✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

You have reached the limit of free articles.


To enjoy unlimited access to Culture Whisper sign up for FREE.
Find out more about Culture Whisper

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy

Each week, we send newsletters and communication featuring articles, our latest tickets invitations, and exclusive offers.

Occasional information about discounts, special offers and promotions.


OR
LOG IN

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

Thanks for signing up to Culture Whisper.
Please check your inbox for a confirmation email and click the link to verify your account.



EXPLORE CULTURE WHISPER
✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy
Forgot your username or password?
Don't have an account? Sign Up

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

If you click «Log in with Facebook» and are not a Culture Whisper user, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and to our Privacy Policy, which includes our Cookie Use

Support Us Login
  • Home
  • Going Out
    • Things to do
    • Food & Drink
    • Theatre
    • Visual Arts
    • Cinema
    • Kids
    • Festival
    • Gigs
    • Dance
    • Classical Music
    • Opera
    • Immersive
    • Talks
  • Staying In
    • TV
    • Books
    • Cook
    • Podcast
    • Design
    • Netflix
  • Life & Style
    • Beauty
    • Fashion
    • Gifting
    • Wellbeing
    • Lifestyle
    • Shopping
    • Jewellery
  • Explore
  • Shopping
  • CW SHOPS
  • Support Us
  • Get Started
  • Tickets
  • CW SHOPS
Get the Best of London Life, Culture and Style
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
Opera

The Queen of Spades review, Opera Holland Park ★★★★★

02 Aug 16 – 13 Aug 16, 2, 4, 6 ,9, 11, 13 Aug, 7:30PM

Addicted to gambling and to love, Pushkin's tragic antihero risks all, in a brilliantly staged production of Tchaikovsky's opera

By Claudia Pritchard on 3/8/2016

1 CW reader is interested
Rosalind Plowright gives a compelling performance as the ageing Countess in The Queen of Spades
Rosalind Plowright gives a compelling performance as the ageing Countess in The Queen of Spades
The Queen of Spades review, Opera Holland Park 4 The Queen of Spades review, Opera Holland Park Vinciane Jones
One of the pleasures of opera al fresco – even under the graceful winged canopy at Opera Holland Park – is the accidental intervention of the natural world. So when a peacock, which in visual art has deadly connotations, cries loudly over the orchestra, and the wind whips into on-stage gauze curtains and gives them a life of their own, the company's new The Queen of Spades comes with valued added.


It's already a tremendous package, however. With some star singing, imaginative choreography, creative lighting and unashamedly splendid costumes, a well-told story is given terrific spin, not only by the director Rodula Gaitanou, but by the company as a whole. In a world where innovation is often at the expense of clarity, this production isn't afraid to let the sorry tale of ambitious Herman unfold, disastrous step by disastrous step.


Singing Herman, the man obsessed both with the legend of a winning formula at cards, and with the granddaughter of the ageing Countess who holds that secret, is the tenor Peter Wedd, whose emot-ometer goes straight to Tormented, but whose surprisingly middle-aged look makes him a less ideal match for Lisa than the Prince to whom she is reluctantly betrothed.


Natalia Romaniw as Lisa, continuing a run of tremendous performances that has recently included the same composer's Tatyana in Garsington's Eugene Onegin, has less to do here, but is heartbreakingly lovely in her Act Three lament with its plaintive Russian folk undertow. As Prince Yeletsky, Grant Doyle's offer of unconditional love, with its nods at Onegin's Gremin, if a little strained, was still powerful. And there is a fantastic turn by Richard Burkhard as Count Tomsky, who compellingly explains the back story in song.


Staggering on two unequal sticks, the monstrous spider-like Countess of Rosalind Plowright gives a devastating impersonation of decrepit old age, her bedtime scene after the masked ball a sorry picture of a person deconstructed, ornament by ornament, until only a skeletal husk remains.


This masked ball, with its essence of Goya, is lavishly dressed by designer Cornelia Chisholm, whose luscious oyster, cream, silver and sage opening scene evokes the rustling elegance of Tissot, with swags of velvet and explosions of satin.


Tchaikovsky is a wonderful story-teller, in opera and ballet, but a brilliant symphonist too, and there are echoes of those great works sounding throughout this magnificent piece, played by the City of London Sinfonia under Peter Robinson, with particularly colourful and characterful woodwind playing.


But as so often at Opera Holland Park, the star of the show is the chorus, moving superbly on the house's sometimes tricky stage, thanks to really deft and thoughtful choreography by Jamie Neale, and conjuring up the bracing air of St Petersburg. The men in the dizzying last act gambling scene, with the assistance of some very eye-catching minor characters, roared into a frenzy of impetuosity and recklessness.


A really attractive feature of the production is its characters' enjoyment of music. They sing around the on-stage piano, dance a little rustic dance, and revel, as we do, in Tchaikovsky's affectionate pastiche of a Mozartian entertainment of the shepherds-and-shepherdess variety, This Queen of Spades, the last production in this Opera Holland Park season, is itself a grand finale to more than two months of arresting music-making, not all of it peacock-assisted.


by Claudia Pritchard

What The Queen of Spades review, Opera Holland Park
Where Opera Holland Park, Stable Yard, Holland Park, London , W8 6LU | MAP
Nearest tube High Street Kensington (underground)
When 02 Aug 16 – 13 Aug 16, 2, 4, 6 ,9, 11, 13 Aug, 7:30PM
Price £17 - £70
Website Click here for further information and booking



Most popular

Queen’s Jubilee 2022: where to celebrate
Queen’s Jubilee 2022: where to celebrate
Things to do in London this weekend: 27 - 29 May
Things to do in London this weekend: 27 - 29 May
London Theatre Guide: best plays on now in London (Photograph: Peter Lewicki)
London Theatre Guide: best plays on now in London, 2022

Editor's Picks:


  • 1. BBC PROMS TIPS

    Make the most with our guide to tickets, concerts, etiquette and refreshments

    2. GLYNDEBOURNE: TICKETS, TRAVEL TIPS AND DINING ETIQUETTE

    Our guide to England's best opera festival

    3. GLYNDEBOURNE 2017 UNVEILING

    Everything you need to know about the Glyndebourne Festival Opera 2017

    4. ROYAL OPERA HOUSE

    Take a peek at what's on right now

Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
1

Opera

Opera Holland Park

Tchaikovsky

You might like

  • Partenope at English National Opera is set in 1920s Paris. Photograph: Catherine Ashmore

    Partenope, English National Opera

  • Mezzo-soprano Serena Malfi's Dorabella sees double in Così Fan Tutte at Covent Garden. Photo: Stephen Cummiskey

    Così Fan Tutte review ★★★★★, Royal Opera House

  • Timothy Robinson and Iain Paterson in The Winter's Tale at English National Opera. Photograph: Johan Persson

    The Winter's Tale ★★★★★ review, English National Opera

  • A wanted Don Giovanni (Christopher Purves) looks on as Zerlina (Mary Bevan) consoles Masetto (Nicholas Crawley) in Don Giovanni. Photograph: Robert Workman

    Don Giovanni ★★★★★ review, English National Opera



  • The Culture Whisper team
  • Support Us
  • Tickets
  • Contact us
  • Press
  • FAQ
  • Privacy
  • Terms and conditions
  • Cookies
  • Discover
  • Venues
  • Restaurants
  • Stations
  • Boroughs
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
×