THE
DRAGON OF WANTLEY
New
Sussex Opera at Devonshire Park Theatre, Eastbourne
I have seen two previous presentations of John Frederick
Lampe’s burlesque opera, and enjoyed them both greatly, but this new production
by New Sussex Opera is the most inventive and exhilarating by far.
Lampe’s spoof on Handelian grand opera is brilliantly
constructed, built upon Henry Carey’s absolutely scintillating libretto. It
leaves no stone of the genre unturned, and Handel himself loved it greatly.
Whereas Handel’s operas take place in classical times, set
in exotic locations, Lampe’s opera takes us to a village in South Yorkshire,
peopled by common folk instead of great luminaries, and its three acts take
half the time of one of Handel’s offerings. The chorus in Handelian opera is
generally a minor consideration, a mere assemblage of all the principals
creating an ensemble to round off proceedings in the finale; in Lampe it is a
major presence right from the start.
Lampe also indulges us with plenty of vocal display,
coloratura, fioriture, even embellishment-inviting da capo arias – all set to
the most banal words in the English language, thanks to Carey’s wonderful ear
for satire.
This, then, is the template for the plot, which involves a
community terrified by the predations of a dragon, whom the local squire, Moore
of Moore Hall, is the only person capable of vanquishing. The trouble is, Moore
does like a drink, so there are difficulties in getting him to do the deed. His
mantra, “Zeno, Plato, Aristotle, all were lovers of the bottle” sums him up, as
well as attesting to Carey’s tremendous wordsmithing.
Paul Higgin’s brilliant direction sets us in the middle of
the miners’ strike of the 1980s, with a grim, fearful local community. Gaffer
Gubbins, their leader, sung with authority by Robert Gildon, and his militant
daughter Margery (Ana Beard Fernandez blessed with a Milky Way of a stellar
range) approach the semi-debauched Moore (Magnus Walker pleasantly, mildly
heroic) to rid the village of the dragon. Mauxalinda, an out-of-step debutante
type, fancies herself as Moore’s girlfriend, a role wonderfully taken by
Charlotte Badham with her lowest registers particularly telling. Her cat-fight
with Margery is a wonderfully tabloid reconstruction of a vicious altercation
onstage which actually happened between two of Handel’s leading sopranos.
That event is preserved in a brilliant contemporary cartoon
featuring in David James’ treasurable programme-book, a genuine souvenir
crammed with information and documentary illumination, not least in its history
of dragons.
And that is where this show becomes jaw-droppingly stupendous,
at the moment we at last encounter the Dragon of Wantley. No mythical fire-belcher,
this, but a woman with more than a hint of Margaret Thatcher (arch-enemy of the
miners), clad in a true-blue two-piece with winged shoulders, and brandishing a
nifty handbag before she gets her come-uppance with a boot in the rear
delivered not by the braggadocio Moore but by his manservant. The Dragon is
played by Robert Gildon (a busy costume-change, and back again soon after),
which gives us a life-enhancing pun: drag-on.
Everything ends happily: Margery and Mauxalinde are now
bosom-buddies, Moore is a hero, and the threat has been banished. The Wantley Choral
Society, the excellent NSO Chorus all amateurs, sing a mock-paean from Handel’s
Messiah.
Throughout this fabulous show Toby Purser directs a crisp,
lively, tiny orchestra from the keyboard, with natural horns and trumpets
answering each other from opposite boxes in this gem of a little auditorium. New
Sussex Opera, with its largely amateur contingent back- and front-stage, is an
enterprising, imaginative company with so much to offer – and all without the
incubus of funding from Arts Council England.
Christopher Morley