Reviews 2010
Reviews 2010
✭✭✭✩✩
written by Rufus Wainwright, directed by Tim Albery
Luminato, Elgin Theatre, Toronto
June 14-19, 2010
Rufus Wainwright’s Prima Donna receives just about the finest production a first-time opera composer could hope for. Yet despite the ardent advocacy of the singers, conductor and director, the opera’s inherent flaws are all too apparent.
As theatre, the most fundamental problem is a complete lack of dramatic conflict. Set on Bastille Day 1970, the libretto written by Wainwright and Bernadette Colomine, observes a day in the life of once-famous opera diva Régine Saint Laurent (Janis Kelly), who, after six years’ absence from the stage after losing her voice, plans a comeback. Her attraction to the young journalist (Colin Ainsworth), who has come to interview her, sets up false hopes for her release from artistic and personal solitude. When these are dashed, she withdraws from the world realizing that talent and desirability are like fireworks that dazzle for a brief moment and are gone. Besides the ageism of this dubious conclusion, Régine seems resigned to allow one failure on stage to ruin both her public and private life forever. This makes the opera more about defeatism than the ravages of time.
As music, Wainwright seems to have intended to pay homage to every one of his favourite passages in opera. The more familiar you are with opera, the more likely you’ll be mentally ticking off this or that influence every five minutes. The first operas of Verdi, Puccini and Wagner were derivative, so it’s no great surprise that Wainwright’s first opera sounds more like a product of 1909 than 2009. It’s also no surprise that the most effective sections are the most like separate songs as when Régine accompanies herself on the piano or when her maid (Charlotte Ellett) sings of Picardy. The performances themselves are immaculate. Kelly’s glorious soprano tinged with vulnerability is ideal for the role. Ainsworth’s tenor keeps its golden sheen even in the highest lying passages. Ellett tosses off her stratospheric notes with ease, and Gregory Dahl, as Régine’s controlling butler, suggests a back story to his character we’d like to know more about. Indeed, we leave feeling we haven’t really learned enough about any of the characters and that director Tim Albery has found greater depths in their interactions than Wainwright has. Since his gift for writing for other voices is clear, one hopes Prima Donna is a first step for Wainwright in finding his own voice in large-scale works and in finding subjects of real drama to explore.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2010-06-15.
Photo: Janis Kelly. ©Antony Crook.
2010-06-15
Prima Donna