In 1929, Elmer Rice’s Pulitzer-winning play premiered in New York. In 1947, this operatic adaptation by Elmer Rice and Langston Hughes, with music by Kurt Weill, followed. Tonight’s stunning performance was performed by Opera North at The Lowry, Salford.
It truly has a huge cast, and many of the Opera North Chorus took leading roles as well as cameos. Set in a large block of flats in a poorer part of Manhattan in the 1940s, there were six full families of principal characters represented, another sixteen residents and visitors, and a full children’s chorus. The few times that everyone on stage sang together in one block, such as the grand opera sequence surrounding the shooting of Anna and her lover Steve, it was that powerful wall of sound that can only ever be experienced with a very large cast. Most of the time however, the music leaned more towards Broadway musical, blues, jitterbug, children’s play-chanting, and even operatic parody in the light-hearted “Ice Cream Sextet” and “Lullaby”. There were also lively sections of dialogue, and every performer was as good an actor as they were a singer.
Giselle Allen held the beating heart of the opera as Anna Maurrant, dutiful wife and mother for the last two decades, and now starting to break free with an affair with the milk-collector. Allen’s rich, emotionally-centred voice was superb; and so was her earthbound poise. Gillene Butterfield matched her as daughter Rose, warding off unwanted suitors and the prospect of being trapped in this life forever. Butterfield sang with a lyrical truthfulness and sincerity, and was especially strong in her duets with her suitor Sam Kaplan, the law student, sung with equal lyricism and truth by Alex Banfield. Robert Hayward dominated the dark side of the opera as husband Frank Maurrant, growling his way through his demons and giving his character a tragic vulnerability around the toxic need to control.
Out of the many, many other storylines and characters that were jammed into the forty eight hours of the timescale, there are a number of honourable mentions. Claire Pascoe ruled the trio of gossiping neighbours as Mrs Jones: spiteful, suspicious, and with an especially droll line of delivery in her dialogue. Amy J. Payne as Mrs Olsen and Miranda Bevin as Mrs Fiorentino were caught between wanting to be good women, and wanting the tantalisation of Mrs Jones’ barbed comments. Christopher Turner, both musically and theatrically, relished every moment on stage as Mr Fiorentino, and selling ice cream for a living could not have received a huger tribute.
Quirijn de Lang was slimy and lecherous as Rose’s employer Harry Easter. Lorna James and Hazel Croft were absolutely delightful as the two Nursemaids taking their wealthy infant charges for a stroll to a crime scene. Jo Servi sang through his duties as Henry Davis the janitor with resonant good humour. Michelle Andrews, as Mrs Jones’ daughter Mae, and Rodney Vubya, as her boyfriend Dick, did a hot Harlem-flavoured song-and-dance routine in the foyer at midnight, under the strength of a lot of liquor…… and without her mother knowing.
Director Matthew Eberhardt drew out a fantastic ensemble performance from all involved, with every performer down to the youngest child delivering a realistic, believable New Yorker with all their attendant passions and problems. Conductor James Holmes kept up a lively, sparkling musical delivery: often bubbling along the surface with comedy, and then ready to go for the solar plexus with the drama. Francis O’Connor’s design was especially notable for the set: – an almost M.C. Escher-like arrangement of staircases and apartment doors, that the performers looked rather small against, particularly when on the upper floors.
No other production of “Street Scene” could easily surpass this one!
Reviewer - Thalia Terpsichore
on - 13/3/20
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