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Meow! London
Mansion House
06/28/2000 -
Jacques Offenbach Dick Whittington and his Cat
John Suchet (narrator), Sally Bruce-Payne (Dick Whittington), Constance
Hauman (Alice/Princess Hirvaia), Nerys Jones (Dorothy), Russell Smythe
(Fitzwarren/King Bambouli), Kevin West (MacPibroch/Bell ringger), Christian
Immler (Sargeant/Captain Bobstay)
City of London Sinfonia, Joyful Company of Singers
Cem Mansur (conductor) Jacques Offenbach's Dick Whittington and his Cat was the hit of the
1874-75 London pantomime season, but hasn't been performed since, perhaps
because Trial by Jury appeared immediately afterwards. The City of
London Festival neatly presented a concert version in the Mansion House,
the home of the Lord Mayor of London, which is what Dick Whittington became
at the end of his adventures. Although Whittington is essentially
popular and the Mansion House is utterly grand, the classical decor and
heroic statues by Victorian RAs (among them A Bard, closely related to
Michaelangelo's Moses) share with the operetta an unshakeably confident
derivativeness.
Offenbach's only setting of an English text (by HB Farnie) is almost
flawlessly idiomatic, linguistically and theatrically. He uses a number of
traditional tunes, in the manner of the ballad operas, Rossini-style arias
and duets for lovers, and smidgens of German romantic Anglaiserie. The
putative drama is in a continuous line from Purcell's King Arthur, a
narrative of distant origins (a hero of the City instead of the nation),
with some mild moralizing and several irrelevent set pieces, including a
pastoral ("Corn Field Near London"). There are some gentle foreshadowings
of Gilbert and Sullivan in both comic themes (ordinary bods catapaulted
into government, for examples) and music, though Sullivan's brilliant
pastiche of contemporary music is missing. And Offenbach's music has an
endearing streak of vulgarity which is spot on for panto.
The alleged plot concerns (in this version) an apprentice, Dick, who falls
in love with his master's daughter Alice. Her father takes against Dick and
his cat and tries to have Dick arrested. Dick flees, after a look at London
from Highgate to fit in with a variant version of the story, to a ship
headed for the Pacific. Most of the other characters except Alice end up on
the ship as well, and they are all shipwrecked and forced to become
government ministers. The cat saves the island from rats, the king's
daughter falls in love with Dick, and her father takes them all back to
London as a reward. Dick and the cat locate Alice and rescue her and her
father from poverty (the sunken ship had all his money invested in it) and
Dick becomes Lord Mayor of London.
The cat, alas, did not appear tonight, although she is the real hero and
gets two numbers sung in her praise. The dialogue, presumably in
excruciating rhymes, was replaced by a narrative loaded with mistimed
off-the-news jokes read by David Suchet. Several of the singers doubled
roles, distinguishing their characters handily with hats.
The City of London Sinfonia sounded good, boisterous though perhaps not
raucous enough for proper panto. The room was a long way from ideal for the
singer, and it was often difficult to hear the words, which spoiled most of
the fun. (What exactly was it that King Bambouli served as great British
cuisine?) Sally Bruce-Payne looked ready for a bit of swashbuckling as
Dick, and sounded suitably swaggering as well. Contance Hauman was cute and
fluent as Alice and the island princess, and Nerys Jones as Dorothy the
cook, who gets taken along to the Pacific to provide another mezzo in the
ensembles, sang a fine homesick number. Russell Smythe, Kevin West and
Christian Immler (a late substitute) provided versatile comic and musical
support.
H.E. Elsom
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