Those who love Gilbert and Sullivan’s operas enjoy their gentle satire and charming melodies. For those who hate G&S, “gentle” and “charming” are part of the problem: “This is opera,” they say, “for people who don’t like opera.”
Jonathan Miller’s celebrated English National Opera staging of The Mikado showed how to bridge the gap; Charles Court Opera continues in the same vein. With its digs at the cod medievalism beloved of Victorian England and the convoluted plots of Italian opera, Ruddigore invites a knockabout treatment.
The story is set in an isolated Cornish village; there are ancestors who return from the grave, a jolly Jack Tar, winsome maidens and a mad woman who is a cousin, somewhat removed, to Lucia di Lammermoor.
The low-budget production has no orchestra, just a pubby piano, while the staging by John Savournin, who also sings, is cheerfully tongue in cheek. The cast responds with singing that is light and flexible. At first, things move slowly, but the second act, deploying Royston Vasey-style grotesquerie, almost manages to get beyond “gentle” and “charming”.
Until March 14 (020 7478 0160, kingsheadtheatre.com)
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