This autumn, the English National Opera (ENO) revives its hugely successful Satyagraha, a contemporary opera by Philip Glass which broke box office records back in 2007 and was critically acclaimed as a theatrical masterpiece.

Satyagraha is the second of Glass’s trilogy of operas about men who changed the world, and looks at Mahatma Gandhi’s early years in South Africa. It follows his development of non-violent protests as a political tool and depicts different important stages of Gandhi’s life and work. Performed in Sanskrit, and combined with Glass’s sensitive score, it paints an almost hypnotic sound-image of one of the most important men in modern history.

Satyagraha is visually one of the most extraordinary productions I have ever seen: Julian Crouch’s set design is nothing less than awe-inspiring. Featuring huge puppets, devised pieces and aerialists, it is a production that sets sail to seduce your eyes in a visual experience of the story. Using newspapers as a key element of the design, creatures are brought to life and torn apart: the set morphs into new images and the audience is visually beguiled by the seemingly millions of incredible ideas pouring out of Crouch’s brain and into the life of the set.

Phelim McDermott’s direction is equally as focused and delicate, and it’s clear he has an eye for aesthetics. Chorus scenes are enchanting to look at – the on-stage presence is captivating and some powerful images emerge as the cast send their lights flying up in the air, or leave their shoes in one long row front stage.

Musically it’s more of a musical image than a story-based score. It doesn’t feel very progressive and with all the wonders going on set-wise, it feels like the music is just an accompaniment to a very interesting devised piece. That said, the cast is very talented and Alan Oke’s Gandhi is sung beautifully and with a lot of soul. Acting-wise, the performers lack spontaneity: by working in slow motion throughout most of the performance, they resemble more of a dance troupe than characters full of variety, with different tempos and energies. As with the music, they feel more like an abstract picture feeding into the visual story, rather than characters with intensive inner lives.

Lasting about three and a half hours, this performance is very long without subtitles. Some of the images and devised aspects are prolonged and ask a lot of patience from the audience. Not knowing what is being sung, it is a huge help if you know the life and works of Gandhi to make more sense of this long, visual feast. However, as a whole the piece hypnotises and wakens you at the same time: it is full of integrity and feeling, and will blow your mind with its playful imagery and powerful, thought-provoking design. If you like to be visually stunned, then Satyagraha is definitely for you.

Satyagraha is playing at the London Coliseum until 8 December. For more information and tickets, see the English National Opera website. (c) Donald Cooper.

Camilla Gurtler

Camilla is currently training as a director on the Young Directors’ Programme with StoneCrabs Theatre Company. Camilla has worked as a director, actress and writer in Denmark and London, and loves Shakespeare, greek tragedies and children’s theatre. She’s obsessed with coffee, dislikes ranting on stage and hates the colour yellow. Especially mustard-yellow.

More Posts

Follow Me:

The English National Opera (ENO) has once again created something unexpectedly modern and beautifully raw with Mozart’s The Magic Flute, but how on earth does one create such an exceptionally up-to-date production of an opera, now over 200 years old? First performed at the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden, Vienna on 30 September 1791 and then having its UK debut at the King’s Head theatre, London on 6 June 1811, The Magic Flute delighted audiences both young and old with its celebration of both serious and comic themes.

The story focuses on three primary characters: Tamino, a prince, Papageno, a bird catcher and Pamina, the daughter of the dangerous Queen of the Night. Tamino (Ben Johnson) is rescued from a snake by the Queen of the Night’s (Cornelia Gotz) Three Ladies (Eleanor Dennis, Clare Presland and Rosie Aldridge) after he stumbles into an unknown land. They subsequently rush to tell their mistress that he could be the one to rescue her kidnapped daughter, Pamina (Devon Guthrie), and after seeing a picture of her Tamino is immediately smitten. He is then approached by Papageno (Roland Wood) who is there to hand over his latest ‘catch’ to the Queen’s Ladies in exchange for food and drink. What follows is Tamino and Papageno’s quest to rescue Pamina in the twisting and turning fantastical land, as well as other sub-plots.

