Silk Street Theatre
Chevalier de la Force, First Commissary – Eduard
Mas Bacardit
Marquis de la Force – Jake
Muffett
Blanche de la Force – Lucy
Anderson
Thierry, Second Commissary, M.
Javelinot, Gaoler – Bertie Watson
Prioress, Mother Jeanne – Georgia
Mae Bishop
Sister Constance – Claire Lees
Mother Marie – Emily Kyte
Second Prioress – Michelle
Alexander
Carmelites – Eva Gheorghiu,
Myramae Meneses, Victoria Li, Alice Girle, Siân Dicker, Ana Marafona, Isabelle
Peters, Catherine White, Meriel Cunningham, Natalie Davies, Anne Reilly
Sister Mathilde – Lucy McAuley
Chaplain – Daniel Mullaney
Martin Lloyd-Evans (director)
takis (designs)
Robbie Butler (lighting)
Orchestra and Chorus of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama
Dominic Wheeler (conductor)
The Guildhall’s termly opera
offerings have long tended to be more adventurous than those of the Royal
Academy or Royal College when it comes to repertoire. In June, we shall have
the mouthwatering prospect of a double-bill of Hindemith’s last opera, The Long Christmas Dinner, and Lennox
Berkeley’s A Dinner Engagement.
Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites is
probably as mainstream as I have heard here, with the exception of a fine
Marriage of Figaro in 2013. I am
not sure that the performance I heard marked the school’s greatest achievement,
but there was nevertheless much to admire – and yes, the final scene did what
it must when the nuns came before the guillotine, bringing tears to my eyes and
a sense of redemption through grace.
The first act in particular seemed
somewhat unsettled, the gentle – often deceptively so – flow of Poulenc’s
orchestral writing often seeming to elude conductor Dominic Wheeler, and the
cast seeming to have been encouraged to perform in a fashion more suited to
Italian verismo. French opera more
often than not presents a difficulty: not just in the language but in the style
too. Perhaps the brashness of the orchestral sound and some decidedly odd
balances were as much a matter of the difficult Silk Street acoustic as of
anything else. Stravinsky came to mind, quite rightly, but it did not always
seem quite the right Stravinsky, and he certainly would have required greater
precision too. Fortunately, matters improved considerably in the second and
still more the third acts: much better than the other way around! And it was
good to have opportunity to see and to hear the opera in its proper three acts,
rather than, as often the case, having a break part way through the second.
Martin Lloyd-Evans’s production
worked well enough, although the balance or perhaps even opposition between naturalism
and something more minimalistic, even symbolic, sometimes seemed arbitrary
rather than productive. I have nothing against the opera being set when it ‘should’
be, but the danger then can be that it then comes to seem to be ‘about’ the
French Revolution, which it really is not. There were some beautiful costumes
from takis to look at. More to the point, his relatively sparse set designs
achieved a good deal by suggestion – as well as possessing an aesthetic appeal
of their own. A Carmelite convent is surely not in any case intended to be
lavish. The true theme of the opera, Divine Grace, shone through just enough, if
perhaps less consistently than it might have done.
The young cast had much to
recommend it. Perhaps rather oddly, given their distinctly lesser roles, the
men foten stood out as much as the women, Daniel Mullaney’s Chaplain and Eduard
Mas Bacardi’s Chevalier and First Commissary both offering finely sung,
dramatically considered performances. Perhaps the starring role on this
occasion was that of Emily Kyte’s Mother Marie. We were reminded more than once,
as much through acting as through vocal means, that not only does the opera has
its roots in her telling of the story, but of her especially problematical role
in the narrative. Lucy Anderson’s Blanche proved a little vocally wayward to
start with, but once settled, proved well able to engage our sympathies. A
nicely contrasted, yet strangely complementary, pair of prioresses, Old and
New, came our way from Georgia Mae Bishop and Michelle Alexander. Choral scenes
were well directed, scenically and musically, offering the necessary sense of a
threatening and, yes, revolutionary backdrop.
