SCOTTISH OPERA: THE TWO WIDOWS EDINBURGH FESTIVAL THEATRE Three Stars
FESTIVALS are excellent for bringing obscure works back to life. An enquiring audience will respond well to such endeavours, as did Saturday's crowd for the opening night of this joint production by the Edinburgh Festival and Scottish Opera of Smetana's late two-act opera The Two Widows.It was, apparently, a favourite of Richard Strauss, who would often make his visits to Prague coincide with a performance. Smetana takes a typical tale of womanly intrigue and male buffoonery and wraps it up in a character piece that, under the direction of Scottish Opera's newly-appointed musical director Francesco Corti, has moments as bucolically stirring as the same composer's The Bartered Bride. These are well-expressed in overtures to both acts that are loaded with Slavonic energy and colour, but more especially in one beautifully extended scene featuring Jane Irwin as the love-troubled widow Anezka in which Smetana's emotional characterisation, with Irwin's heart-tugging portrayal, is genuinely show-stopping.Irwin is the cream of a cohesive cast that includes Kate Valentine as a vibrant Karolina (the "brighter" widow and chief protagonist), David Pomeroy as the inoffensive love object Ladislav, Nicholas Folwell in the clown role of Mumlal, and Ben Johnson and Rebecca Ryan as a token manifestation of young love among the menagerie of fun-loving villagers.But oh dear, what a production. Given this team's history with Scottish Opera – director/designer Tobias Hoheisel and co-director Imogen Kogge were responsible for last season's mind-numbing sterilisation of Mozart's Seraglio – perhaps we should have guessed the outcome. The recurring ruse with the mirrors – where character doubles act out the mirrored (or not) "reflection" – is not only unoriginal, but completely aimless in dramatic terms. The doe, appearing in the distant rural landscape for its figurative paean, looks more like a kangaroo. And even within the vast expanse of the gaudy green set, crowd scenes seem downright mob-like. Subtle, imaginative stagecraft is not this production's priority. Which is a pity, as a genuine effort to restore a serviceable opera to the repertoire should not be damned as a result.
and the Guardian:
Edinburgh festival: The Two Widows
Festival Theatre, Edinburgh
Erica Jeal
The Guardian,
Tuesday August 12 2008
Article history
Irresistible good humour ... The Two Widows. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod
Operas do not come very much lighter than The Two Widows, Smetana's comic successor to The Bartered Bride. This is the second time it has been championed by Scottish Opera, and although it might seem flimsy stuff on which to hang the recently beleagured company's Edinburgh Festival appearance, this new production, by Tobias Hoheisel and Imogen Kogge, brings it off with gentle, irresistible good humour.
Essentially, this is a drawing-room comedy spiced with a few rousing peasant choruses and some scenes for a young couple sung by Ben Johnson and Rebecca Ryan who provide light relief - not that it is needed. The familial relationship between the two widows of the title, the carefree Karolina and her more upright cousin Anezka, is nicely observed in the byplay between soprano Kate Valentine and mezzo Jane Irwin.
Valentine is a good head taller than anyone else on stage - when she sings "I'm an Amazon" she's not joking, and the nose of Ladislav (David Pomeroy) ends up in her cleavage more than once. But she has presence to match, and though her soprano is a little grainy, she is well cast as the serial flirt turned matchmaker. Elsewhere, blustering gamekeeper Mumlal receives a well-judged portrayal from Nicholas Folwell, who delivers each word of the English text with lip-smacking relish.
The orchestra is at its ebullient best under new music director Francesco Corti, throwing out polkas every which way with light-footed crispness. If not all the wind solos are ideally mellifluous, the same could be said of Pomeroy's tenor, and yet his foppish geniality and ease with the high notes compensate for his reedy tone, making him a sympathetic love interest for Anezka. Her doubts over whether to admit her feelings to this old flame make for the opera's one really serious monologue, to which Irwin brings convincing intensity.
Hoheisel's set, covered in gaudy green and orange wallpaper, is backed by a supposed mirror, and there is a recurring laugh involving Mumlal's reflection, who would rather sit and drink than bother to keep up with his flesh-and-blood counterpart. It could have spilled over into corniness, but Hoheisel and Kogge know just when to stop. Smetana, who wrote perhaps 10 minutes more music than required, didn't quite, but, in the circumstances, that is impossible to begrudge.
and the Indy:
The Two Widows, Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Edinburgh Festival
(Rated 4/ 5 )
By Raymond MonelleWednesday, 13 August 2008
Francesco Corti, the conductor of Scottish Opera's new production of Smetana's The Two Widows, may have had an easier task. But this does not detract from his achievement. It was an object lesson in how to direct an opera, and the orchestra sounded transparent and lithe.
The cast was ideal for the task. As the gay Karolina, Kate Valentine was light and buoyant; David Pomeroy, as the romantic hero Ladislav, fielded a rich high tenor that never flagged.
Unfortunately the piece was let down by the translation of David Pountney and Leonard Hancock, which had too many rhymes and not enough wit. Otherwise, it was a simple solution to a simple problem, warmed by Smetana's unsinkable lyric invention.
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