The set of Simon McBurney’s production is simple and for the most part completely stripped back with a ‘mini’ stage that is the basis for much of the plot as it is raised, twisted and turned upside down to coincide with the action. The set’s designer, Michael Levine, currently attached to Sarah Tipple’s Madam Butterfly (also playing at the Coliseum) is a talent with an eye way ahead of its time; he’s also versatile, creating a natural and realistic aesthetic in Madam Butterfly, embodying everything that makes Japan beautiful whilst in The Magic Flute he has fashioned a cutting edge aesthetic, going at it all guns blazing with use of technology and multi-media. Some of the best sequences in this production include the use of a projector, lit up onto a screen on-stage, which a member of the team uses to compose words and images –  as Roland Wood’s Papageno rushes around the stage  declaring his need to get laid, the screen reads: #desperate. Hilarious. ENO really is at the forefront of what the future of opera is likely to hold; it is a universe open to absolutely anything.

The Magic Flute is essentially a comedy and this is never more obvious than when ENO regular Wood is on stage. He far outweighs anybody else, though he is followed closely behind by the Three Ladies, Dennis, Presland and Aldridge. Whilst generally the voice talents are exceptional, the same can’t always be said for the acting. ENO is and continues to be a force to be reckoned with in the theatre world. As it works to wrap up this season and move into next year, it is inevitable that we are going to be treated to some very special pieces…

The Magic Flute is playing the London Coliseum until 7 December. For more information and tickets, see the ENO website. Photography © De Nederlandse Opera, Matthias Baus

Samuel Sims

Sam is Reviews Co-ordinator for A Younger Theatre as well as a freelance writer and editor who hails from Hull, though he has been in London for roughly 300 years. He enjoys multi-coloured socks, eating sausage rolls and seeing as much theatre as humanly possible.

More Posts

The Royal Opera House is not usually associated with audience participation, but the Meet the Young Artists season is different. A group of young rising stars of opera and classical music performed a programme on Saturday evening that was chosen by the audience earlier that day.

The Juke Box is a showcase recital featuring favourite pieces from opera and even musical theatre. The transitions between the items are as slick as in a juke box but the evening is anything but mechanical. Seeing and hearing these lively young talents is a welcome reminder that opera is sung by, but also for, young people, too.

Helen Nicholas, an in-house ballet pianist, opens the recital with a perky rendition of Scarlatti’s Sonata in B Minor. Nicholas negotiates the numerous and demanding hand-crossings with athletic poise. The rest of the programme is devoted to the artists on the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme. The members of this scheme receive coaching on movement and stagecraft as well as music. This is in immediate evidence in Dušica Bijelić and Kiandra Howarth’s duet from Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro.  The distance between the pair changes with social fluidity to reflect the music and their mood. The artists momentarily transform the Linbury Studio Theatre’s imposing functional stage into a luxurious, intimate salon through their playful, coy performances alone, in what is the highlight of the first half.

Ashley Riches makes inventive use of the space as Rigoletto in Verdi’s opera of that name. He opens his duet, alone on a bare metallic balcony on a stairway by the stage, before he is joined on stage by the Jette Parker Principal, Jihoon Kim. Kim plays Sparafucile like a menacing Mafioso. His black suit and shirt allow him to appear suddenly before melting away into the black curtained background.

Bijelić returns as Suzel, alongside David Butt Philip’s Fritz in Mascagni’s L’amico Fritz. Bijelić is the evening’s most assured artist. She shrugs, bites her lip and pouts on the edge of satire, before leaning against the grand piano and tucking her head under its raised lid as if it were a parasol. Bijelić’s black and red lace cocktail dress is a visual delight. The artists’ costumes as a whole are stunning enough to prevent the audience’s eyes from straying down to the lyrics in the programme too often. Philip exhibits a brooding emotional intensity and his solo dents Suzel’s smile convincingly. Bijelić’s range confirms her easy rapport with the audience. She is surely one to watch for the future.

The juke box is stocked with a broad emotional catalogue. Michele Gamba and Paul Wingfield have a lot of fun with Fauré and Messager’s ‘Souvenirs de Bayreuth’, a loving parody of Richard Wagner’s operas. The duo bounces dramatically at the piano like two gangsters in a car chase in a black and white film, taking care of their own soundtrack. Rachel Kelly provides some welcome darker emotion, movingly singing Strauss’s ‘Cäcilie’ with lightly clenched fists.

Kelly is underused, but appears once more in the finale: a Quintet from Bizet’s Carmen, with Nadezhda Karyazina, Luis Gomes, Michel de Souza and Anush Hovhannisyan. The five stand in a line and their glances move up and down like whispers. They reel off challenging harmonies like anecdotes at a dinner party. Karyazina sparkles, apart, as the outsider Carmen in a black dress. The rapport of these artists is as fine as that of the whole cast, whose musical and social camaraderie is as natural and infectious as half-muffled giggles shared by friends. It is this confident, youthful openness that makes these artists so professional.

