The debut of Valentina Ceschi’s What Dreams May Come catapults English Touring Opera into 2025 with a heartrending contemplation of an elderly man’s last night in a hospital, and some marvellous physical theatre and puppetry. Staged in a dynamically versatile hospital room – in the intimate space of the New Diorama theatre in Euston – we meet the figure of the intricately expressive puppet in his bed, wearing an enormous donkey’s head. If that doesn’t make the concept behind the production clear, we then follow a four-person ensemble through a collection of songs largely drawn from the works of Shakespeare (with the odd addition of a Thomas Shadwell poem and Henry Purcell’s The Fairy Queen).
Over the course of the next 70 minutes, we follow the puppet – cleverly designed by Matt Hutchinson – as he takes in the hospital environment, reflects his engagement to and loss of his late wife, is visited by two parents and a baby (presumably a grandchild) and passes away after a dreamlike night.
The production builds into a startling and tender consideration of an everyman’s life, with Shakespeare’s lyricism giving it a universal quality. The physical theatre is extraordinary and moving, with members of the cast each guiding him through scenes and temporal changes marked by the emergence of blossoms, the bluster of leaves and the swell of the moon. The scene in which the man remembers his past courtship and the death of his wife is staggeringly poignant.
Musical director Erika Gundesen at the keyboard has crafted a simple and beautiful setting of the songs, with some orchestral arrangements by Robin Wallington. Soprano Alys Mererid Roberts sang with sparkling clarity and affection, her top notes crisp and clean. Mezzo Emily Hodkinson gave a rich-voiced, powerful performance as the wife in the memory sequences. In the tenor role, Tamsanqa Tylor Lamani displayed an accomplished range, as comfortable in the nimble Where the bee sucks as in the dour darkness of Come away, death. Samuel Pantcheff was convincing as the father of a new-born, with a lustrous and expressive baritone. As an ensemble they were tight under Gundesen's watch, their voices well-matched.
If there is a criticism to make of this production, it is only that it is not easy to form a coherent narrative from a compilation of loosely-linked songs. Where the piece falters is in shoehorning songs where they might not quite fit that narrative, distracting from the powerful simplicity of the underlying storyline. While the inclusion of O Mistress mine and Come away, death from Twelfth Night suit the elderly man’s reflections on an initially rejected proposal to his late wife, the addition of Britten’s Fancie (The Merchant of Venice) jars, and by the time we get to the baby’s entrance to Schubert’s Who is Sylvia? from Two Gentlemen of Verona, disbelief must be suspended. And why would a doctor be singing Thomas Arne’s Where the bee sucks, Ariel’s springtime ode from The Tempest? Likewise, the inclusion of the French-language La Mort d’Ophélie by Ernest Legouvé is – while beautifully rendered by Roberts and Hodkinson and with gorgeous phrasing from the string sections – confusing.
Yet the overall impact of this studio piece is powerful: a production full of heart that bodes well for the ETO’s Shakespeare-themed spring season.
