Opera North's production of Weill and Lerner's Love Life has opened at Leeds' Grand Theatre. With all the classic showbizzy razzmatazz you might expect of a Weill and Lerner piece, this one allows Opera North to let its collective hair down and explode with American cheesiness.
Stephanie Corley as Susan Cooper. Photo: James Glossop
Love Life was Kurt Weill’s penultimate stage work. It opened on Broadway on 7 October 1948 and closed on 14 May 1949 after 252 performances. It is considered to be the first 'concept' opera and heavily features a string of vaudeville-style performances that drive the Copper's family narrative through their highs and lows. Watch closely and you'll see the roots of Cabaret, Chicago and Company.
Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill (March 2, 1900 - April 3, 1950) was a German-born American composer who began working in his home country in the 1920s and eventually moved to the United States. He was a prominent theatre composer best known for his productive partnerships with Bertolt Brecht. He collaborated with Brecht on performances such as his most famous piece, The Threepenny Opera, which featured the song "Mack the Knife".
Writer Alan Jay Lerner defined Love Life as a "cavalcade of American marriages" with the show's unconventional format being a time-travelling journey through the evolution of the Cooper family, as they move, never ageing, through a full 160 years from the 1790s to the 1950s.
Love Life gives the Orchestra of Opera North an opportunity to get stuck into the full vaudeville experience. They are placed on stage with the action, leading to that wonderful directness and immediacy of sound that is sometimes lost when the musicians are buried in the pit. Conductor James Holmes certainly has his work cut out pounding out the relentless pace.
Lottie Gray, Felicity Moore and Amber Midgley as the Three Tots with Joshua da Costa. Photo: James Glossop
With wonderful high-energy performances from the ever-reliable Quiijn de Lang and soprano Stephanie Corley as father and mother, there's a string of supporting cameos to drive along the time-travelling theme. Perhaps the most amusing of these being Lottie Gray, Felicity Moore and Amber Midgley as the Three Tots, who are clearly revelling in the limelight.
The Chorus of Opera North as Madrigal Singers. Photo: James Glossop
The second act begins with a splendid and thoroughly modern madrigal, and this is where we finally get to see some grit in the oyster. The slightly bland Coopers start to develop independent thoughts - reflecting the social changes of the times - and the family begins to fall apart.
Themba Mvula as Magician. Photo: James Glossop
Felicity Moore as a Tot. Photo: James Glossop
Max Westwell and Holly Saw performing the Divorce Ballet. Photo: James Glossop
Ross McInroy, Kamil Bien, Paul Gibson, Tim Ochala-Greenough, Simon Grange, Tom Smith, Cameron Mitchell and Nicholas Butterfield as the Octet. Photo: James Glossop
To see how this all plays out, and how a slick magician provided inadvertent marriage guidance counselling, go and it see it for yourself. It is spectacular!
Love Life is playing at the Leeds Grand on 16th - 18th January. More details can be found here.
