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Ten years after conductor Stuart Stratford left Opera Holland Park to begin a stabilising and fruitful relationship as Scottish Opera’s music director, the traffic this summer is in the other direction in a trio of co-productions, originating in Scotland, with D’Oyly Carte Opera a third partner.
As John Savournin’s broad and brassy The Merry Widow tours across Scotland before its London transfer, this new double bill adds a 150th anniversary revival of Gilbert and Sullivan’s first success and a contemporary political satire to a colourful package.
Savournin also directs Trial By Jury, which swaps the courtroom for a TV studio in a sparkling update that is more Jerry Springer than Judge Judy. Patter-song master Richard Suart is The Learned Judge – who eventually gets the girl, jilted bride Angelina (soprano Kira Kaplan) – and company favourite Jamie MacDougall is on his best camp form as the Defendant, Edwin. Kally Lloyd-Jones gives the Bridesmaids, led by Amy J Payne, some laugh-out-loud geriatric cheerleader choreography to complement their outrageous frocks, and the jurors’ diverse costuming runs the gamut from lab coat and dress kilt to TV-am sweater and perm. Edward Jowle (as Floor Manager/Usher) is one of a quartet of young singers on the company’s Emerging Artists programme given the chance to shine in both shows.
In the pit, Toby Hession conducts a swaggering account of Sullivan’s music; Hession is also the composer of the double bill’s new operetta set in the press room at No 9 Downing Street. His score also owes debts to Sondheim and John Adams and plays with its heritage stylishly in Laura Attridge’s production.
Hession and librettist Emma Jenkins have been nurtured through short pieces for Scottish Opera’s small-scale touring and A Matter of Misconduct! is a sophisticated extension of those projects, with baritone Ross Cumming as ambitious politician Roger Penistone (fnar, fnar) and mezzo Chloe Harris his wife, Cherry, a would-be wellness guru (or “Poundshop Paltrow”).
There are gags aplenty at the expense of politicians in Westminster and Holyrood, and possibly the first operatic rhyming of both “vaginal dryness” and “clitoral stimulator”, but this pacy piece also finds room for some stratospheric coloratura from Kaplan as sassy lawyer Sylvia Lawless, and a lovely duet for the rather unlovely central couple. Tenor MacDougall, as Malcolm Tucker-esque Spad, Sandy Hogg, handles the score’s trickier music with aplomb.
