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| Button with needle and thread |
Even though I knew this was a Royal Opera production, for some reason I wasn't expecting it to be a proper opera - I'd envisaged it more as a musical. Perhaps because it's a children's story? But it was a proper opera. And it was weird to hear very ordinary lines such as 'I'm bored' sung operatically.
Based on Neil Gaiman's book of the same name, Coraline is an original, fantastical story about a girl who moves house and soon discovers a passage that takes her to a mirror version of the house, inhabited by a set of identical parents (that is, identical to Coraline's real parents, not to each other) with buttons for eyes. It's a disturbing story and my eight-year-old self might have found the opera too scary. Especially the bit with the disembodied hand. The idea of having one's eyes replaced by buttons is also highly discomforting. For me, even just the idea of being alone in a big new house at night is quite scary.
Before the show started we were informed that Kitty Whately, who was playing Coraline's mother/Other Mother, was recovering from illness. I was nervous lest this would become apparent in her performance, but it didn't. She made a creepy, beguiling, terrifying Other Mother and was the most captivating character in the show. It took a while to get used to an adult (Mary Bevan) playing Coraline, but once you did she was relatable and enjoyable to watch.
Coraline was extremely engaging and I was on tenterhooks throughout, despite knowing what happens, having watched the film and listened to the audiobook. I wasn't that keen on the actual music, though - I doubt I'd enjoy listening to it outside the context of the opera - there was no strong melody that I was able to remember afterwards. I found the music didn't vary much from scene to scene, with the slight exception of the scenes with the eccentric neighbours.
One of my favourite scenes was that in which Coraline is kicked out of the house and meets the former child inhabitants of the house and victims of the Other Mother. It was simultaneously moving and funny. I liked that the former child inhabitants were from different eras - Georgian, Victorian and 1970s. The 1970s child's interpretation of the events leading to his entrapment was amusing.
Next: I don't know. Globe?
