Review: RIDERS TO THE SEA, MAST Mayflower Studios - OperaUpClose
Photo credit: Rich Southgate
OperaUpClose seeks, with the support of the Arts Council of England as a National Portfolio Organisation, to develop new younger audiences for Opera by staging intimate reinventions of classic operatic tales in accessible and exciting tours of UK. The first of their next batch of Reinventions, Riders to the Sea, began its eight-venue tour at the MAST studios in Southampton. Later in the series, they will stage tours of Where There Is A Will and Salome.
The original Vaughan Williams’s operatic one act tale based on JM Synge’s story has been combined with a new companion piece called The Last Bit Of The Moon as a prologue to the original, written by Michael Betteridge and Anton Wocjik. This short solo piece takes one character from the original opera, Bartley, and explores how he reflects and writes about the tragic death of his brother when he was young. We meet him on his computer musing on the memory of the moment when his family were presented with the evidence of his brother’s death at sea and expressing his grief and guilt. As a result, the original opera, Riders To The Sea, then explains and explores how the family discovered and understood that Michael had indeed been lost and the impact on his two sisters and Mother.
The cultural background of a southern Ireland family in Donegal shines through in the rural seaside setting with the distinctive Irish phraseology and lilt, as Bartley’s sisters Nora (well sung by Susie Buckle) and Cathleen (charmingly sung by soprano Julia Mariko) are given clothing washed up on a northern shore and nervously hide the evidence from their mother, Maurya (beautifully sung by Mezzo-Soprano, Lauren Young). None of them want to accept that Michael has died having previously lost brothers Stephen, Shawn, Sheamus and Patch to the sea. Told by sung through narrative, we hear their grief and the need to accept and bring closure for the loss. Bartley, played by baritone Neil Balfour, becomes part of that process.
Simply set on the intimate stage using gauzes for projected images of the sea and memories of the young boys that give the production an ethereal look and feel with the three musicians standing as observers of their grief. The music adds to that sense of haunting mysticism with occasional discordant elements that are generally pleasant and occasional spine chilling . The sound has the feel of Irish folk music and monastic prerecorded choral work by The Sunday Boys, Hull Freedom Chorus, Bournemouth Male Choir, and other local voices and children, which add the sense of a grieving community in the shadows. The whole show is simply subtitled so we can follow every word of the narrative.
Budgetary constraints appear to limit the physical setting with an out of place step ladder and plain white table, which do not reinforce the rural Irish setting but provide practical solutions to create the cottage kitchen. Splashes of red props stand out against the muted tones of the costumes and setting adding drama to the look. Artistic Director Flora McIntosh ensures that the powerful, passionate and emotional heart of the story resonates strongly and that we are drawn into the family’s grief and guilt as the truth is slowly revealed.
Unfortunately, on the Gala night, Neil Balfour was recovering from illness and was unable to sing his part as Bartley, so lip sync’d the prologue to his own recorded voice and then to an offstage voice from Robin Wallington, the Musical supervisor, for the original opera. Hopefully he will be fully recovered for the rest of the tour.
Opera’s reputation is sometimes seen as a high brow expensive product, often sung in the original foreign language and appealing to an older audience. OperaUpClose’s bold and exciting mission is to make it more accessible, appeal to a younger demographic , and connect the classic operas to a modern world. This production with a sixty-five-minute running time, sung in English with clear subtitles and eternal themes of grief and familial love, certainly targets this mission and offers a delightful toe in the water to new audiences to experience and enjoy the unique theatrical form that is Opera.
Later in the year, they will take ‘Opera Cocktail’, their sixty-minute show that features classic operas such as Carmen, The Magic Flute, and La Traviata in English translations linked as a story about friendship on tour as another joyous way to discover the drama and joy of the genre.
Give it a try and see what you think.
**** Four stars
Reviewed by: Nick Wayne
OperaUpClose’s Riders to the Sea plays at MAST Mayflower Studios in Southampton until 1 February before continuing its tour. For more info, please click here.