Die Entführung

Pop-Up Opera has built its reputation on a roster of slick and inventive small-scale productions. This one, however, is unlikely to be added to that list. Mozart’s romantic comedy ‘The Escape from the Seraglio’ is mostly nonsense in the first place, but this update from Turkish harem to a ‘beauty boot camp’ run along the lines of ‘Big Brother’ is simply unfathomable. It may be a shoestring budget touring company in a room above a pub, but in the absence of decisive and imaginative directing from Darren Royston, the singers are left to fill time by ironing clothes or mugging awkwardly through the tedious plot, inexplicably presented in the original German.

The cast are all fine singers. As dashing nobleman Belmonte, Paul Hopwood has a strong lyric tenor, though there is little fun in his character, nor is there any chemistry between him and his beloved Konstanze. In that role soprano Eve Daniell should be singing at Covent Garden, mainly as that venue might be able to accommodate her ear-splitting volume. The others are not far behind in cranking it up and the ensembles are forced and unbalanced. Most vocally impressive is bass Marcin Gesla as Osmin, the buffoonish overseer, while soprano Llio Evans makes a sweet-voiced Blonde.

The highlight of the show is Harry Percival’s witty projected captions. He has eschewed verbatim translation and instead explains the plot through hilarious anachronisms based mostly on social media, such as the girls updating their Facebook statuses.

While the whole shebang is ably accompanied by Berrak Dyer on piano, the longueurs of endlessly repeating arias is not assuaged by the original sumptuous orchestration. From his mid-period, ‘Die Entführung’ is not one of Mozart’s better operas despite Goethe’s assertion that it knocked all previous singspiels into a cocked hat. Fortunately, the best was yet to come.