Made to Measure: Richard Laing considers the merits of reduced versions of two works of Wagner

Reviews of Das Rheingold, directed Burbach, conducted Selwyn, Arcola Theatre, London, 2019; Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, directed Higgins, conducted Woodward, Greenwood Theatre, London, 2019.

November 2019, Volume 13, Number 3, 79–84.

The Grimeborn Festival aims to get new people into opera, and people into new opera. Its venue is well-suited to such a purpose; the Arcola Theatre is all bare brick, steel beams, black paint, and wine in plastic cups, the sounds and smells of vibrant and irreverent Dalston on a summer evening wafting through the bar’s open windows – the epitome of shabby chic. For the opening night of Das Rheingold the audience was a creative theatre crowd sporting ethnic clothing, blazers over T-shirts, colourful eyewear and well-groomed facial hair.

Conductor Peter Selwyn and eighteen players of the Orpheus Sinfonia for Jonathan Dove’s reduction are placed behind a small stage. The unchanging but ingenious set consists exclusively of cardboard boxes, indicative at once of Valhalla’s empty pomp and Grimeborn’s limited budget.