The Juke Box played at the Royal Opera House on Saturday 19 October. For more information, see the Royal Opera House website.

Chris Kerr

Chris Kerr studied English at the University of Cambridge. He is an associate member of the editorial board at Magma Poetry magazine. He enjoys wandering around art galleries and likes skyscrapers.

More Posts

An alumnus of the Royal Opera House’s Jette Parker Young Artists Programme, Portuguese stage director Pedro Ribeiro is paving the way for young people in opera. With a hugely varied list of work behind him, Pedro is now working with the Royal Opera House as he directs the UK premiere of rarely heard Spanish opera El Gato Con Botas. Penned by Xavier Montsalvatge and based on Charles Perrault’s fairytale, it tells the story of a wily cat who decides to transform the fortunes of his impoverished keeper.

But has he always loved opera? “No, no!” he tells me. “The first opera I saw was Nabucco and it was the most boring night of my life! It was really bad. It was this kind of classical production and I never thought about directing opera when I was seeing that.” This will be a familiar tale for many young people across the globe, who perhaps see opera as an art form that alienates all but a very select audience. And the result is that “we miss good productions,” says Ribeiro. “Especially new productions of new commissions and new music. That would be something I would like to do: contemporary opera. It is a really interesting area because you can start by singing musical theatre, then operetta and that can evolve into opera.” So is Ribeiro hoping to bring more people to opera in the near future? “When I started opera I started it as a challenge, as I realised it is the most difficult [type of] show to stage. It’s like reading a book. You start with children’s books and you develop the way you want to see and hear the story.” Even one of opera’s most exciting new stars wasn’t always completely enamoured by the art. Like any good story, Ribeiro’s love of opera has been a journey of discovery.

Having studied directing theatre at university, Pedro worked as an assistant for a Portuguese production company and found a new excitement for opera when working on The Enchantments of Medea there. “It was a discovery for me that it was a Baroque opera and everyone was completely engaged in the story. It was fun and the story was superbly well told.” His passion for directing opera grew rapidly, and a quick glance at his CV reveals he has worked on some of greatest stages in the world, and here in the UK, Covent Garden’s Royal Opera House itself.

The Jette Parker Young Artists Programme is a development opportunity for emerging artists whose career has attracted the attention of the Opera House, and Ribeiro graduated from the programme this August. For some, returning to the Opera House as a professional in their own right might present a challenge, but not for Ribeiro. “It’s quite comfortable coming back to the Linbury [Theatre] and to the Royal Opera House because now I know everyone. In the beginning I didn’t know anyone and I was thinking, ‘Oh my god it’s the Royal Opera House!’ and after two years I got used to it. Even though it’s a big house, it’s weird; I think 800 people work here but there is some sort of family thing. We know each other; we speak with each other and a lot of different departments. It doesn’t feel like somewhere that isn’t home. The problem is going to be work outside!”

Ribeiro’s career is in full swing, but for aspiring performers, directors and the like, breaking into the opera industry may seem like an impossible task. I ask his advice: “When I used to be a teacher a lot of students would ask me this. Honestly, I would say to them, do you really love it, really really love it and cannot see yourself doing anything else? Are you sure you don’t want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or an architect?” It’s clear Ribeiro passionately feels the dedication and intense focus this career demands as he recalls these moments. “It’s a really hard career, really demanding and the only way you can stay in directing theatre or opera is because you love it and you cannot see yourself doing anything else.”

If you do have that burning passion for the art, however, Ribeiro enthuses that the UK is a great place to be. “You have so many shows premiering all the time in London, it was so good to be able to come here and see French shows for example. I was completely fascinated because we don’t have this kind of thing in Portugal. The way that London produces is very clever and it’s a complete world of things that come to you and you absorb. I don’t think there is a better place to be in the world for arts.”

Image of Pedro Ribeiro by Richard H. Smith

El Gato Con Botas plays at the Linbury Studio Theatre at the Royal Opera House 16-18 October 2013. For tickets and more information visit the Royal Opera House’s website.

Emily Webb

Emily is a graduate of Music and English Literature currently working in the music industry. She hopes to go on to study the benefits of music therapy once she has saved up enough money. She enjoys participating in amateur theatre, blogging and walking her dog

More Posts