CityLife

Prima Donna

YOU could feel the excitement, mixed with anxiety, in the air at the Palace Theatre as we all waited for the curtain to rise on the World Premiere of Rufus Wainwright’s first opera Prima Donna.

Of course, that combination of feelings is entirely appropriate for an international festival uniquely made up of brand new works.

But it was heightened in this case by a sense that this could all be about to go very wrong, that we could be about to witness a debacle.

Wainwright was, after all, an artist whose recorded work, whilst lush and dramatic, was entirely in the pop and show tune tradition.

This opera had been a long – and reportedly often troubled - time in the making and there wasn’t much beyond the faith of the festival to indicate that he could make that leap into the creation of an opera.

  Still, Wainwright looked calm and confident as he arrived with his boyfriend – the pair of them, with typical flamboyance, dressed as Puccini and Verdi – and his mum, the legendary folk-singer Kate McGarrigle.

  So was the faith of the festival justified? Did Prima Donna succeed?

  The answer is a resounding “Yes”. Prima Donna is an entertaining – and accessible - piece of music theatre, full of passion, drama and, perhaps most surprising and welcome, some wonderful grace notes of humour.

Wainwright’s savvy awareness of popular culture has led him to the realisation that, whilst there are lots of films about films and the world is full of pop songs about pop, there aren’t many, if any, operas about opera.

At one point, a character even comments (in surtitled French, incidentally) “What a tragic woman. It’s just like being in an opera”!

And yet, when you think about it, what better subject could there be for an opera than the preposterously heightened emotions and drama of the form itself?

  It also looks fantastic, courtesy of some dazzlingly bold sets designed by Antony McDonald, while the direction of Daniel Kramer is incisive.

  It’s set on Bastille Day in Paris in 1970, in “the apartment and dreams of Regine Saint Laurent, the world’s most acclaimed operatic soprano”.

The tortured star, known as “Madame” and performed by the acclaimed Janis Kelly, hasn’t performed live for six years, ever since the glorious, tragic night of the premiere of her greatest triumph, an opera based on the life and loves of Alienor of Aquitaine, Queen of both England and France.

She begins to confide her fears about returning to the stage to the new maid Marie (Rebecca Bottone) but then Philippe (Jonathan Summers, dressed a little like the Wizard of Oz – perhaps in oblique tribute to Wainwright’s heroine Judy Garland?), Madame’s butler and confidante, arrives with his trusty companion Francois (a camply funny Steve Kirkham), to finalise arrangements for Madame’s forgotten interview with journalist Andre Le Tourner (William Joyner).

The interview, though, has unforeseen consequences for everyone, as something lost for many years begins to blossom in Madame’s heart.

  This may not be great opera, and I’m no expert, but it is thrilling entertainment and another triumph of faith over doubt for the international festival.

*Prima Donna is at the Palace Theatre on Sunday 12 at 3pm; Tuesday 14 and Friday 17 at 7.45pm; and Sunday 19 at 3pm.

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