Coraline - Barbican Theatre

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?

Akhnaten - London Coliseum

Akhnaten statue

This was a theatrical experience unlike any other. Juggling, a top hat with a skull affixed, full frontal male nudity, masses of blue hair belonging to six people all knotted together, oversized lychee stones and Philip Glass himself all appeared during the course of the evening. There was also a female conductor, which made me happy.

This was an extremely beautiful, sumptuous, mesmerising opera. It held even my attention, as someone who generally finds opera boring. Akhnaten tells the story of Akhnaten's rule as Pharaoh following the death of his father, Amenhotep III. Akhnaten's reign was different to that of his father as he introduced monotheism and formed a new kind of society, the particulars of which are unclear in the opera but no doubt symbolically expressed through the juggling etc.

Anthony Roth Costanzo made a wonderful, otherworldly Akhnaten, combining power and charisma with vulnerability. The Scribe (Zachary James), who also seemed to be the ghost of Akhnaten's father, was amazing - tall and formidable with an incredibly powerful voice. The actors' movements were intensely slow and smooth to the extent that when Akhnaten was walking up staircases I wondered whether he was on a conveyor belt or being otherwise mechanically pulled up in some way. It felt as though every tiny movement had been choreographed to within an inch of its life.

I don't know whether this is characteristic of modern opera in general or Philip Glass operas in particular, but I really liked the bits where the singers were making sounds together with the music for extended periods of time rather than singing actual words. It sounded amazing. One of my favourite scenes, 'The Temple', in which Akhnaten and his mother, Queen Tye (Rebecca Bottone), enter the temple and banish the priests who are performing old rituals, featured a lot of this.

One of my other favourite scenes was one towards the end, 'The Family', in which Akhnaten and his family isolate themselves from society. Their insularity is represented by the blue hair of Akhnaten's six daughters all woven together at the ends, forcing them to move around in a group. I loved the music and strong atmosphere of this scene.

Costumes were unsurprisingly impressive - Akhnaten's coronation robes were suitably grand and multifaceted - I loved his headgear that contained what looked like an oversized lychee stone. Tutankhamun's outfit was as you would expect. My favourite costumes were those of Queen Tye. She wore Queen Mary-early-20th-century style dresses that looked as though they had been designed by Jean Paul Gaultier. Beautiful colours, including a light blue that set off her vivid red hair.

...And during the curtain call, who should appear but Philip Glass himself! The audience went as wild as an opera audience could possibly go.

photo credit: Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum via photopin (license)

Next: we shall see