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Review
L’étoile, Royal Opera House, review :'dead in the water'
This new Covent Garden production of Chabrier’s operetta is a damp squib
Be careful what you wish for. Some two years ago, I relished New Sussex Opera’s low-budget, semi-staged, pro-am bash at Chabrier’s delicious operetta L’étoile (“The Star”) to such an extent that I expressed a desire to see a full-dress, bells-and-whistles production.
Well, the wizards at Covent Garden waved their wands and granted me what I wanted. And lo, I didn’t enjoy myself half so much. What has gone wrong? Several things. An eccentric and maverick figure, very much at the heart of the Bohemian Paris of the Impressionists, Chabrier cooked up this three-act Offenbachian soufflé in 1877 for the Bouffes-Parisiens, a boulevard theatre less than half the size of the Royal Opera House.
Doubtless daunted by the latter’s cavernous auditorium, the director Mariame Clément has opted for a broadbrush Monty Python-esque approach. This does no favours to the tale of dotty King Ouf and his superstitious need to execute an innocent poor pedlar named Lazuli, who’s enamoured with Ouf’s betrothed Laoula (and played en travestie by a mezzo-soprano).
Reading anything of profound significance into this farrago would be a great mistake, but careful handling and a touch both firm and light are required. These are not in evidence. At one level, the staging looks arrestingly lively and colourful – the designer Julia Hansen has devised an attractively eclectic collage of a set, combining elements of a Victorian salon, Persian miniatures, a Montmartre cabaret, a Turkish bath and the illusions of a toy theatre.
Scenery changes, dancers prance, geese quack. But in the process, a plot that should unfold with the cool lucid dream logic of the Alice books gets so fussed up and larded over that one’s left with little idea of what is going on or why.
The muddle is compounded by the interpolation of a pointless double act delivered by comedians Chris Addison and Jean-Luc Vincent, impersonating in Franglais an archetypal silly-ass Englishman and effete Frenchman.
They randomly wander in and out making smart remarks of no great wit or relevance. Gags about Sherlock Holmes and the Eurostar fall flat, and some of the time the pair’s repartee becomes inaudible. Worse, their redundant presence suggests the director’s lack of faith in the libretto, and they slow the pace just when it needs to zip along.
There’s a problem in the pit too, where the fragrant charm of Chabrier’s beguiling melodies and perfumed orchestration has evaporated. Mark Elder is, in my view, a superb conductor of musical grandeurs, but perhaps operetta’s dainty grace is not his thing. The music never sparkled. There was no fizz or lilt in his tempi or phrasing; instead the small orchestra played with a focused precision and clarity that bespoke military precision rather than spontaneous insouciance.
Kate Lindsey and Hélène Guilmette sang sweetly and truly as the lovers, Lazuli and Laoula, but the laser-voiced character tenor Christophe Mortagne as King Ouf was alone in projecting authentic operetta style and panache. The rest of the cast put a brave face on it but made only a pallid impression. The chorus sang cheerfully.
I don’t want to sound too negative: the show is pleasantly brief, mildly diverting, well-rehearsed and full of delightfully sophisticated music – two exquisite trios and lyrically supple arias for Lazuli and Laoula stand out. But what talent and money the Royal Opera has wasted. What should explode like a rocket only splutters like a damp squib, serving as a classic example of how directorial overkill can leave an operatic comedy dead in the water.
L’étoile is at the Royal Opera House until Feb 24. Visit Telegraph Tickets or call 0844 871 2118. -