Between the time Giuseppe Verdi debuted La Traviata in the mid nineteenth century and today, there have been enormous changes to opera audiences — and I’m not just talking about our oh-so-vulgar tendency to wear jeans. Since poor young Violetta first alternated delicate trills and sickly coughs back in 1853, we have, most importantly, forgotten just how sexy Tuberculosis can be. Led by slick director Peter Konwitschny, the ENO’s take on this melodramatic tragedy injects a little glamour into a disease that medicine tried to inoculate away.

Using minimal props and a series of red and grey curtains, designer Johannes Leiacker sets up a delicious opposition between the crisp, stylish world of the inner-city elite, and the pure and wholesome countryside, where worthy values such as love are the only essential accessories. In the city, a place where party-goers only relax so they’ll be ready to have more fun the next day, to live is to be social. Unfortunately for popular prostitute Violetta (Corinne Winters), dying is also an experience to be had in the public eye.

Choreographed with a certain liquidity, the chorus, a river of elegant bodies dressed in chic black costumes, ebb and flow around our tragic heroine. Wearing bibs made of napkins, and wielding cutlery as if ready to dissect and digest the latest portion of juicy news, this crowd is hungry for gossip, and as Violetta stands out in a covetable blood red gown, it is easy to see how she became the central point of every party and the focus of every gentleman’s attentions. But while she makes a bold visual presence, the Violetta of the first scene initially fits neatly into high society. Indeed, as her dress becomes camouflaged against the first of a sequence of detachable curtains, it’s clear that this world has embraced our tragic heroine.

Coming in at just over 100 minutes, Martin Fitzpatrick’s English translation manages to be as lean and economical as the production’s set design, without compromising on any of the dark intensity of Verdi’s themes. The libretto retains all of its passion and velocity, evident as Violetta declares that Alfredo’s affection has the power to transform a burning fever into a fire of love. Through such imagery, Fitzpatrick engages with the macabre seductiveness of this opera.

Wearing a succession of hairstyles ranging from the neat black bob of the high maintenance socialite, to a country-woman’s blonde curls tamed with a scarf, Winters neatly plots Violetta’s interactions with her two polarised worlds. Later, stripped of both her wigs and her dignity, Violetta has fallen from society and is ready to die. Once again, the tightly co-ordinated movements of Konwitschny’s chorus highlight a ruination as ladies and gentlemen fall to the ground after their discarded games, their crumbled society little more than a fallen house of cards.

Ben Johnson delivers an astute but suitably unremarkable performance as Alfredo, Violetta’s bookish lover, but in this adaptation Anthony Michaels-Moore’s Giorgio Germont is the truly dominant male force. Giorgio is a manipulative and controlling patriarch, and Michaels-Moore embellishes this power through uncomfortably persuasive staccato curses that position Alfredo firmly as an infant and remind us of Violetta’s ill-fated destiny.

This opera may paint a pessimistic image of polite society’s brutality, but it also teaches us that “for those who suffer, art can offer consolation”. Thanks to Konwitschny’s heightened and occasionally dreamlike artistry, the falling woman is cocooned in a heroic bubble of glamour. As she descends to her aesthetic death while those who betrayed her watch from a lit-up auditorium, Violetta’s helplessness and isolation is sharply underscored.

When the action bleeds into the stalls, our director holds up a mirror to another crowd desperate to consume a tale of demise. We may not be waving our knives and forks like our on-stage counterparts in the chorus, but this last sly comment seasons this beautifully envisioned and poetic tragedy with a relevance and a judgement that goes far beyond good design.

La Traviata is playing at London Coliseum until 3 March. For more information and tickets, see the ENO’s website. 

Wow. When Nick Hytner goes all out, he really goes for it. ENO’s sumptuous Magic Flute pulls out all the stops for this gorgeous production, and boy does it make for a good show. From live doves to four dancing bears, this is unabashedly over the top and it works. Originally directed by Nick Hytner (now Artistic Director of the National Theatre) in 1988, the revival by Ian Rutherford and James Bonas is hard to fault.

The set (designed by Bob Crowley) is stunning and makes full use of the Coliseum’s huge stage – a sweeping backdrop conjures up the temple of Sarastro in which much of the action takes place. The sense of being overawed by science is made explicit without hammering the point home, and adds weight to the occasionally lacklustre acting. The sound and lighting are spot-on, building unashamed melodrama. Most of the evening is lost is a whirl of Mozart’s gorgeous music (which is lushly rich in the hands of conductor Nicholas Collon) and visuals that make your eyes widen. The costume, colour and sheer opulence of the whole production whisk you away, to a world where every ending is happy and every cadence is perfect.

