CityLife

Prima Donna

INNOVATIVE: Rufus' Prima Donna

IT was not the performers, or the director and production team, who got the standing ovation at the Palace Theatre on Friday night. It was Rufus Wainwright, composer.

And it’s clear from reaction to his first opera – given its world premiere at the Manchester International Festival – that for some people he can do no wrong.

My view is that Rufus has done something genuinely original in Prima Donna – not what the publicity said he would do, and not what both admirers and detractors, in many cases, seem to think he has done.

The idea that Prima Donna, an opera about an opera singer’s demons, as she tries to make a comeback after an absence from the stage, would be derivative – ‘conjuring up the expansive sound and explosive glamour of opera’s 19th century heyday’, as one preview had it – was well wide of the mark.

This was not pastiche, or even (except for a few moments) parody. I did not detect echoes of Verdi, Puccini or Richard Strauss. Not in the music, anyway: the staging had its references to Der Rosenkavalier, Madama Butterfly and Tosca – yes, the ‘Damned Ladies’ of his song about tragic operatic heroines were there.

But Rufus is up to something else entirely.

I don’t think he was writing a grand opera at all. If you think about it, the production was not that, either. It was OTT, gaudy and surreal – in aid of what? A story about a singer who apparently lost her bottle because she saw her leading man kissing someone else, and a journalist who knows her swansong well enough to reprise it with her in an interview.

Mickey-take

It was either a mickey-take of opera, or a cool, but clear, statement about its emptiness.

Rufus uses tonal and traditional devices – diatonic chords, orchestral gestures, vocal coloratura – to undermine the very expressive concepts they were developed to convey.

You do not have to be a Harrison Birtwistle to proclaim the bankruptcy of tonal music: you can do it by using tonality in a nihilistic way.

There are exceptions. Everyone remembers the little folk-like song near the beginning of the second act where Marie (Rebecca Bottone) sings about her hometown in Picardie.

Melancholy

And the final monologue by the heroine, Régine (Janis Kelly), saying ‘the fireworks are over, they didn’t last long’ could probably stand on its own as a melancholy album track.

But the remainder are surely anti-arias. They do not soar, despite their vocal demands. Their phrasing and rhythmic interest are more tum-ti-tum than Verdi ever managed, with, time and again, an underlying funereal beat.

The orchestrations are constantly fighting, with brass and screaming piccolo, against the simplicity of the tune-and-chords they accompany. You don’t do that by accident – and here we must give credit to the assistant orchestrator, Bryan Senti.

The duets and ensembles depict not so much individual characters as people talking over each other – the antithesis of old-fashioned opera.

That is not to say that Prima Donna makes no demands of its singers. It has just four, with the remainder silent roles (and no chorus) – and they have to earn their keep. Janis Kelly did so with an impassioned display of power and drama-queen presence. Rebecca Bottone, too, brings out dazzling sounds, and Jonathan Summers gave the boorish Philippe both resonance and dignity.

They are familiar Opera North faces: tenor William Joyner is not. I felt his the most impressive contribution, though: for one thing, he has two characters (Henry II in the ‘flashback’ as well as the rum journalist); for another, he is given some vicious pitches to hit, and did so with skill.

A totally original piece of music theatre, then. The snag is that those who blaze new trails sometimes find there’s no one to follow.

Prima Donna is repeated on Tuesday, July 14. £42.50.