I do not know enough about opera to say whether Isabella Cheevers, lead soprano in Lennox Berkeley’s A Dinner Engagement, is extraordinary or merely excellent. I know enough about theatre, though, to say this of her co-stars: bad acting looks even worse when set to music.
Additionally, I know enough about Oxford venues to wish that director and eminent thesp Max Hoehn had found anywhere – and I do mean anywhere – other than the Moser to stage this one-act comic opera. The technical explanation for such a small venue is that ‘young voices don’t carry’.
Well, if the audience can even hear the singers above Benedict Lewis-Smith’s excellent chamber orchestra, it will only be because countertenor Joe Bolger (who plays comic Cockney Mrs Kneebone with a kind of horrid friskiness) has no conception of the dynamics outlined in Berkeley’s 1950s score. His voice is extraordinary, but his performance much too self-satisfied. Casting the counter-tenor in a female role is the one interesting decision Hoehn has made.
The plot revolves around the visit of Grand Duchess (Cathy Bell) and her son (William Blake) to impoverished aristocrats George Coltart and Taya Smith. Smith, and Coltart in particular, both seem to think that opening eyes and mouth very wide constitutes acting. Blake has the tendency to move like a small, angry penguin, but sings divinely, in nice comic style. As an errand boy, Edmund Hastings gives the funniest performance, but unfortunately has only eight lines.
Isabella Cheevers doesn’t have a lot of voice (there are problems with aspiration and she’s a little weak above high F), but the voice she does have is outstanding. Combined with a welcome naturalness in her acting, she more than redeems the piece. Of the three stars which follow, one is for her, one for Berkeley’s witty, adventurous and allusive score, and one for the ambition of the director-conductor team.
You could do worse than see A Dinner Engagement: it has inspired me to see more opera. Just not this one.
Two stars
