{"id":983,"date":"2013-05-07T07:14:06","date_gmt":"2013-05-07T06:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.larkreviews.co.uk\/?p=983"},"modified":"2013-05-07T07:14:06","modified_gmt":"2013-05-07T06:14:06","slug":"opera-south-east-the-pearl-fishers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/?p=983","title":{"rendered":"Opera South-East; The Pearl Fishers"},"content":{"rendered":"

White Rock Theatre, Hastings 26 April 2013<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes known as the One Song Opera, sometimes judged \u2018far too long for any UK performance\u2019 and thus rarely heard in its entirety, moreover \u2018it\u2019s set in Ceylon\u2019 (as Sri Lanka then was) \u2018and who wants to know about that?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Just some of the reasons why few of the audience knew what was in store.\u00a0 However Director Jenny Miller\u00a0 put such fears to rest with an unusual but highly workable setting, virtually playing the entire story on the front half of the theatre\u2019s stage, with seating for the chorus on Actors\u2019 Left and on Actors\u2019 Right, plus two large sails, lit from behind so that they virtually became shadowgraphs.\u00a0 With cleverly concealed coloured floods discreetly\u00a0 positioned amid the performance area, the different times of day and moods of action were unobtrusively indicated.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The story is basically the eternal \u2018triangle drama\u2019 of the film world, two men in love with the same woman.\u00a0 Only in this case one of the men, fisherman Nadia (tenor Ian Parrett) had chosen to make himself scarce, so that all was well with the romance of the leader of the fishermen Zurga,(baritone Peter Grevatt,) and the beautiful Leila, soprano Luci Briginshaw.\u00a0\u00a0 Before Nadir left he and Zurga swore that they would never fall in love with the same woman in the one piece from the opera that is familiar, known merely asThe Duet from the Pearl Fishers.<\/i>\u00a0 The audience was doubtless surprised that the one \u2018big\u2019 number of the opera was heard so early, though in fact the orchestra later reprised the melody.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Nadir did return as Zurga\u00a0 was explaining that a boat was coming from an adjoining island with the high priest Nourabad (bass-baritone Toby Sims) bringing a veiled lady a nun who if she breaks her vows will be punished with death.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The veiled lady was of course Leila, and when she saw Nadir, her hymn to the Goddess Siva turned ito a declaration of love for him.\u00a0 Leila as a girl had given sanctuary to a fugitive whom in return had presented her with a necklace.\u00a0 Leila gave this necklace to one of the guards\u00a0\u00a0 Zurga saw this and snatched it back, realising that Leila was the young girl who saved his life.\u00a0 The villagers had prepared a funeral pyre for Leila and Nadir, but Zurga, resigned to the loss of his love, told Nadir and Leila to flee whilst Zurga remained to face the fury of the villagers and in a fit of rage Nourabad stabbed him to death.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Kenneth Roberts conducted the Sussex Concert Orchestra, leader Andrew Laing, with obvious delight at having the opportunity to present something fresh and they responded magnificently.\u00a0 Mention must be made of the original props and stage dressings which added so much to the atmosphere of the production and the originality of the setting, which permitted the chorus to add greatly to the development of the story.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And above all, thanks indeed to Jenny Miller whose expertise and experience showed throughout every aspect of the production so that one looks forward to the next time Miss Miller takes on the directorial role of Opera South-East. MW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

White Rock Theatre, Hastings 26 April 2013 Sometimes known as the One Song Opera, sometimes judged \u2018far too long for any UK performance\u2019 and thus rarely heard in its entirety, moreover \u2018it\u2019s set in Ceylon\u2019 (as Sri Lanka then was) … 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],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/983"}],"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=983"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":984,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/983\/revisions\/984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}