Paradise Moscow, The Lowry, Salford, 04/06/09
Comrades! The Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians is proud to announce a musical comedy about a brand new high rise housing estate being built on the outskirts of Moscow. The story so far ...
Lusya, the heroic Soviet building worker would be happy if she were not constantly being stood-up by Sergei the unreliable chauffeur of Drebyednyetsov, the big party boss.
Barburov, whose roof is falling in, doesn't believe in the new 'ideal home.' Give him old crumbling Moscow any time.
Daughter Lidochka, a frustrated guide to the Museum of Reconstruction of Moscow, catches the eye of the unsuitable Boris, a vagrant and dissident rocker in search of his soul and any female who may help him find it.
Sasha and Masha just need to get a room, for obvious reasons.
Spiv Barabashkin, the boss's right hand man, knows his power lasts just as long as everyone is begging for a flat. Once they have their keys he's nothing.
Vava, the boss's mistress, wants a flat with twice as many rooms as everyone else - four, including a boudoir.
Welcome to Cheryomuski ... the Cherry Gardens.
Now sit back and enjoy this fabulous hybrid of operetta, dance, farce, slapstick, comedy, acrobatics and somersaulting musical invention.Opera North's updated 2001 production of Shostakovich's little known or performed work, has its musical roots deep in the epic struggle of Soviet revolution and the artistic integrity of a major composer more famous for his deeply serious orchestral composition.
Certainly there's a sense of massive relief. It's the Kruschev era, Stalin, who banned one Shostakovich opera and condemned him as an enemy of the state, was dead.
From the first note, the tone is serious satire. None of the epithets of Soviet idealism are spared. Paradise has gone through several re-arrangements musically and lyrically, most enthusiastically by ON's former and returned conductor James Holmes, and been updated through hindsight, with various translations as it emerge blinking into the Western musical culture. It would be fascinating to compare the original with this.
It's packed with meaty principal roles with a stellar cast on top form: Eaton James and Summer Strallen stealing the show for their sheer athleticism and virtuosity in singing and dancing.
Margaret Preece and Richard Angas as mistress and boss totter on the brink between bliss and exposure. Steven Beard is beautifully torn between hope and despair as the homeless dad. Richard Stuart is reliably coarse and Cockney as estate manager Barabashkin.
It's all set in vivid colour, that's certainly a great leap forward in artistic interpretation, and it must be said that some of the utilitarian architecture of the set resembles one of two of the buildings springing up in Salford itself.
The drama never flags, alternating a whirlwind of fun with quiet moments of stillness. A roller coaster from start to finish.
This was the only showing during ON's week at The Lowry, before heading to Newcastle and Nottingham.
The Abduction from the Seraglio is showing tonight and Don Carlos tomorrow.
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Friday 10 February 2012
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