If anyone tells you that opera is outdated and irrelevant to today’s audiences, just send them along to Opera Holland Park. There is a current double bill playing that had audiences laughing out loud – the laughter coming from what appears now to be an all-pervading cynicism about those previously known as the Great and the Good.
First up was Trial by Jury – written in 1878 but, given its subject of bias in the judiciary, eye wateringly pertinent 75 years on. Being Gilbert and Sullivan, it is of course deliciously satirical, full of wit and played for laughs. In John Savournin’s new production, it’s updated to a TV show featuring a judge and a “live” case with cues for the audience to applaud or boo. Edward Jowle is part usher/part warm-up man who gets everyone in the mood for audience participation (on the first night, everyone whooped and booed with vigour) and he sets the scene.
It’s a case of breach of promise – a rake, Edwin (a smooth-operating Jamie MacDougall) has jilted his bride Angelina (Kira Kaplan still in her wedding dress and accompanied by six bridesmaids in violent purple). Before the judge even appears, the jury is already firmly on Angelina’s side, referring to Edwin as a monster while promising “From bias free of every kind, this trial must be tried.”
Enter the judge, Richard Stuart (excellent in his patter song), who confesses to his own rather murky past, gets confused about the concept of bigamy (“burglaree”) but sorts everything out in the end by marrying Angelina himself. The plot is preposterous, the running time short (less than 40 minutes), everyone on stage is clearly having a ball and the audience is happily complicit. Under the baton of Toby Hession, the Orchestra of Scottish Opera plays with gusto, and Hession’s own composition is just coming up.
This is A Matter of Misconduct, set in the present day with a score by Hession and a libretto by Emma Jenkins. They had previously collaborated on In Flagrante, a 15-minute piece about corrupt politicians that ended up being performed at the Scottish Parliament to great acclaim. A Matter of Misconduct builds on that and who can blame its creators for throwing in references to mysteriously funded campervans and spin doctors losing the plot?
Here, we are confronted by Roger Penistone, a Deputy Prime Minister with his eye on the big job (Ross Cumming, a master of comic timing and broad farce). His wife, Cherry (Chloe Harris who gets rather overpowered in the duets), is a wellness guru who’s made an unfortunate money-for-access deal with a UAE prince. Edward Jowle reappears here as Hugo Cheeseman, Penistone’s press secretary and Jamie MacDougall resurfaces too, this time as a fierce Scottish spin doctor who could give Alistair Campbell a run for his money. The scene is nicely set for a total fall from grace – just a week before the leadership election.
And so it plays out with plenty of corruption, hypocrisy and plain idiocy on display, MacDougall listing the faults of his supposed masters with an air of incredulity while everyone panics about how to fix it. Enter Kira Kaplan as Sylvia Lawless, the lawyer who can do just that (a name that would fit easily into the G&S catalogue). And there is some similarity in style between the two pieces – Jenkins is fond of witty rhymes (“indiscretions” with “questions” though that could never match Gilbert’s “Otto” and “Watteau”), and certainly the staging (director Laura Attridge) owes a lot to the Whitehall Farces’ school of over-acting.
There’s a neat ending when it is realised that Penistone’s calamitous career disasters have all been recorded (his microphone was on for an interview on Loose Women). And a post-ending when we are told that since 2017 over 100 politicians have been found guilty of serious crimes (mostly sex and corruption). This is greeted by barely a raised eyebrow in the audience. How used to this we all now are.
So, all in all, a night of hypocrisy exposed and a universal cynicism. Opera Holland Park plans its next season pretty much as the current one finishes. How they could predict the current climate this time last year, I can’t imagine. They must have a pretty good crystal ball…
The final performance of Trial by Jury/A Matter of Misconduct is on 26th June at 7.30pm. For more information, and for tickets, please visit www.operahollandpark.com.
Photos by Mihaela Bodlovic
