The Lowry, Salford – Friday 8th March 2019
Reviewed by Joseph Everton
5*****
When I get the chance to watch an Opera North production at the Lowry, I jump at it. And with The Lyric full to the rafters, so does everybody else, it seems. Friday evening’s unusual double bill featured a bewitching piece of choreography by Phoenix Dance Theatre’s Haitian choreographer, Jeanguy Saintus, alongside Stravinsky’s pagan inspired and iconic The Rite of Spring, followed by a comic opera in one act, Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi. It was unorthodox, sure, but beautifully delivered and gifted the audience to a night of incredible variety and a rollercoaster of emotion.
On reading George Hall’s programme notes describe Stravinsky recalling a vision of ‘…a solemn pagan rite’ where sage elders ‘… watched a young girl dance herself to death.’, suddenly everything made sense. Stravinsky’s subsequent creation, which premiered in 1913, would not have been out of place in Manchester’s darkest underground nightclubs, with it’s muscular bass and thunderous percussion. Phoenix Dance Theatre’s diverse ensemble delivered an aggressively beautiful performance to match, completely at one with the rhythmically complex masterpiece, bursting with intensity and mind-blowing skill.
After the interval brought an opportunity to breathe and to reflect on an auditory and visual overload, Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi took up the mantle, with the murder of a rich relative for financial gain replacing pagan sacrifice. Both performances tackled the theme of death, but Gianni Schicchi, directed by Christopher Alden, did so with comedy and charm. The challenge of making an audience laugh when reading from subtitles was met by the excellent physical comedy of movement director and Buoso Donati, Tim Claydon, delivering plenty of laughs. The opera in one act provided a lighter, yet just as entertaining ending to the evening