Some people get terribly, passionately serious about Wagner. This shouldn’t be a problem: truly great music of all kinds tends to attract obsessive adulation, especially whenever the artist is a controversial, genre-breaking genius (cf. the recent press reaction to the death of David Bowie). But the sad fact is that too often, this fervent Wagner-worship…
“A Ring Cycle set in a launderette? Well, I’ve seen weirder productions…” Unexpected Opera’s approachable and slick reduction of Wagner’s epic starts on a characteristically unstuffy note, and proceeds to soften us up with disarmingly cheesy jokes, some ribald stage antics, and bags of energy. The Rinse Cycle cheerfully pokes fun at itself, as well…
The reason The Mikado can move us, despite all its apparent silliness, is that some of its humour is in fact presciently serious at heart. With a healthy dash of camp, glamour, greasepaint and sparkle, Charing Cross Theatre‘s new production of Gilbert & Sullivan‘s The Mikado makes for a rather old-fashioned evening of innocent fun: but hey, vintage is so now these…