Operetta Review: Skin Deep
Having just seen the world premier of David Sawer and Armando Ianucci's Operetta Skin Deep, I do wonder how many people, if any, will have posted a review before me. How now is that?
On a whim I spent 30 quid on the most expensive day ticket available - one and only one was going from the front row of the dress circle. Expensive, but still half price for one of the best seats in the house. This also made me feel special.
Plotwise it's a bit like a cross between The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Face Off, but without the sex or the violence.
First, Ianucci. I don't go to the opera for laughs, I go for the music, but there are a lot of laughs here, both in the words sung and visual humour. And the humour is daft and over the top and simple, so it doesn't get in the way of the music too much. But more than individual jokes, the plotline he builds seems to have a perfect sense of the kind of ridiculous melodrama that operas should have. An example is that one character sing a lot of lines about one of his testicles... which is funny on the basis that opera singers singing rude words is funny, but when he sings that he will marry any girl who returns his missing ball, it's clever-funny in the sense that it makes you think that that's exactly the kind of plotline you expect in an opera.
Sawer's music starts with an intro which is reminiscent of Danny Elfman at his most wacky, but settles down soon enough to provide plenty of harmonic and textural interest, if no obviously hummable tunage. The music does stand up on it's own and is given plenty of oportunities to do so, memorably in the frequent operating theatre sections in the first half, where he matches the silent visual humour onstage with brooding, creepy music.
The set design isn't great in the first two acts, but the third act makes up for it in a big way, with some classic Opera North magic.
To summarize, I'd recommend this to anyone. The music may not be to everyone's tastes, but pretty much everything else will be.
On a whim I spent 30 quid on the most expensive day ticket available - one and only one was going from the front row of the dress circle. Expensive, but still half price for one of the best seats in the house. This also made me feel special.
Plotwise it's a bit like a cross between The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Face Off, but without the sex or the violence.
First, Ianucci. I don't go to the opera for laughs, I go for the music, but there are a lot of laughs here, both in the words sung and visual humour. And the humour is daft and over the top and simple, so it doesn't get in the way of the music too much. But more than individual jokes, the plotline he builds seems to have a perfect sense of the kind of ridiculous melodrama that operas should have. An example is that one character sing a lot of lines about one of his testicles... which is funny on the basis that opera singers singing rude words is funny, but when he sings that he will marry any girl who returns his missing ball, it's clever-funny in the sense that it makes you think that that's exactly the kind of plotline you expect in an opera.
Sawer's music starts with an intro which is reminiscent of Danny Elfman at his most wacky, but settles down soon enough to provide plenty of harmonic and textural interest, if no obviously hummable tunage. The music does stand up on it's own and is given plenty of oportunities to do so, memorably in the frequent operating theatre sections in the first half, where he matches the silent visual humour onstage with brooding, creepy music.
The set design isn't great in the first two acts, but the third act makes up for it in a big way, with some classic Opera North magic.
To summarize, I'd recommend this to anyone. The music may not be to everyone's tastes, but pretty much everything else will be.