Holland Park, London
Instinctively, one wants to disparage La Rondine. It's an undeniably slight work, musically thin in many ways, with one knockout tune in act one, but otherwise a quick, professionally executed watercolour to pay the rent rather than the usual garish oils. Given the mayhem of the Europe in which Puccini wrote it in 1917, this sad little Parisian/seaside romance seems like artistic escapism of the worst kind.
And yet, somehow, in Opera Holland Park's well-made production by Tom Hawkes, and with Peter Selwyn's unhurried conducting allowing the piece to make its case on its own terms, this Rondine emerges as a stronger and more rewarding piece than on previous hearings. Between them, Hawkes and Selwyn combine to hint at a darker, loveless world beneath this tale of a rich man's mistress who finds true love with a younger man whom she cannot allow herself to marry.
Partly, that's there already in the long melancholy arcs of Puccini's writing for the opera's lead role, Magda, the swallow of the title who will fly away and then return (one of Puccini's least interesting heroines, though warmly and strongly sung here by Kate Ladner). However, by presenting Sean Ruane's four-square tenor lead as a wounded and shocked refugee from the war, the work acquires not just a tenuous connection with the real world but a brittleness and interest lacking in productions that see La Rondine merely as a vehicle for a star soprano wearing lovely frocks.
It works, too, because of the vigour and presence of the secondary roles, especially the attractively stylish light tenor of Hal Cazalet as the worldly poet Prunier, and the incisive, highly promising Hye-Youn Lee as Magda's maid Lisette. A word of praise, too, for Anna Patalong, who takes her brief moment as the Voice of the Dawn at the end of act two arrestingly.
corey haim paul gray peter steele teddy pendergrass dennis hopper
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