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The greatest show and other bromances: Adam Riches and John Kearns ARE Ball and Boe @sohotheatre

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Alfie Boe and Michael Ball seem to be a bit of a joke act anyway. Their endless interpretations of popular songs (also known as covers) and their double-act bromance make them quintessential crossover artists where popular music meets opera and Broadway. And a perilous choice for the discerning listener. It’s not that they aren’t talented musicians and performers in their own right. Still, their musical choices are always safe, predictable and less than their potential. But every country deserves to have a pair of self-described national treasures that can tour the local arenas and give people a good time for the bargain price of £175 a seat.  And so the concept of Adam Riches and John Kearns - two world-famous from the Edinburgh Fringe comedians taking on this bromance seems like a curious choice for a Christmas musical fare. One can only hope that over the fourteen nights, it is playing at the Soho Theatre that the show evolves into something more substantial than a series of po...

Opera: Il Turco in Italia and Prima Donna

It was a weekend for checklist operas. Once you have seen them you can mark them off your list as never needing to see them again.

First up was Il Turco in Italia at the Royal Opera. Here was a great cast let down by Rossini's over plotted and overlong opera. Still when the cast could sing and act it was hard to be annoyed and wish they would get on with it. Ildebrando d’Arcangelo as the prince and Aleksandra Kurzak as the errant wife made infidelity seem so glamorous too. I also wasn't so sure about the cardboard cutout set, but I did like the sleeping cat. There should be more stuffed animals in productions.

The Royal Opera also continues its trend for non-singing beefcake in productions (following on from the Rake's Progress), with a muscle man parading in his speedos at the close to taunt Kurzak's character one more time. Leaving the theatre we almost ran into him racing towards the tube station. He was almost unrecognisable in his tight t-shirt but the glowing tan was a giveaway... It finishes Monday night.

Saturday night was a chance to catch Rufus Wainwright's opera Prima Donna at Saddler's Wells, which had its premiere in Manchester last year. Whereas Il Turco in Italia had enough plot for two operas, this had barely any. It was a bit of the third act of Traviata meets Sunset Boulevard. An opera about a singer who has lost her voice, gives and interview and then an autograph is never going to work... Especially when the music sounds like Puccini on a bad day and no cliche was left unwarmed. The booming orchestrations didn't help either as they simply served to confuse everything and also drown out the singers. I wasn't quite sure at times either what we were listening to could pass for singing either...

All told, it felt like a one act opera drawn out to two and a half excruciating and hours... Afterwards we escaped to Soho for a drink. It was bewhildering what to make of it sober as the following Audioboo can attest. Here's hoping Rufus continues to write music, but lets hope he has got writing operas out of his system...


Listen!
via AudioBoo

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