Le Roi Malgré Lui – review

Maurice Ravel once said he would rather have composed Chabrier's Le Roi Malgré Lui than Wagner's entire Ring Cycle. On the basis of having had the unusual experience of seeing both within the last two weeks, all I can say is there's no accounting for taste.

That's not to belittle Chabrier's 1887 tangled opéra-comique tale of a reluctant French-born King of Poland, who pines for France, plots his own overthrow but finally accepts his fate. It is a beautifully written and at times harmonically daring piece that boldly goes against the progressivism of Wagner, while occasionally revealing his influence – as well as looking to Berlioz and Bizet. Given Chabrier's early intoxication with Wagner's music, this underlines the steelier artistic side to this otherwise frothy confection.

The Wexford festival deserves credit for disinterring such a rarity. But Thaddeus Strassberger's production, premiered in July at Bard College in New York state, is a real problem. Strassberger has produced a dazzling, no-expenses-spared show, updated to the present day with lashings of Polonaise kitsch. There are visual gags aplenty. When anyone mentions Venice, a gondola and gondolier appear on cue. There's a sort of homage to Strictly Come Dancing in the big dance scene in the second act, which takes place in a television studio. The king's coronation is set in what appears to be a Holiday Inn. There is always loads going on.

But it is all too much and goes nowhere. Strassberger's inventiveness quickly becomes not just confusing but tiresome. Worst of all, it works against Chabrier's opera, which Strassberger seems to trust only intermittently. For much of the evening there is one show taking place on stage, and another opera being played, often very beautifully under Jean-Luc Tingaud's direction, in the orchestra pit.

Three of the principals come from the American premiere. Liam Bonner as the king, arriving on stage from a tanning bed in tricolore Speedos, exudes an engagingly fatuous swagger throughout but is vocally unmemorable. Nathalie Paulin as Alexina, the king's former lover turned Polish nationalist conspirator, sings with real Gallic style; while Frédéric Gonçalvès, as the chamberlain Fritelli, makes the most of his many comic opportunities.

Best of all, though, is Mercedes Arcurí as Minka. It's the opera's most vocally demanding role, rewarded with several of its most treasurable moments, notably the nocturne duet with Alexina in the third act, and the wonderfully knowing and allusive duet that follows with her lover Nangis, the excellent Luigi Boccia. When Arcurí is on stage, you quickly realise what a fine and idiomatic piece this is.

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