Ruddigore (Opera North). Theatre Royal, Nottingham.  21 November 2024.

4✩✩✩✩. Review: William Ruff.

“A spookily spectacular success (but with reservations…).”

If you want to know the plot of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Ruddigore, you don’t need to stray far beyond the ruddy, gory title and the cast list: Sir Despard Murgatroyd, the ‘evil baronet’ and various other Murgatroyds plus Mad Margaret and lots of ghosts who step out of their picture frames.  The good characters are very good indeed: Richard Dauntless, Old Adam Goodheart and the innocent Rose Maybud.  At the centre of the story is a curse (every baronet is forced to commit a crime every day…) and you can’t have a comic opera without the right people (including a ghost!) marrying each other at the end.

The opera opens with a lot of story-telling, cleverly managed (in Jo Davies’s staging) partly via a silent film montage during the Overture.  When the curtain rises, we are introduced to village life updated to the era of early cinema.  It’s all very appealing to the eye as the opening chorus of wouldbe professional bridesmaids give us a taste of their comic potential.  As usual with G&S there are the usual extreme complications of family relationships to navigate.  But what makes Ruddigore special is all the gothic stuff.

Opera North is very respectful of Ruddigore’s first Act.  As far as I could tell, not a word of Gilbert’s original text is altered – which is both good and not-so-good.  There’s a lot of spoken dialogue between the musical numbers and you really have to stretch your sense of humour to find it funny.  However, this Ruddigore becomes a different show in Act 2, in the scene where the family portraits spring into full ghostly life in Richard Hudson’s ingenious set.  Everything suddenly becomes a super-charged, spookily spectacular success.  And there is some wonderfully topical rewriting involving Liz Truss and Keir Starmer’s glasses!

Opera North has a policy of having each show’s words on large screens in the auditorium.  This is (for most people) vital when the opera is sung in a foreign language – and very helpful even when the opera is in English.  However, it was a surprising decision in Ruddigore to have all the spoken dialogue visible as well.  This means that you can see the punchlines before they are delivered and possibly contributes to much of the dialogue sounding underpowered.  Henry Waddington (Goodheart) is the glorious, theatre-filling exception – but once upon a time big performances which reached the back row of the balcony were the stock-in-trade of G&S singers. 

That said, the cast play their parts with plenty of oomph, whether being innocently pretty, painfully shy, mad, passionate or dastardly.  Amongst the highlights: the wonderful patter trio for Margaret (Helen Évora), Robin (Dominic Sedgewick) and Sir Despard (John Savournin) and (perhaps the show’s greatest hit) “When the night wind howls in the chimney cowls/And the bat in the moonlight flies” sung by the spectral Sir Roderic (Steven Page) .  However, this is very much an ensemble production with energetic performances from all the principals and the vividly characterised Chorus.

Conductor Anthony Kraus ensures that Sullivan’s music is given the care it deserves, moulding its sweetly lyrical moments as well as taking the brakes off when the dark deeds of this spooky romp embark on their full-throttle ride.

Dominic Sedgwick ROBIN OAKAPPLE / SIR RUTHVEN MURGATROYD, Xavier Hetherington RICHARD DAUNTLESS, John Savournin SIR DESPARD MURGATROYD, Henry Waddington OLD ADAM GOODHEART, Steven Page SIR RODERIC MURGATROYD, Amy Freston ROSE MAYBUD, Helen Évora MAD MARGARET, Claire Pascoe  DAME HANNAH, Gillene Butterfield  BUTTERFIELD / ZORAH.

 The Chorus and Orchestra of Opera North

Anthony Kraus CONDUCTOR

Jo Davies DIRECTOR, James Hurley REVIVAL DIRECTOR, Richard Hudson SET DESIGNER Gabrielle Dalton, COSTUME DESIGNER Anna Watson, LIGHTING DESIGNER Kay Shepherd