Welsh National Opera's Die Fledermaus

As a young critic I am an avid theatre goer but Opera? It has never evoked enthusiasm or excitement and stereotypes abounded: looking at it with untrained eyes and ears it felt a tad out of reach. Then ... The opportunity to see Welsh National Opera’s newest rendition of Die Fledermaus landed in my email, and never one to snub being proved wrong, I saw an intriguing challenge. I was happily proved wrong, Opera has something for everyone; it’s not just for the older, richer or classically leant. I am particularly glad it was Die Fledermaus, as its highly satirical content – originally and in this rendition – waltzed away from my suspicions of an over-zealous and highly emotional tragedy.

As a newbie I found that producer John Copley has created a clear-cut, well informed performance. There are so many facets to this Operetta; it juggles its stunning period costume and ornate set with contemporary influences and a truly international team. The modern piece of the pie is the genius comedy; from locked up bankers and politicians citing the prison as a second home, comparing characters to Bill Odie and his birds. Moments with Frosch the jailer being sung ‘Just one Cornetto, give it to me’ by an inmate and quoting ‘Go Compare’. There are comic moments for those truly into their Operas with nods to other opera’s via Alfred, Rosalinde’s admirer.  Nuccia Focile’s Italian accent is clear, yet she pulls off her spoken lines and the necessary Hungarian accent with panache, Desmond Barrit’s strong Welsh accent lends itself to his dialogue of depreciative and sharp satire. 

The plot itself is the elaborate ‘Revenge of the Bat’ designed by Dr Faulke’s, having been slighted by his friend Eisenstein at a previous fancy dress party and as entertainment for the bored youth Prince Orlofsky. Whilst the side narrative of Adele and Sister Ida adds meat to the already light hearted content, it was an added extra. Now this is nothing towards the spectacular performance of Joanne Boag (Adele Rosalinse’s housemaid) or accompanying Anitra Blaxhall (Ida) but can only be laid at Johann Strauss feet in 1874 – another in joke that occurs, blaming Johann Strauss. 

 With plenty of drinking, dancing, mistaken identity and convenient role switching the narrative flows along at a pace, keeping the audience entertained. Each character is so full of charm and wit you could forgive them their slights, as Eisenstein says “[blame it on the Champagne]”.

For a newbie having the opera sung in English was a bonus, feeling more at home with a language I could understand and nothing seemed out of place or off kilter as sometimes can occur in translations. Although one distraction were the subtitles above as it followed the main vocal, making following the secondary vocals sung in unison difficult to track so there were parts where I lost out on pieces.

Integral to the Opera are of course the orchestra, the singers, and the dancing: the cast are decidedly enjoyable watch and listen to. The choreography is executed with flare: from the spectacular choral dances to the fumbling comic flirtations between Rosalind’s Hungarian Countess and Eisenstein’s Marquis Renard. The orchestra performed well throughout, manoeuvring cleverly and effortlessly from piece to piece.

Welsh National Opera’s performance of Die Fledermaus, thanks to the clearly amazing team behind the scenes and on the stage, was fantastic – especially for someone as fresh to Opera as me but from catching snippets from regular opera fans in the audience it was just as brilliant for them.

So please enjoy! Unfortunately this time around there was no opportunity for photos, for that, please blame technology!
For those new to Opera, http://www.fresh2opera.co.uk/ is a fantastic start to banish away all those excuses and suspicions about attending.

Welsh National Opera's Die Fledermaus is at Wales Millennium Centre from 12th Feb - 5th March.

National Theatre Wales first offering of 2011: Soul Exchange

National Theatre Wales have again pulled out the stops to create another piece of original yet extraordinary theatre, exploring another part of Welsh history.  Join in on the taxi-ride of a life time and enter a world which is at once alive and burgeoning but also full of history and personal stories,

Soul Exchange is a site specific performance but not in the conventional sense where it has simply been taken out of the theatre ‘space’. It is built around Butetown, celebrating the multi-cultural history and community that grew around the beginnings of the coal export industry. The performance is split into two parts, the taxi ride and the last part at the Coal Exchange. 

