REVIEW: Jonathan Dove & Alasdair Middleton’s Swanhunter
JONATHAN Dove and Alasdair Middleton’s opera for young audiences, Swanhunter was inspired by a story from the Kalevala, Finland’s classic book of fairy tales.
First seen in Leeds in 2009, the 70-minute work has been given a colourful new staging for a nationwide tour collaborating with the theatre company The Wrong Crowd, directed by Hannah Mulder.
Designer Rachael Canning’s backdrop of mountain peaks complements the tents in the foreground, where a group of backpackers are camped by a lake. The cast of six take on various roles to tell the story, aided by some wizardry with puppets.
The hero Lemminkainen, doughtily played by Adrian Dwyer, sets out on a journey to win a wife, because he has heard all the prettiest girls lived in the North. As a precaution, he casts a magical spell on a knife he stabs into the door of the house where he lives with his mother that will warn her if he is in danger.
The most beautiful girl in the North is the daughter of powerful witch Louhi, who sets Lemminkainen a series of impossible tasks to prove himself. He must hunt the Devil’s Elk, ride the Devil’s Horse, and finally shoot the Swan that lives on Death’s River. The last task, which Parsifal could have told him was a big mistake, results in him being killed and dismembered by one of Louhi’s sons. Naturally, you can’t end a children’s opera on this note, and his mother comes to the rescue to sing him back to life.
Ann Taylor as the Mother is moving as she keens over her son’s body, willing him to live. Susan Shakespeare as the Swan sings an exquisitely high aria that lingers in the stratosphere. Rebecca Afonwby-Jones is a formidable Louhi, swathed in furs, and guarded by attack-dogs. The Elk and Horse are skilfully evoked with minimal effects, and Richard Howell’s lighting adds a magic touch to the proceedings.
The search for a bride is left unsatisfactorily hanging in the air but I suppose the moral of the tale may be that with a Mother like that, who needs a wife? Dove’s score, conducted by Justin Doyle, skilfully uses horn, harp, violin and percussion to create different moods of the story - particularly effective is the harp that accompanies the Mother’s song of mourning.
Opera North From Thursday: Howard Assembly Room, Leeds, then touring (Tickets: £5, under 18; adults, £10. www.operanorth.co.uk