In such a marvellous froth of melodrama, the standard boy-meets-girl plot is complicated by warring parents, wayward servants and a number of trials before the lovers get to be together. We have a jolly evil Queen of the Night (Kathryn Lewek having a whale of a time and channelling her inner Helena Bonham Carter in a giant wig) and a lustful Monostatos (Adrian Thompson, also clearly having fun) who sings a charming ditty about how much he wants to rape Pamina (Elena Xanthoudakis, in fine voice), but there is never any doubt that the good guys will win and love will conquer all.

Lewek makes the famous Queen of the Night aria seem effortless – and, to paraphrase Ginger Rogers – it is particularly impressive that all the ladies do what the men do but backwards and in corsets. Robert Lloyd makes a rather underpowered Sarastro – neither his presence nor his bass command the stage, and both Papagano (a highly amusing Duncan Rock, showcasing a rich baritone) and Tamino (Shawn Mathey, who has a wonderful tenor voice) overshadow him.

The plot, and the fun that the cast are having, verges on pantomime sometimes, but is all the better for it. It is fun, in a way that opera sometimes isn’t. That is not to say that it doesn’t take itself seriously (the skill is evident) but it wears its talent lightly. The translation into English is witty and lighthearted – often drawing chuckles with audacious rhymes and ability to cut through the melodrama with a joke or wry aside. This is a fine production, and one that makes for a hugely enjoyable evening.

The Magic Flute is on the The Coliseum, home of the ENO, until 18 October. Running time approx. 2 hours 50 mins. For more information and tickets see the ENO website.

Martha Jones is a young, funny, enigmatic woman, and a rising opera star. Contrary to popular belief, opera is for everybody, as Martha confidently asserts: ”It is not as inaccessible as people think!”

Jones is currently working with English Touring Opera, which boasts an impressive resume as one of the leading touring opera companies in the UK. ETO states that its aim is “to offer opera to everyone, with a varied repertoire of high-quality professional productions featuring some of the finest talent in opera”. With such scope, it is no wonder that Jones enthuses about being part of the company. Currently studying with Janis Kelly at RCM International Opera School, Jones has won prestigious awards in both the RCM Schumann competition and the Chelsea Schubert Festival. Interestingly, though, she did not set out to become an opera singer.

“I knew I wanted to be a musician as soon as I was learning the violin. I wanted a career in music but I hadn’t considered a career in opera until I was having singing lessons… It wasn’t something that was in the family. I had never even been to see an opera, so I didn’t really know anything about it!” However, at age 14 she started taking lessons seriously, singing in the school choir and eventually in the junior department of the Royal Northern College of Music. So far, her career has seen her sing the roles of Rosina, Florence Pike and Dorabella. “I’ve been really lucky, I’ve already sung one of my dream roles, which is Hansel from Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel with a small company. I’d love to sing that again. I think the music is so beautiful and, because I’m interested in the physical side of opera and creating a character, the idea of playing a young boy is interesting to me, to see how I can bring that across on stage because obviously I’m not a young boy!”

Jones may not have grown up in a musical household, but she still discovered her fair share of inspirational role models. “I was listening to the radio and song repertoires of the greats like Janet Baker. As a mezzo-soprano I always truly admired her, and I’m a big fan of Ann Murray.” But it’s the future, rather than the past, that plays on her mind. She describes a desire to work “with bigger companies singing the same kind of roles I’m singing now, so Mozart roles like Dorabella that I’ve already sung. I’d love to sing that again but with a bigger company!”

Clearly, she is one young artist who has found her niche. ”It is the chance to use your acting as well as the singing that I really enjoy. I love creating a whole character and sustaining it through three hours, and to have that journey through the rehearsal period of developing who you think your character is and what your thought process is through each scene - that really appeals to me. Of course the music is beautiful and it’s fun to sing but it’s creating a character for me that I find really interesting.” Opera also offers the chance to perform a diverse range of genres, from comedy to romance, but Jones’s preference is “the physcial side of opera”, highlighting the physical comedy of Hansel as a personal favourite. “One of the beauties of my job is that I get to explore both [comedy and romance] so that’s one of the things that I enjoy about opera… you don’t have to confine yourself to doing one or the other.”