As soon as the audience queue to begin the Soul Exchange journey you enter its world: the dock ticket master sending you through, the passport photo’s where you absolutely cannot smile and the photographer kicks up a fuss if you so much as smirk (which is inherently funny: it is human nature to smile when told not to). A choir sings in the background and characters interact with the audience as they wait; grandmothers gossiping about their grandsons and offering to come around later for cups of tea, dock workers milling around and street sellers bartering their wares. Heading out to the taxis you pass a group huddled around a burning oil drum singing and banging away.

The taxi journey can be taken two ways; one is that the audience becomes the main character on the journey, second is that the audience is with the main character in the taxi following his movements. You are certainly drawn into the situation, experiencing everything as he would. The soon to be dad is in search of his own father and roots. Armed with a name and address that no longer exists, he and the taxi driver move from place to place picking up clues as to where he might find his father. As the audience listens to the actor’s on CD we are driven around Butetown passing by each stage of the journey: the community centre, church, tower blocks, and last of all the Coal Exchange. Amongst the streets the communities of past and present collide, with a 1920s/30s guitarist opposite a 90s hooded youth playing music from the car radio. A 70’s working class young couple arguing and an early century fruit and veg seller grace the streets; trilby wearing, Delboy style business men work their charm alongside modern ballet and street dancers. The young man finally finds his father at the church where secrets are revealed. Christian grandmothers christened mixed race children behind their father’s backs, so that they would not grow up with Muslim names; the man’s father Abdi Mahmood had become Peter Watkins. Yet it is the priest that solves the cryptic, concerning answers of the Vera and the community and delivers the bad news: the recent funeral had been his father’s funeral.

The Coal Exchange is the location of the wake, where there is further interaction between the audience and the characters of Tiger Bay. They are mourning the loss the father had been nicknamed Tiger Bay: the play places him as the community hub, its royalty and family - he is the community father as well as his family. Making him a representation of what community means, his legitimate children speak of his desire to make money but was always willing to help others. Tiger Bay is the location of the community, as well as being the community. I felt there were the odd moments where the theme of community became somewhat moralistic, driving home a little too much just how important community and family is to us all and whilst we are celebrating the history of what is now Butetown, without the coal industry it is not the community it was.



The Coal Exchange entrance hall, a building with a lot of history.



Audience interaction is crucial, without it the impact of the surroundings, the scenes played out on CD is lessened. We make up the vast proportion of the ‘community’, and splitting up groups to go into the taxis is a shrewd move, creating the ‘ah there you are’ moment when reunited – again enhancing the togetherness. The dance at the end was brilliant, encouraging the audience to dance to the ‘Butetown theme’ Tiger’s favourite song. They were simple steps but for those of us who didn’t know them it was very entertaining trying to keep up and not step on your neighbours toes, laughing with them when you did, it gave an enjoyable end to the evening.

Just some of the dancing at the end!

As we passed through the different elements the enormity of the organisation needed to produce a play on this scale was evident. The crew did a fantastic job as every stage of the journey was well structured and none of the audience looked lost or confused, we were given props and instructions where appropriate - a box of the main characters keepsakes in the taxi; photo’s, newspaper, a button with cloth and pieces of metal and then the letter Abdi Mahmood left to his lost son as we entered the Coal Exchange. The audience get to keep the boarding pass and the letter, keepsakes of our own of an excellently executed play and of a shared moment in time.

The boxes given to us for the taxi ride - placed on a very large man painted on the floor covered with maps, newspaper clippings and photo's

There are many creative elements to the play as it uses certain conventions of Radio drama and filmic techniques, using original and popular music. The audience has work hard to incorporate every element into the experience, as the dialogue and background music play out of the stereo the world outside whizzes by in a split second, much like it does in a film. You have to keep up, there is no clock watching or drifting off, every second is important.

One thing I was unsure how to react to was the length of the taxi ride as several of the street scenes were seen repeatedly. I recognise that Butetown is only a small area in which to and to get to the Coal Exchange some steps needed to be retraced and the CD was also a certain length but I felt that seeing something two or even three times was unnecessary. Yet stopping each taxi and using more of the street scenes would have required far more logistics and broken up the dialogue on the CD. 

As a play it is reliant on the history of Butetown although changing the history and the location would allow the play to fit into any other town or area of Cardiff, Wales or even the world. Soul Exchange is a fantastic feat, not only logistically but creatively and as a play alone. I look forward to the next NTW production with anticipation.