Eureka! Here’s the first copper-bottomed hit of the autumn season – and the fact that it stars the Oscar-winning actressJonathan Spector’s deliciously sharp satire, a big success off-Broadway, was written before the Covid pandemic. But now it appears uncannily prescient of what was to come, with its arguments about vaccinations ringing especially sharp and clear.
As Don and co trawl through their usual platitudes about “common interests”, the increasingly off-message comments that pop up in the chat box are projected on to the back wall in a series of precision-timed one-liners. Never, I suspect, has the thumbs-up emoji caused such universal mirth. Director Katy Rudd calibrates this crescendo of humour splendidly.
It seems an odd decision to enlist a big Liverpudlian name in David Morrissey to provide a voiceover version of Oberon. In what was otherwise a production notably for its physicality, Morrissey’s disembodied pronouncements from speakers on high felt a little stilted but also generated an uncomfortable metaphor about relative status in the acting community.
But the biggest star of the night, undoubtedly, was the theatre. Here we have the old and the new of theatre skilfully combined. A beautiful, modern lighting rig and descending brass chandeliers bolted onto traditional carpentry that still smelt of freshly carved oak. The audience packed in so close around the compact stage that the reactions of those in the front row opposite were as clear as the performers, creating a communal experience that fit perfectly with the ethos of the place.
With conductor Antonio Pappano working his usual magic in the pit, and the Royal Opera House chorus on top form, the drama’s brightly coloured musical frame sets the qualities of these singers in high relief. But his staging of the closing scene is perverse beyond belief. Verdi conceived the execution as an ineffably poignant split-screen exercise, with the dying couple immured below while, above, Amneris dissolves in tears of remorse.
In the Don’s version all the women want him. Far from appalled by the man who breaks into her room and murders her father, Donna Anna romps with him while lying to her fiancé . And when peasant girl Zerlina later accuses him of rape it’s all a set-up: he is – of course – blameless. It’s a little hard to stomach.
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