ANY show that can still make you laugh on your fourth visit is doing pretty well. In fact this is the ninth revival of ENO’s hardiest annual, and it still doesn’t look tired.
Revived here by William Relton, it was originally directed by Jonathan Miller, and, like his recent, charmless Don Pasquale at Covent Garden, sites the action in a doll’s house. There is a point: these are Meissen figurines come to life, puppets of a fixed social and economic order.
That’s a joke, of course: the next play in Beaumarchais’s Figaro trilogy is The Marriage, which Napoleon described as “the Revolution in action”. 1789 might be gone, but 1848 isn’t far off. The point of the evening lies in its commedia roots, as Fiorello and co, in tall hats, beaky masks and well-tried sight-gags, emphasise from the start. The story — the same one from Molière to Rigsby of Rising Damp — is of the lecherous, ageing miser thwarted in his lustful desires but not really minding so long as it doesn’t cost him.
It is a trip that leaves no prat unfallen or comedy-cow unmilked: susceptibility to banana-skin humour determines enjoyment. As usual it is Andrew Shore who holds it together as Dr Bartolo, in a performance whose effortless timing and hilarity you would pay top dollar to see in any theatre, but he is well supported. Traditionally this is a showcase for ENO’s young talent, and as the company shrinks it can still muster a decent bunch.
Alison Roddy’s Rosina is a brittle, hard-edged creature who tosses off bouquets of pearly coloratura without breaking sweat; Charles Workman’s Almaviva is efficient but short of vocal charm and bloom; and Mark Stone a terrific Figaro. The flowery stuff isn’t really his style but he is the stage-creature foil Shore requires, big-voiced, full of fizz and sharp-eyed greed.
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In the end money, class and the threat of violence land the girl for Almaviva. But the journey’s the thing, and it’s conducted with great elegance and understanding by Dominic Wheeler that keeps reminding you with awe of Rossini’s ability to turn the rhythms of farce into brilliantly apposite music.
Box office: 020-7632 8300
Correction
In my review of Candide on Wednesday, I mistakenly said that Kim Criswell would be in ENO’s On the Town next month