Boys might be able to fly but this turkey certainly doesn’t.
Early on in this show a wagon on the giant toy train set that dominates the set comes off the rails and, frankly, so too does the entire misguided venture. How on earth this can be staged by a professional opera company is a mystery.
All the way through this odd take on JM Barrie’s story I thought ‘Why have they bothered?’ Accompanied children can get a ticket for the price of a bar of chocolate. My advice is to buy the chocolate.
Perhaps children really will enjoy Richard Ayres largely amuse bouche score conducted by Erik Nielsen. More likely, they will be oblivious to the noises from the pit and singing and just watch the silly antics on the stage. It has small bursts of interesting flavours that are never developed and occasionally slip into conventionality such as Gilbert & Sullivan-type jolly singing pirates, attempts at emotional big numbers that do no service to the cast of singers who we know are excellent when given better roles. Vocally Peter Pan is never given enough runway to take off.
The flying is okay but we have seen it all before and some youngsters I chatted to afterwards liked the singing dog (don’t get Simon Cowell excited, it is just Aidan Smith in costume). They have written their comments in a separate review on the site.
The show only gets going after a dreary scene setting first act of over excited children, workaholic remote father and sweet mother in an Edwardian household. I thought for a moment I had wondered into Mary Poppins and by the end wished I had.
Keith Warner’s style of the production is, shock horror, children’s toys, thus the Circle Line train that transports characters around the set and a carriage transforms into Captain Hook’s pirate ship, city workers swap clothes as pirates and the Lost Boys are an assortment of adult singers in Nicky Shaw’s fancy dress costumes (firemen, soldiers etc etc).
Singing Wendy, Marie Arnet who had previously delighted in the title role of Lulu with WNO, Ashley Holland as the father and Captain Hook (the most satisfying role), Hilary Summers as the Mother and Tiger Lily gave strong, clear and well-drawn performances while Iestyn Morris was a zippy Peter Pan with an undulating counter tenor singing and perfectly posh spoken voice. Nicholas Sharratt and Rebecca Bottone sang, acted and flew John and Michael.
If you want panto bring in the professionals. The opera was first staged in Stuttgart in 2013 and for some inexplicable reason WNO threw money at changing what was seen there to create this mess of a show. When an army of designers took to the stage for the curtain call my heart sank.
When you see the amazing work that is being produced across Wales on a shoe string and then this extravagant train crash of an evening you have to wonder about funding priorities.
If this had been my introduction to opera I would never have returned.
Further performances: WMC Until May 31 then Birmingham and London
I agree with every word of this Mike Smith review. I count myself amongst WNO’s most ardent and loyal supporters but I’m afraid this show is a mess. I admire the energy and sense of fun the hard working chorus bring to it and the sheer committment of the orchestra in this fiendishly difficult score (so some of the players told me). A mish mash of genres, relentlessly raucous, few moments of ‘real singing’ and far too few words come across to engage the children present – and a cluttered over-busy production. Despite its brevity, I felt I had sat through Parsifal! Who are the composer and librettist, and for that matter, WNO aiming at?
Oh, dear! How scathing. I’m going to see the production this afternoon, and was so looking forward to it. Still am. Not going to let your miserable, jaundiced review put me off. Hope I’ll love it!
You might prefer this http://www.asiw.co.uk/peter-pan-kids-say/