Tuesday 15 April 2014

Powder her Face - English National Opera

On paper is sounded great.  ENO going off site to Ambika P3 to put on Powder Her Face charting "the glamorous rise and seedy fall of the notorious socialite beauty Margaret, Duchess of Argyll". <<http://www.eno.org/powder>>

However there were drawbacks.  Drawbacks to such an extent I can only give you a limited view of the performance here - I only made it as far as the interval.

It's not that there is anything particularly wrong with the opera by Thomas Adès, it's the performance space.  In a concrete bunker, two floors under the University of Westminster the performance is given an odd resonance with the sound bouncing all over the place.  Worse still is the seating.  Not having access to a seating plan when booking, I think I ended up with the worst seat in the room.  Not only was it high up, but it was in a corner and meant to get any sort of view of what was going on I had to lean forward and twist slightly.  As a result, by the end of Act 1, my back was giving me hell!  Much as I would have liked to carry on and see second half, my stamina deserted me.

Amanda Roocroft as the Duchess relished the role.  She did not hold back at all during the .... ahem ... rude aria!  But the acoustics did none of the cast any favours.

I would see it again, but only somewhere with a bit more comfort and better sightlines!

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