<<  -- 11 --  Roderic Dunnett    VERGING ON LONDON STANDARDS

Some found Sarah Chew's early twentieth century setting of this Stowe Don Carlo jarring and disconcerting (although I didn't). Philip, in battle fatigues, looked the spitten image of George V doing a quick stint in the trenches, or the late Ian Bannen (strong forehead, jutting jaw, tightened cheek muscles, the morally stern look) doing a repertoire spell in Journey's End. But Peel gave an impressively strong performance, and caught the King's obsessive angst well : aching oboe, cello and horn added some notable obbligati.

The tensions of the Philip II-Grand Inquisitor exchange were heightened by Chew's sensible placings (Inquisitor sits, King stands; King finally sits, but on a pallet bed, lower than his tormentor). Here however, one longed for surtitles : the audience needed to know the intricacies of their head-on row. Richard Wiegold -- a hugely impressive young Royal Northern College of Music-trained bass, who has already made his mark in the RNCM's The Queen of Spades and Lynne Plowman's scintillating Gwyneth and the Green Knight for Music Theatre Wales -- made a good solid start on this weighty role (his voice is well up to it) though visually (there was something Monty Pythonesque a la Graham Chapman about this) has yet to free himself of a slight parody element and make it truly his own. Woodwind chorus served him well; some brass, where it doubles the solo line, needed softening. The final exiting repeated 'Forse!' -- shades of the Commendatore -- were awesomely ringing.

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