Review: Ruth and The Six of Calais, Royal Academy of Music

Review: Ruth and The Six of Calais, Royal Academy of Music

Summary

Rating

60

Good

Hagemann Rosenthal Associates present an uneven evening through the power of Pegasus Opera.

On paper and in reality, a pairing of the biblical story of Ruth and a George Bernard Shaw one act comedy (add your own inverted commas, if you’re that way inclined) is an odd one. Philip Hagemann has a reputation for setting Shaw to music and the title character of Ruth was written for soprano, specifically Pegasus Opera Artistic Director Alison Buchanan, so we expect this to be a safe evening. It is, however, unfortunately lopsided.

In the autumn of 2021, Pegasus/Hagemann Rosenthal Associates brought the curtain down on this very stage to great applause, with Hagemann’s excellently witty and bouncy adaptation of Shaw’s Passion, Poison and Petrification. Hagemann added a campness to Shaw’s comedy that only a soprano can give. We open tonight with The Six of Calais, the story of a king deciding (much to his wife’s distaste) whether to kill six of his adversaries.

The music struggles to find itself in Shaw’s scenario and swings washily around the ensemble and chorus. There’s not much to look at either. Lit darkly, MDF screens in an oriental style with a great big hole in the middle are present as, at best, a confusing setting. Costuming is a problem; it belongs neither to the past or the present (not timeless, but unmoored and confusing), and at worst is a death trap. The staging is muddled and clumsy with no real movement. There’s some shuffling around and ins and outs to compensate for stretches of trad ‘plant and chant’, but overall the effect is amateurish; a great waste of a professional and excellent cast. Dominick Felix as the condemned burgher performs well above what is given to him in both the music and the direction, and wrestles come coherence out of the score. For what it’s worth, it’s fun to watch Bernadine Pritchett stomp around in her stilettos as Queen Philippa, but that’s about it.

On the flip side is Ruth, the Old Testament story of famine in Judah and landowner Boaz’s love for the widowed title character. From the earthly rushes of the prologue it is clear that we’re in a new, coherent musical world. Suddenly, the same set as before makes sense. Now a golden warmth floods the stage and in are wheeled wheats and grasses. The music is tender and considered, appropriately grand and warm; tidy musical storytelling. There is a rich texture in the chorus parts. Conductor Avishka Edirisinghe gets it completely and brings a skilful sense of buoyancy to the piece, despite the limited numbers in the pit. I hope we can expect to see his baton for Pegasus again and perhaps other companies too.

Written for Buchanan, it is no surprise to see how well she sings the part of Ruth, her duet with the forceful Chikezie Chike Michael (Boaz) is beautiful and quite special to hear. In Ruth’s circle of sisters, Roberta Philip (Orpah) and Angela Caesar (Naomi) are great fun, girly and cheeky with a lot of love in the music. Director Cassiopeia Berkeley-Agyepong instils a sense that the singers can feel and live the story.

In all it’s clear where the time and energy was focussed in rehearsals. There is no obvious thematic thread that strings the two one act operas together, but the glue is an excellent cast, conductor and orchestra with a heap of big credits to their names assembled by Pegasus Opera, the only company of their size that could pull such a thing off for this repertoire.

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Composed by: Philip Hagemann
Conducted by: Avishka Edirisinghe
Directed by: Cassiopeia Berkeley-Agyepong
Design by: Jida Akil
Lighting Design by: Chuma Emembolu
Produced by: Hagemann Rosenthal Associates and Pegasus Opera Company

Ruth and The Six of Calais has completed its current run.