{"id":3496,"date":"2017-04-02T18:55:44","date_gmt":"2017-04-02T17:55:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.larkreviews.co.uk\/?p=3496"},"modified":"2017-04-02T18:55:44","modified_gmt":"2017-04-02T17:55:44","slug":"new-sussex-opera-a-village-romeo-juliet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/?p=3496","title":{"rendered":"New Sussex Opera: A Village Romeo & Juliet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Devonshire Park Theatre, Eastbourne, Sunday 2 April 2017<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

New Sussex Opera have done so much good work over the years, and given us so many splendid evenings of opera, it is a shame not to be more enthusiastic about this most recent production. The fault is not theirs \u2013 unless one blames them for choosing it in the first place \u2013 but Delius\u2019 folk tale really does not carry enough dramatic weight to keep the audience engaged across the six scenes. That the final two scenes come slightly more alive, and include the finest music of the piece with the Walk to the Paradise Garden<\/em>, does little to make up for the lack of musical variety or characterisation in the first four.<\/p>\n

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Thankfully there is some fine playing from the ensemble under Lee Reynolds and the chorus makes an impression in the little it has to do. Luke Sinclair sings Sali with a sense of style and frequent lyrical beauty, but his presence too often seemed detached from the reality around him. Kirsty Taylor-Stokes\u2019 Vrenchen was equally positive vocally but her costume and demeanour too often made her look simplistic rather than na\u00efve. This may have been an idea of the director Susannah Waters to play them like Hansel and Gretel rather than Pelleas and Melisande, but if so it did not really fit with the stark utilitarianism of the setting. The fathers were strongly cast with Robert Gildon and Geoffrey Moses bringing tension to the opening minutes but this is lost in the miasma Delius creates around them, draining the potential tension of the relationship.<\/p>\n

Ian Beadle\u2019s Dark Fiddler \u2013 here played like the Sandman and as such giving yet another echo of Hansel \u2013<\/em> was strongly sung and as credible as the score would allow.<\/p>\n

There was an excellent programme \u2013 not always the case with smaller companies \u2013 from which I note that they will bring us Gluck\u2019s Orfeo<\/em> next year. Now that will be worth going to \u2013 no problem with that being a masterpiece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Devonshire Park Theatre, Eastbourne, Sunday 2 April 2017 New Sussex Opera have done so much good work over the years, and given us so many splendid evenings of opera, it is a shame not to be more enthusiastic about this … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3496"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3496"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3498,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3496\/revisions\/3498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}