<<<  <<  -- 4 --  Roderic Dunnett    THOUGHTFULNESS AND INSIGHT

Emma Jayakumar was a spirited, albeit less audible Cherubino: always vital, but (like so many Cherubinos) running out of freshness and fractionally thin, even vocally, at the end; but a bundle of fun, with an intoxicating whiff of testosterone. Daniel Grice's Figaro, whom Mozart makes rather peripheral after the start, gained in stature by the final Act, as jealousy reveals him as a man, not a stripling. Tenor Stephen Brown contributed handsomely, singing Basilio from the wings at short notice, Oliver White being indisposed.

But I've missed off icing. A pair of 'oldies', a bit like a pair out of Are You Being Served?, were this production's unmitigated delight: Kate Flowers' Marcellina, phenomenally witty and (unlike all too many overbearing Marcellinas) subtle and detailed: there were glimpses, intermittently, of operatic comedy at its finest; and baritone John Rawnsley's lovable Dr Bartolo (slightly quavering at the start, and thus fractionally drowned even by Monks' handful of strings).

Rawnsley is an old-stager with many a hilarious comic turn: it's a bit like watching 1950s costume drama or Music-Hall, with gags straight out of the RADA's dressing-up cupboard. Wholly apt for Bartolo -- the 'revelation' scene was an utter hoot. The icing on the cake was Rawnsley's Antonio (talk about a quick change!), peppered with a wholly different set of walks and gestures, brazenly presumptuous with his master, and handsomely sung. Like watching an Old Master.