The Bartered Bride review: Czech tale turns into a very English caper

Few of us know what life was like in a 19th-century Bohemian village, so we can’t judge whether a production of Smetana’s The Bartered Bride (premiered in 1866) is authenticity. Wisely, and as it turns out wittily, Paul Curran’s new production for Garsington makes no effort to reproduce a setting that Smetana might have recognised. Instead the action is put in an English village of the Fifties and Sixties.

It’s one thing to decide on a setting; it’s something else to make it come alive. Curran succeeds, with the help of Darren Royston’s choreography, and an equally energetic cast. The chorus, in particular, is fully integrated into the action, canoodling and cavorting its way through the carry-on. Each act has a standard-issue English location: first, the village hall; then the pub, complete with dartboard and slops bucket; finally the fairground, where acrobats entertain us royally.

In outline, the opera’s plot sounds flimsy: woman loves one man, a marriage is arranged to another, utterly unsuitable man, things happen, then suddenly everything comes right in the closing moments. Hardly original but Smetana found depth and melody to keep things bubbling; the production does the rest, its vitality nevertheless allowing properly emotional passages to hit home.

With Jac van Steen conducting, the Philharmonia Orchestra matches the onstage sparkle without overpowering the singers. In an excellent cast, soprano Natalya Romaniw and tenor Brenden Gunnell are well matched as the thwarted lovers, while as the mayor-cum-marriage broker, bass Joshua Bloom has resonance and comic gravitas. In some ways, though, the star of the show is tenor Stuart Jackson; he generates empathy for the would-be fall guy, the stammering Vašek, who loses one fiancée but gains another in moments. This production celebrates 30 years of Garsington Opera, the last nine of them at the Getty family’s estate in Buckinghamshire. It gives the season a rousing send-off.

Until June 30 (01865 361636, garsingtonopera.org)