Iolanthe

Operatic Fairy Dust

Iolanthe

by Arthur Sullivan libretto by W.S.  Gilbert

English National Opera at the London Coliseum, until 25^th October

Review by Patrick Shorrock

After its superb and searing Peter Grimes, ENO have put on this hugely enjoyable revival of their 2018 production of Iolanthe.  Despite their cruel treatment at the hands of the Arts Council – is it malice, incompetence, or sheer arrogance? – ENO are on a roll, when it comes to the quality of their performances. 

It gets the right light musical touch – Chris Hopkins doesn’t drive the score too hard and lets it breathe in a relaxed way.  The orchestra plays beautifully and the singers don’t force their voices and have beautifully clear diction.  We tend to take these things for granted but they matter.   

Cal Mc Crystal has refreshed his production and it shows.  Having Captain Shaw (actor Clive Mantle) introduce the show helpfully makes sense of the Fairies’ references to him in Act Two.  Mantle comes across as very much at home at the Coliseum, despite all his TV and film work, and makes some suitably sharp (but not exactly unpredictable) witticisms.  The production still contains lots of gags – possibly too many – including a pantomime cow, sheep (Strephon is meant to be a shepherd after all) unicorns, at least one horse, and a flamingo.  And these fairies really do fly.

We have extras who look suspiciously like Boris Johnson and Nadine Dorries.   Shouldn’t there have been a trigger warning? (Although my own view is that these warning’s belong on Koko’s little list; warning an audience before they buy their tickets is one thing, but doing it when they enter the auditorium is closing the stable door when the horse has bolted.) John Savournin’s wonderfully elegant Lord Chancellor makes a good crack – much loved by the audience – about the absurdity of moving the House of Lords up north, even if later they all decamp to Fairyland.  Lizzi Gee’s choreography is appropriate and interesting without being distracted. 

Some of the chorus have furniture removal to do and recycle Old Joe has gone fishing from Peter Grimes while they do it– a rather nice in-joke, rather more effective than the dead swan gag from Parsifal when the production was new (now cut).  However, the Queen of the Fairies retains her cod-Wagnerian aura and costume, and is given a magisterial performance from Catherine Wyn-Rogers, whose expertise more than compensates for her occasional vocal caution: a vintage performance to treasure.  Keel Watson’s weighty Private Willis was a worthy partner for her. 

The late Paul Brown’s gloriously colourful sets and costumes, featuring birds, flowers, hedgerows and Puginesque wallpaper, have the beautiful clarity of an illuminated manuscript and look taken from a child’s picture book.  Samantha Price has oddly little to sing for what is the title role, but does it very well.  Ellie Laugharne and Marcus Farnsworth are a delightful and nicely sung pair of lovers.  Farnsworth’s tap dancing in clogs is impressive but comes at the cost of drowning out his singing. 

If I have a niggle, it is perhaps more to do with the piece than the performance.  It lacks edge or melancholy, but that may have more to with the ineffectiveness of a satire that has become over-comfortable with familiarity.  I suspect that Dorries and Johnson would rather be mocked than ignored.  At least the real House of Lords seems to have exerted a bit of quality control and excluded Dorries. Cutting the Arts opera budget in London while providing no additional funding for opera in the north and Wales is levelling down not up!

Patrick Shorrock, October 2023

Photography by Clive Barda (2018 Production)