Upstairs at the Gatehouse: A Very New Traviata

Mozart’s original The Magic Flute is bizarre enough. The story of a prince and a bird-catcher’s journey to save a princess they’ve never met from a sinister quasi-Freemason who turns out to be alright, it is sufficiently packed full of great songs and good humour to have become an enduring repertory favourite – but that doesn’t mean it makes any sense. It doesn’t, really. It is a daft opera.

Last night at North London’s Gatehouse theatre saw the Merry Opera Company perform La Belle Hélène, Offenbach’s Trojan War parody of Grand Opera, translated/re-worked by Kit Hesketh-Harvey and enticingly re-labelled Troy Boy. Hesketh-Harvey is best known as half of the cabaret duo Kit and the Widow, but has also been a regular translator of opera for the ENO and others.

Mozart’s original The Magic Flute is bizarre enough. The story of a prince and a bird-catcher’s journey to save a princess they’ve never met from a sinister quasi-Freemason who turns out to be alright, it is sufficiently packed full of great songs and good humour to have become an enduring repertory favourite – but that doesn’t mean it makes any sense. It doesn’t, really. It is a daft opera.

Jacobs, FBO und exzellenter Gesangscrew gelingt es als Ensemble im ureigensten Wortsinne, Atmosphäre und Figuren effektstark zu veranschaulichen.

Die Regisseurin Brigitte Fassbaender beweist einen grünen Daumen für Mozarts frühes Dramma giocosa und lässt neben mitreißend witzigem Szenenspiel einfühlsame Charakterporträts entstehen.