If Jones is anything to go by, opera is certainly brimming with exciting young talent. However, on the other side of the footlights, the preconception is strong that young people are simply not interested in going to see opera. Jones reflects, “I think people are frightened of things they don’t know about in a way. If you’ve never been to the opera and none of your friends go to the opera, it seems like this far removed entity, which it’s really not. Coming from the musical theatre route, I know a lot of my friends would happily go to a musical but have never been to an opera. I think that’s strange because it is not as inaccessible as people think. Especially with companies like ETO and ENO (English National Opera), where they do a lot of operas in English and so there isn’t that language barrier which definitely puts a lot of people off going.” ETO visibly strives to get young people involved with opera, as demonstrated by its ambitious outreach programme, offering opportunities for young people “to create music theatre, in many different ways, bringing diverse abilities and experiences to that creative work and play”. It conducts around 170 workshops a year, involving more than 5,000 people of all ages, and has developed a special expertise in collaborating with children with special needs.

Jones enthuses about the support ETO give young singers: “I covered for them whilst I was still at college, and that gave me a route in, to do the covers and sing in the chorus. I honed my skills in the chorus, and then I’ve been given a principal role. I think that’s really great about ETO, that they can give you that gradual route into the profession.” Not just the profession, but the touring lifestyle too, which has been one of the largest benefits for Jones. “When you’re on tour you get to know everybody really well, so it feels like a family. So coming back this year is like seeing old friends and that gives you the confidence to try out things in rehearsal and you don’t feel hindered in any way. You can really go for it.” As a young performer involved with ETO, Jones is part of a company that reaches as many as 55 venues a year, presenting up to 110 performances. Opera, then, is certainly geographically much more accessible then it might have been in the past. And when it comes to making your first foray to the opera, Jones recommends finding the right production and not being afraid to test the waters. ”For younger people I think Mozart operas – something like Così fan tutte - are exciting, as people can really get to grips with it. It’s an interesting story about love and things like that. The music is absolutely beautiful, you can go away and have the melodies in your head, and if you have never been to the opera before, it is exciting to recognise some of the music.”

ETO puts on touring productions each year in spring and autumn. It is currently touring The Barber of Seville and Eugene Onegin.

Martha Jones is a Britten-Pears Young Artist, having sung in its 2009 Schumann masterclass season with Malcolm Martineau, and is set to play Nancy in Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring with ETO from September.

For more information, visit ETO’s website here.

Image credit: English Touring Opera

When I first heard about A Younger Theatre I was truly inspired by how the website was run. I spent three days getting up to speed with all the blogs and reading up on my fair share of reviews. I am a fairly new convert to Twitter, so it was not long before I saw @ayoungertheatre’s tweet about a trip to the opera organised with ENO. It was designed for people who had never seen an opera before, and after carefully looking through my collection of tickets (what can I say, I am a hoarder!), I realised I had never been to the opera.

Then it was a question of, why? I am in my early twenties, an aspiring theatre director and not far from central London. Why had I never taken the time to see an opera? There is such a stereotype around the opera - does the younger generation really fit in there?

Well, yes, we do. More than ever, the opera is becoming accessible to the younger generation. Growing up in a world where the avant-garde is the every day (an oxymoron indeed), we are not so used to the flamboyant and melodramatic style of opera. Yet, given the chance, there is still beauty in this historic art form – seemingly why it has remained in popular culture for so long.

The Passenger was a very difficult opera to stomach for the first time. Based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Auschwitz survivor Zofia Posmysz, Polish composer Mieczysław Weinberg’s 1968 opera takes you back to the desolate world of Auschwitz and the fine line between right and wrong. One of the first things I noticed was how painstakingly slow everything was; this was until I began to understand the beauty of the music. If you ever go to an opera I suggest shutting your eyes for a brief time, allowing the music to tell the story. The famous American Composer John Philip Sousa once said “Grand opera is the most powerful of stage appeals and that almost entirely through the beauty of music”.

Back to the original question, then: does the younger generation fit in here? Behind the glitz and the glamour, the painted wigs and powdered faces, we were all hearing the same tune, and for a brief time, all taken back to the horrors of Auschwitz. Old or young, we all heard that song.

Written by Saara El-Arifi.

You can read another response from A Younger Theatre’s and ENO’s ‘A Night at the Opera’ from Ryan Sullivan here.

Photo by Grant Smith