Opera review: The Love For Three Oranges

Published on Sunday 25 January 2009 19:54

*** THEATRE ROYAL, GLASGOW

WHATEVER I write here can only be half the story. The RSAMD placed the critics attending its joint production with Scottish Opera of Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges in seats with only half a view of the stage. That may explain why Lee Blakeley's hectic production – the portion I could see – came across as half-convincing and a bit confused.

Sure, it's a lunatic plot. A prince, suffering from melancholy and inhabiting a surreal Alice in Wonderland kingdom, needs cheered up. That happens by accident, when the scheming witch Fata Morgana trips into – in this production – a giant urinal. He laughs. She curses him, decreeing he will fall in love with three oranges.

It is nonsense intended to challenge. To work, it requires creating order out of chaos and a critical waspish shock factor. Harking back to Stanley Kubrick (the bowler-hatted yobs of A Clockwork Orange), Andy Warhol (giant cans of "orange" soup) and Jackson Pollock (paint-throwing), as this production does, hardly presents the same impact it had all those years ago.

The student cast plays with commendable energy, but some struggle to project vocally over the power of the Scottish Opera Orchestra under conductor Tim Dean. Fine performances, though, from Berj Karazian as the Prince, John Pumphrey as a Chaplinesque Truffaldino and Sung-Eun Seo as Ninette.

Comedy? The best laugh was learning that Saturday's interval bar was out of orange juice! Symbolic or what?