Riotous journey to the Underworld

By Mark Pullinger, 04 February 2017

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“camper than a row of tents”

Reviewed at Hackney Empire, London on 3 February 2017

Offenbach, Orphée aux enfers (Orpheus in the Underworld)

Royal Academy Opera

Gareth Hancock, Conductor

Martin Duncan, Director

Alex Doidge-Green, Set Designer

Alys Mererid Roberts, Eurydice

Ilona Revolskaya, Diane

Frances Gregory, Venus

Leslie Bickle, Cupidon

Carrie-Ann Williams, Minerve

Helen Brackenbury, L'Opinion Publique

Hannah Poulsom, Junon

Mikhail Shepelenko, Orphée

Alexander Aldren, Mercure

Dominic Bowe, Jupiter

Alex Otterburn, John Styx

Timothy Murphy, Mars

Richard Walshe, Bacchus

Steve Elias, Choreography

The Royal Academy's Carmen has too many what-if moments

Dominic Lowe, 18th November

Presenting a work like Carmen is a punchy move by a conservatoire. The Royal Academy of Music's production has conceptual weaknesses, but features some good singing.

***11

Royal Academy Opera stages a magical Zauberflöte

Mark Valencia, 18th March

A lyrical yet zesty account of Mozart's' adorable score, in a production that is on the nose and off the wall.

****1

A dystopian Hansel und Gretel at the RAM

Mark Valencia, 20th November

Jack Furness serves up an unappetising mess of Humperdinck's delicious masterpiece for Royal Academy Opera.

***11

Keeping it surreal: Martinů double-bill at the Royal Academy of Music

Dominic Lowe, 8th May

With typical spirit, the students at the Royal Academy of Music did an excellent job in bringing Martinů’s Comedy on the Bridge and Alexandre bis to life – two lesser-known pre-war surrealist gems.

***11

Unreal city: The Rake's Progress at the Royal Academy of Music

Benjamin Poore, 22nd November

Frederic Wake-Walker's realisation of the Hogarth-inspired opera is visually bracing and assuredly sung.

****1

Emotion and mayhem: a golden double bill from Royal Academy Opera

Stephen Pritchard, 18th March

Students triumph in Tchaikovsky's Iolanta and Ravel's L'Enfant et les sortilèges.

****1

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Mark Pullinger

Mark has been a Bachtrack editor since 2014. He is also an experienced critic, writing hundreds of reviews for the site, as well as a freelancer writing for other magazines and newspapers. He also writes programme notes and blogs on Substack. Mark has a particular passion for the operas of Verdi as well as Russian and French repertoire. Outside the concert hall and opera house, Mark enjoys cooking and travel and is probably at his happiest let loose in a French patisserie or a Viennese coffee house.

Riotous journey to the Underworld: Royal Academy's Orphée in Hackney