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"Operatunity" winners perform in Rigoletto

London
Coliseum/Channel 4
03/01/2003 -  
Giuseppe Verdi: Rigoletto (extracts)
Rhys Meirion (Duke), Alan Opie (Rigoletto), Roderick Earle (Monterone), Clive Bayley (Sparafucile), Jane Gilchrist/Denise Leigh (Gilda), Fiona Hebenton (Giovanna), Anna Burford (Maddalena)

Paul Daniel (conductor), John La Bouchardière (revival director)

It was inevitable that the "Pop Idol" format would eventually result in a search for operatic talent, but as it turned out, "Operatunity", made by Diverse Productions for Channel 4, was a delight. Most of the singers who made it past the first cut were already committed musicians, although none had sung professionally, and the programmes focussed (as much as three one-hour programmes can focus on anything) on the way music fitted into their lives, and on their growth as they were coached by a team from the ENO. If there was a Big-Brotherish element in the observation of the finalists' interactions (much talk of sex, some of it related to opera), Mary King, the lead coach, was a humane Anne Robinson, ruthlessly pointing out failings and their remedies. Of course, the process of casting and coaching is as much a part of what opera is about as the corporate politics depicted in "The House", the documentary that helped bring the Royal Opera into crisis five years ago. Most of "Operatunity" was made before the ENO's present debacle began, and it would be wonderful if the programme showed people outside the company's devotees how valuable its work is.

The singers were selected at each stage by a panel, who began with the daunting task of watching several thousand video applications to decide on a hundred or so to invite to regional auditions. There was never very much suspense, though, in part because the voiceover declared during the first programme that the winner would sing a major role in Rigoletto at the Coliseum. Which ruled out the counter-tenor, a couple of attractive light baritones, two contrasting mezzos (one of whom made the final six, but who was far too emotionally complex to be a Maddalena) and the twenty-one year old bass-baritone from Belfast who wanted to sing Don Giovanni and, in a completely different conversation, said he couldn't get it down.

The programme makers liked the sopranos and tenors, and were probably miffed that an amiable Harry-Secombeish builder didn't make the final cut. But the eventual winners (the judges couldn't decide) were both good television and pretty good singers already: Jane Gilchrist, a jolly Welsh soprano in her late thirties, mother of four, had auditioned for the WNO when she was twenty-one and been told to go to music college, but she'd married, gone to work in a supermarket and become a stalwart of a Gilbert and Sullivan society instead; Denise Leigh, another soprano in her early thirties and a mother of three, blind since birth, had also hoped to study music but been prevented by a bad marriage and lack of resources, and had taken up singing during band concerts and in church. Both cried a lot with the stress of it all and came through heroically, motherly Gilchrist accepting mothering from others, Leigh sharp and forthright.

Their "prize" was to sing Gilda in a television version of Jonathan Miller's warhorse Rigoletto, currently in repertoire at the Coliseum. The adaptation was bleeding chunks, most of Gilda's scenes, La donn'è mobile and not much else, and it didn't make much sense, but both sopranos clearly knew what they were doing. Gilchrist sang act 1 scene 2, and got Caro nome. Her voice was sweet and carried well, but seemed a touch light for the music, and her diction wasn't great, although she was always there dramatically, communicating far more than a conventional ingenue-in-love. Leigh sang Gilda's act 2 aria and the last act. She was suffering from a cold, which might explain a hint of forcedness at times (her audition pieces were both Handel arias), but every word was clear, and she made the most of Gilda's traumatic discoveries about herself and the world. Neither of them looked out of place performing with Alan Opie, one of the great singing actors, as Rigoletto.




HE Elsom

 

 

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