us a straightforward version of tradition. His chorus declares, in effect that they don’t care but feel obliged to pretend that they do: “It’s all the same to us, but none the less it would be best if we expressed a little interest”. Musically the chorus develops into lively ebullience – as the chorus sing “it’s a dreadful shame!” and begin to dance the can-can!

Chabrier was a musician of extraordinary talent. His talent for friendship was obviously considerable too – his circle of friends included d’Indy, Fauré, Verlaine, Mallarmé, Daudet, Renoir and Manet (he owned some eleven paintings by Manet and six by Renoir). In L’Étoile one feels as if one is being given the opportunity to share some of that wit and intelligence, that satirical inventiveness, that made Chabrier such good company – and the students of the Royal Welsh College of Music, instrumentalists, singers and actors alike, astutely conducted and directed, very satisfactorily played their part in extending Chabrier’s invitation.

Glyn Pursglove


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