Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation
Wealth of talent … British Youth Opera's The Little Green Swallow, at the Peacock, London.
Wealth of talent … British Youth Opera’s The Little Green Swallow, at the Peacock, London. Photograph: Bill Knight Photograph: Bill Knight
Wealth of talent … British Youth Opera’s The Little Green Swallow, at the Peacock, London. Photograph: Bill Knight Photograph: Bill Knight

The Little Green Swallow review – British Youth Opera displays a wealth of talent

This article is more than 9 years old
Peacock, London
A large cast show off their vocal and dramatic strengths in a well-designed production of Jonathan Dove’s fairytale opera

British Youth Opera’s pared-back autumn season comprises just one work, in the shape of Jonathan Dove’s L’Augellino Belverde, which was premiered at Tuscany’s Batignano festival back in 1994 and is here performed in Adam Pollock’s English translation. Its source is Carlo Gozzi’s 1765 play of the same name – itself a sequel to his earlier The Love for Three Oranges, which was turned into a highly successful opera by Prokofiev.

Dove has set himself the more difficult task, because Gozzi’s second fairytale is a good deal more convoluted than the first; the result is dramatically diffuse and overlong, with a plot far harder to articulate in stage terms than its predecessor’s.

As in all his scores, though, Dove’s technical skills remain impressive, bar a tendency to repeat verbal and musical material too often; but his musical language is so heavily indebted to John Adams and Stephen Sondheim that it is rarely possible to discern any distinctive voice of his own.

What the piece does offer a company dedicated to the development of young artists is a wealth of roles in which a large cast can show their strengths. Here, among the 11 named roles, plus a group of three singing apples – one of many elements, incidentally, cleverly visualised in Simon Bejer’s designs, which provide the evening’s outstanding feature – there’s a wealth of talent on display. Adam Temple-Smith’s Renzo, Filipa Van Eck’s Barbarina, Emma Kerr’s Ninetta and Rozanna Madylus’s Smeraldina, in particular, make their marks vocally and dramatically, as does Tom Verney in the title role of the magical bird, which he also presents as a handheld puppet in another winning feature of Stuart Barker’s production. Lionel Friend conducts a well-prepared musical performance, with the Southbank Sinfonia supplying the secure orchestral underpinning.

Until 13 September. Box office: 0844 412 4322. Venue: Peacock, London.

Comments (…)

Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion

Most viewed

Most viewed