Delightful La Traviata at the Soho Theatre

I was very keen to see OperaUpClose's production of La Traviata at Soho Theatre because I loved their version of Tosca at the same venue last year.

Normally the complexities of my diary mean that I get to see shows just before they close, and far too often that is on their last day, but this time those complexities meant that the best chance that I had to see it was on their opening night.

This time I came heavily armed with friends. They managed to eat and drink in comfort before the show but I had to rush back from Reading which left me only enough time for a bagel from the bar, but then I am used to living off just peanuts so this was a significant improvement.

Confusingly the Soho Theatre had changed their queueing system again and rather than cluster around the door to the bar we were allowed upstairs to wait in the disused bar on the second floor. Fortunately I was clued up enough to get the front row seat that I wanted. The place was sold out and soon we were being asked to shuffle along the bench seats to let more people squeeze in.

I had seen La Traviata before so I knew the basic story but hearing it in English was so much better and let me discover some of the subtleties in the lyrics, like the recurring themes, that I had missed with surtitles.

It was the first night and it took some of the singers a little while to get going properly, the second half was better than the first.

One singer who delivered from beginning to end was James Harrison, baritone, who I had been lucky enough to see twice before. He was my star on the night because of his strong clear singing and also the way that he played the role of the father with grandeur and grace.

The production was fairly minimalistic, as their Tosca had been, and that worked well, as it had with Tosca. There were three or four musicians hidden in a room off to the left and the set was quite shallow with, for most of the time, just one significant piece of furniture in it. I like my opera like that as nothing gets in the way of the story or the singing.

The slow start apart, there were no other obvious signs that this was a first night. The only minor slip that I noticed was that a couple of people had not learned how one of the doors opened. Nothing to get worried about.

La Traviata is a simple story of emotional ups-and-downs and this production captured the mood changes well to create a delightful evening, one that opera purists and novices could both appreciate.

Kiss me, Figaro! at Riverside Studios

Last year's production of The Magic Flute (a story around the opera, not the actual opera) by Merry Opera was enough to convince me to see their new show Kiss Me, Figaro! when it came to the Riverside Studios.

How right I was to do so.

Kiss Me, Figaro! uses the clever device of telling the story of a travelling opera company to include songs from their performances, songs from their rehearsals and songs they sung when being themselves. So, for example, we had a beautifully staged except from The Elixir of Love (everything was sung in English), an awkward rehearsal of Your Tiny Hand is Frozen (from La Boheme) and a raucous rendition of Irving Berlin's I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket.

Kiss Me, Figaro! calls itself a romcom, and that is fair. The amount of music, mostly but not all from operas, makes it a musical, of sorts. While it may be hard to classify it is easy to enjoy.

The romantic protagonists are the leading soprano (Daisy Brown) and tenor (Joe Morgan). These are also the actors real names which suggests the possibility of there being some truth in the story. They had been together and then he left her for another woman, just as she was having the final fitting for her wedding dress. He also left the company. An accident brings Joe back and having split from the other woman he is keen to get back with Daisy, but she does not want to so pretends that she is interested in the baritone George, played by James Harrison. Meanwhile one of the other singers has her eyes on Joe.

There are some other things going on with the cast and the company, including the comedic high-point just after the interval when they experiment (briefly) with a new thematic style which involved them singing Three Little Maids from School are We, from The Mikado, in outrageous costumes. That scene alone is worth going to see the show for.

There is just so much to like, and nothing to hate, about the production.

The large cast, eleven I think, all sang beautifully. I am used to shows like this having a few good voices and a few weaker ones but I think that this is the best overall singing that I have heard.

The two leads were magnificent and I'll also single out (possibly unfairly) James Harrison and that is partially because I saw him play the completely different role of a member of the Stasi in Tosca last year and he was very good in that too.

The acting was excellent too and everybody was always busy doing something. I'll highlight soprano Jenny Stafford, Daisy's understudy in the company, here for the faces she pulled behind Daisy's back and the way that she reacted to Joe's return by opening her blouse more at the top and leaning back seductively. This was echoed later in the performance from The Elixir of Love where Daisy was brilliantly over the top in trying to attract Nemorino's attention when he has stopped chasing her briefly because he thinks that the elixir will win her affection tomorrow.

The selection of songs was wonderful and, given the scenario, entirely appropriate. I even liked the mash-up of Pearl Fishers and the Flower Duet from Lakme which they sang at a gala.

Kiss me, Figaro! was highly accomplished in all areas and immensely entertaining in a way that would appeal to any lover of opera, musicals or theatre. It was a joy from start to finish.

Tosca at the Soho Theatre

Soho Theatre is one of those cosy places that does lots of interesting shows and I am always embarrassed that I do not get there more often.

Not working in London for the last couple of years has not helped.

The irresistible pull this time was the promise of an updated and intimate version of the legendary Tosca.

I mistimed my arrival slightly and there was no time for a beer before the show as I had to go straight in to claim a front-row seat. Luckily there was an interval.

The setting was moved to East Germany in the days just before the Wall came tumbling down and the plot revolved around dissidents (firm and casual) and the Stasi out to catch them. Tosca was a singer who was in love with a casual dissident whose friend was a firm dissident who had just escaped from prison.

The first person we meet is a lazy cleaner and I was relieved to hear him sing in English and delighted by the quality of his voice. The rest of the small cast were equally sweet and clear and that made the plot easy to follow and Puccini's music a rich pleasure despite the even smaller band of three musicians.

The adaptation was excellent playing nicely on the events of the time, the East German leader Erich Honecker resigns towards the end of the opera, and that gave the menace real force.

The other themes were strong too and we were caught up in the lives of all the people, their relationships, hopes and desperation. Even the treachery was easily forgiven because we understood why it had been done.

A good sign of the conviction of the story and the characters is when the baddies get cheerfully booed in the curtain calls, as they did here.

The staging was spot-on too and I was seriously impressed that they managed to find such convincing props. I worked in Czechoslovakia not longer after this, in 1992, and can vouch for the accuracy of the dull grey suits etc.

I had not seen Tosca before, except many years ago on TV, and while I knew the basic of the plot I did not know the details but I suspect that one of the main elements was changed here and there may have been more people alive at the end than usual. It was not a happy ending though and Tosca got her big moment at the end.

It was easy to see what OperaUpClose were trying to do with this production because it all worked and worked very well. I loved it to bits.