Scottish Opera, 15/02/2024

Dove : Marx in London!

The Chorus of Marx in London!

Orchestra of Scottish Opera

David Parry

This latest opera from the prolific Jonathan Dove was created in Bonn in December 2018, and was intended to come to Scottish Opera in the 20/21 season which, of course, never happened.  In the intervening years, Dove took the opportunity to revise the work slightly (and the screamer was added to the title), and Scottish Opera chose to give it a brand new production, instead of taking up the Bonn production, which was a bold move and, I think, probably a successful one.  Judging from the photographs, the present production is a good deal more colourful than the original, at the very least.  

The work is a comedy, a folle journée, whose allegiance to Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro is fairly clear, at least theatrically speaking.  Karl Marx did spend the last 34 years of his life in London, having been turfed out of various European states - including his homeland - previously, and most of the events of the opera did (more or less) happen to him.  However, Dove and librettist Charles Hart (probably best known as the lyricist of The Phantom of the Opera) have chosen to condense several choice episodes into the space of twenty-four hours, to create a madcap day in which the running joke is really how one of the great economic thinkers of his or any other period was utterly feckless concerning his personal, domestic finances.  For a man so critical of private property, and proclaiming that capital was (eventually) the root of all evils and doomed to failure, he spends most of the evening running around after a silver canteen he needs to pawn to alleviate pressing debts.  When he does win a substantial sum in a debate contest, however, he immediately squanders it; he shares it, certainly, but on frivolities which do nothing to improve his, or anyone else's lot, except in very temporary gratification.  

This opera is not, therefore, about Marx the philosopher, but about Marx the man, with all his foibles, and about those who love and care for him; his wife Jenny, his daughter Tussi (Eleanor), his housekeeper Helene Demuth, and his lifelong friend Engels.  Only two scenes evoke the legendary figure, the debate mentioned above, and a dream he has, having dozed off while working in the Brutish Museum Reading Room, where he spent so much time studying.  Also involved in this day is a Prussian spy, keeping tabs on Marx, who kind of frames the action and serves as a deus ex machina of sorts at the end, and a fairly predictable sub-plot with the overly-excitable 16-year old Tussi, a mysterious young man called Freddy and Helene.  

It's a snapshot work, because effectively we go nowhere; we're plunged into the day with no preamble, and it ends with no real forward indicators, we are merely witnesses to the frenzied incidents as they unroll.  In that, it's not unlike Flight, which is the only other Dove opera I have seen.  However, Flight did project forwards for most of the characters, even if it was only to suggest more of the same for them, and I found it theatrically more satisfying.  Hart's libretto is often very funny, certainly entertaining, but the absurdity of it all kept it ever from being truly moving, and because I was fairly sure I knew where the Tussi/Freddy plot was heading, even their scenes, which are more conventionally 'romantic', did not have much depth.  

Similarly, although I found much of the music enjoyable, I was never quite as blown away by any of it as I had been by the score of Flight.  The 'school of John Adams' impression is still very strong - indeed, Tussi's opening aria has quite distinct, and possibly deliberate echoes of Nixon in China about it (as does the title of the opera).  The strongest scene is probably the pub scene with the debate; the Italian socialist Melanzane's florid and vapid vocal line is very funny, and there is some real emotion when Marx speaks out against him.  The other number that really stood out for me was the deliciously tipsy "Another little' drink", a duet for Jenny and Helene, that oddly reminded me of "A little priest" from Sondheim's Sweeney Todd.  However, Marx's orchestration is less memorable, compared to the shimmering fabric of Flight.

The Scottish Opera poster for Marx in London! had distinct Monty Python overtones to it, and after hearing a bit more about the work, I had some hopes of seeing some of that sort of Terry Gilliam-inspired zaniness.   Director Stephen Barlow did not take it quite that far, but visually it's a very handsome affair, stage in a setting very much inspired by Victorian toy theatres, with their elaborate cut-out scenery.  The opera has a lot of scenes and locations, and the staging was highly inventive, though, like Freddy, the rolling diaporama behind the cart made me a little dizzy at one point.  Costumes were period, with a rather nice touch that all the Marx household wore derivations of red, from Jenny's flamboyant fuchsia crinoline to Marx's red trousers.  The Spy amused greatly with a wide variety of disguises, beginning with a daft Sherlock Holmes outfit, complete with deerstalker and pipe, to a spectacular buxom barmaid number, which Jamie MacDougall carried off with aplomb.

The Spy (Jamie MacDougall), Marx in London!
Scottish Opera, February 2024 (© James Glossop)

Vocally, the cast was on the whole excellent.  Rebecca Bottone (Tussi) had a slightly shaky start; her role is very high-lying, and the first aria requires some coloratura, and while Bottone has the vocal range, the flexibility is not quite as good.  Once the vocal line smoothed out, and she was no longer required to jump around, vocally speaking - physically, she was consistently very active - she was much more satisfactory.  Oral Boylan's weightier lyric-dramatic soprano gave the long-suffering Jenny the required gravitas, while Lucy Schaufer's dark mezzo was deployed to fine effect in the role of the equally long-suffering Helene.  There are three main tenor roles; MacDougall was crisp and clear as the Spy, William Morgan nicely earnest as Freddy, and Alistair Elliot clarion-bright as Marx's guardian angel (pun intended) Engels.  Roland Wood was Marx, strong and assured and with excellent comic timing, while of the secondary roles, there was a noteworthy performance from bass-baritone Chuma Sijeqa as Franz, another socialist sympathiser.  

Marx in London! was an entertaining evening, and given a fine staging with engaging musical performances all round, but as a work, I don't feel it's going to stick long in my mind.

[Next : 17th February]