LA RONDINE (OPERA DI PERONI)
Paintworks, Bristol | March 27th
“Where the hell have you been” growled Nan as we crept through the back door. “We told you Nan”, we said, wearily, “We went to an immersive modern re-interpretation of a Puccini Opera produced by pop-experimentalist Kwes, and sponsored by the popular premium lager Peroni”. “That’s what you always say” Nan slurred aggressively, as she stormed off to the Snooker Club for last orders. What Nan didn’t realise was that we actually had been to an immersive modern re-interpretation of a Puccini (the composer, not the mushroom) Opera sponsored by the popular premium lager Peroni, and that it was a fine way to spend a frosty Wednesday evening.
Billed as bringing opera to ‘new audiences’ (that’s you, CRACK demographic), La Rondine was staged in a modern Italian apartment, which the audience were free to wander around at will. The young cast – singing, as is traditional, in Italian – were accompanied by Kwes (in a booth) studiously making minor contributions on a midi-keyboard, and a quartet of musicians. The show told the story – in deliciously melodramatic fashion – of starlet Magda, her lustful but ultimately doomed relationship with a video camera-wielding suitor (documentary maker Ruggero), and a series of romantic sub-plots revolving around her previous lover (Rambaldo) and her money-obsessed friends. In short, it was a tale about love – the ecstasy and the pain.
Ironically, given the huge amount of attention that had been paid to the staging, modernising and production of the show, it was the raw, unamplified voices of the singers and the swooping orchestral accompaniment that really had us transfixed. The crescendos that the full cast singing together achieved – a soaring cacophony of human voices – were ludicrously, heart-wrenchingly epic. But it was the power and resonance of the singers, not the ‘yoof’ setting, that made the show feel special.
Without wanting to diminish the role that Kwes played in putting the music for the show together, his role on the night was a tad tokenistic and felt a little like an attempt to tick a box that didn’t actually need ticking – the audience had bought into the show on its own terms. But cynicism about the marketing mix aside, this was an innovative staging of an art form that, let’s be honest, most don’t give any attention to whatsoever. Next time we’ll bring Nan along.
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Words: Adam Corner
Photo: Tom Stoddart
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