Growing up, I always thought that Opera was too high brow for me. A pastime for the posh or pretentious, expensive, hard to understand, and dull. It’s often in another language and even when in English the sounds are stretched and rounded out in such a way that half the time you wouldn’t recognise the words. Or that’s what I always thought.
Over the years, my attitude has changed. I appreciate the sounds (though I still can’t make out the words) and the technical excellence from a truly great singer is a joy to behold. So I decided to expand my cultural horizons and try an opera for myself!
My friend Kim is a professional singer and happened to be taking part in a production of La Bohème, one of the classics, being performed by the Black Cat Opera Company. Tickets at Guildford’s Electric Theatre were a steal at £22 each (you’re looking at up to 10 times that at the Royal Opera House!) so I booked for me and Natalie, and eagerly awaited the performance.
On the night, Nat couldn’t make it so Chris stood in as a perfect substitute. We arrived to discover we had scored seats on the front row. We were just a couple of feet away from the stage! I looked up and was relieved to note that there was a screen at the top of the stage that showed subtitles, translating the Italian words into English, so I could follow the plot.
The stage was set, and out walked the musicians. In the big performances they would have a full orchestra but that would have been overkill in such an intimate venue, so instead we had simply a pianist and conductor. That was all we needed! The lights dimmed, and the opera started. Set in the 1840’s, it follows the story of a group of young bohemians (artists, writers etc) living in poverty in Paris. The staging was superb and the costumes were fantastic – they adopted a Steampunk style which worked really well and helped to bring a great modern twist to a clearly traditional setting!
The singers were just amazing. I looked them up in the programme and was impressed to see that they are all critically acclaimed singers that have performed in world class productions. I was completely blown away by the quality of music and the acting sucked me in until I felt like I was part of the story. I cried copiously at the end and could barely see when they came for the curtain call!
Before we left, I got chatting to the old couple next to me, they told me that they love coming to see these productions. They clearly love the music and go to a lot of performances, but they were not snooty or pretentious about it at all. When I arrived at the theatre I was really pleased that it wasn’t too pompous and whilst people weren’t scruffy, there was a definite feeling of casualness that pervaded the audience. This wasn’t a bunch of posh people strutting around like peacocks, but a group of music lovers that had come out to see a great piece of drama acted and sung before them.
I felt incredibly privileged to have experienced such a fantastic production and I can guarantee that I will be going again. I’d like to experience all the pomp and circumstance of the Royal Opera House just once, but I have to say, the intimacy of a small venue, ability to be so close to the action, quality of production (not to mention cost and convenience) – all mean that I will be looking out for more local performances.
I’ll definitely be following the Black Cat Opera company for future productions and suspect I might become hooked on this opera malarkey!
10/10, would go again!
To find out more, you can visit:
- Black Cat Opera Company
- Electric Theatre
- Photos of performance by Doug Breakwell
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