Review: Janacek: The Adventures of Mr Broucek ****
Long before Dr Who came onto our television screens, Janacek's Mr Broucek was in his own drunken capsule journeying through time and space to worlds far beyond his own limited imagination.
By updating the action to the 1970s, the director of Opera North's new production, John Fulljames, has taken away part of the story's original intent, for in Janacek's day people believed the moon could be inhabited as he portrayed, though this modern Broucek would know they do not exist.
But this is an inspired score you must not miss, Fulljames retaining the outline of the original Prague production and resists the temptation to milk it for those laughs that we rather enjoyed in the opera's first UK production back in 1978.
That it requires extravagant sets has been imaginatively circumvented by screen projections and instantly mobile scenery and props that create the varying destinations. It is performed in English, but also uses subtitles to make sure you do not miss the humour, and that fact should have encouraged the conductor, Martin Andre, to unleash more orchestral colours.
Vocally it is very good, John Graham-Hall's Broucek steering clear of the usual drunken caricature, but just tipsy enough for his reverie to perfectly fit into Fulljames's serious look at the 1420 uprising in Prague.
Anne Sophie Duprels, in her various sex-driven roles, is the jewel of the performance; Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts makes a fully believable Mazel, while Donald Maxwell's redoubtable baritone almost bares all as Shining Radiance.
Leeds Grand Theatre, October 17 and 23, and on tour to Nottingham, Salford and Newcastle.
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Wednesday 08 February 2012
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