****
Dorset Opera performing at the Coade Theatre at Bryanston School is more than an offering of good quality musical theatre. It is a showcase of some very strong professional singers and for the young people who have taken part in the summer school at the Blandford Forum. The combination is exhilarating.
For this production of Verdi’s Rigoletto, director Jamie Hayes has transposed the drama from late medieval Mantua to a 1920s speakeasy world of more modern thugs and corruption. It works well with the Duke like a mobster boss with a group of henchmen and also those who have to provide what is presumably a share of their ill-gotten gains to their criminal overlord.
He is a womaniser and a nasty piece of work, but the production does not shy away from others having women-slapping tendencies including Rigoletto. The men basically are grim, and the women, rather, well gullable or just extremely forgiving, for falling for the bad boy Duke. Gilda, taking the knife to save him, is of course the most extreme case.
Rufus Martin’s sets are an economic and effective use of resources (this is also seen in the season’s Suor Angelica and Cavalleria rusticana). It works well although the racing through the action at times seems to leave the screens that move to create the different settings slightly behind. Stewart J. Charlesworth’s costumes are great fun with the Duke’s fancy-dress party, and the 1920s floozies. Interestingly Sparafucile and his sister Maddalena are guests at the party (the former aptly resembling a Nosferatu vampire) waiting for his next victim. Maddelena later becomes a cabaret singer in a bar where the contract killings take place, she mimes the Duke’s famous Donna e mobile for some reason.
The professional singers were of a high standard with full, drama filled singing, particularly a Rigoletto from Hansung Yoo whose voice filled the auditorium with ease and also demonstrated skilful interpretation of the demanding role. Letitia Vitelaru sang the Gilda’s heartfelt arias with sensitivity while Jihoon Son swaggered and menaced as the mobster Duke with another fully voiced performance.
The gruesome twosome of Sparafucile and Maddalena were taken with relish by Julian Close and Maria Schellenberg. Eddie Wade gave a powerful Monterone with a splendidly biting curse. There was noteworthy support from Thomas Humphreys as Ceprano, Jay Broadhurst, singing Borsa and Tim Bagley as Marullo.
In these days of shrinking opera choruses, some of our smaller companies even doing without choruses for some works, it was truly thrilling to have the stage filled with singers from the Dorset Opera Festival Chorus. This is also true of the Dorset Opera Orchestra, here under the baton of Jeremy Carnall. Their enthusiasm and musicianship ensured this was the full Verdi experience product in a fast moving, pacey show.
Cavalleria rusticana and Suor Angelica at Dorset Opera Festival
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