A Little Night Music - Opera North (Leeds Playhouse)

WARNING..Opera Singers Doing musical Theatre.. WARNING

None of this creative team or cast are at all exciting.

Josephine Barstow will be super I think

I should say - that, she could sing the role but totally miscast, not her fault.

A reminder that general booking opens tomorrow at 10am.

They have gone down the socially distanced route, at least initially, so you have to book all seats within a bubble of one, two or three seats. Unfortunately, I can't see any one seat bubbles under £35.

The best value, therefore, is to book two £14 seats which, with booking fee, come to a total of £30.50, rather than £37.50 for one.

It's ridiculous, but there we are! 😡

I think I did as well 👍

As 2 of my 3 are currently studying up in Leeds I can confirm that it totally isn’t worth the risk! Costs me a fortune every time we go. 😊

Thursday matinee is 8th July maggiem but I’m sure you’ve spotted the typo. I’ve booked , hope it’s fully seated by the time we go, that would be so good .

I think you should be ok, I'd thought I'd seen them say that they would go with whatever guidelines were in place at the time, but it does specifically say sold as socially distanced. Whereas Piaf a week or so later is planning on reviewing the rules, but some performances are guaranteed to be distanced

I guess I'm a bit paranoid about people breathing/coughing/sneezing right behind me after an incident back in summer 2017 when someone sitting just behind me in a theatre sneezed violently. I could feel the air hitting me. 2 days later I came down with an agonizing sore throat, which persisted for 6 days so we had to cancel the short holiday we had booked to Edinburgh & York that week.

Do t forget to pick up some spice to suck on during the show Dawnstar, maybe some Yorkshire Mixture? (the fishes are best)

A game of two halves. 

I saw it this afternoon and absolutely hated the first 30 minutes. By the end of Act 2 I was completely won over. Here’s why…

Act 1
So the set was basic. A few bits of furniture, desk, chairs, clothes rails, a bed etc which were pushed into different formations by the cast to represent different scenes. Not very exciting but hey, times are tough. 25 piece orchestra at the back of the stage behind a gauze, we saw them warming up but after that they were blacked out. Gorgeous and full sounding music. Having not seen this show before I wasn’t aware of what it was about so went in cold. I was puzzled by some of the casting, as in why X would have the slightest interest in Y, and not because of looks but some characters seeming lack of charisma. I couldn’t see why would ANYone fancy Fredrik? Also the housekeeper, Petra? She was more like a stuffy schoolmarm than some sexually free spirited Swedish au pair that the book seemed to be suggesting. But what peed me off right from the get go we’re the five stooges. The ones singing the links between the main characters. They were dressed in THE most inexplicable costumes and lurked about on stage constantly, even when not singing, doing “reaction face” at each other as the main characters delivered their lines. I hated them. And I’m sorry but 90 minutes for a first act? Rude. Self indulgent and unnecessary. Add to that the very uncomfortable seat for a tall person (you can’t tuck feet under the seat in front) and that 90 minutes dragged.

Act 2. 
Came back to my seat to find the set changed to an outdoor scene of a sunken garden with a real water fountain. This was trickling noisily away through interval so note to those people whose bladders are triggered by such things, ease off on the pre and mid show liquids. Anyway it was much easier on the eye than Act 1 so thumbs up. Act 2 really engaged me. The music and songs were beautiful. I enjoyed the bitchy dialogue, Granny’s boasting of past conquests and her verbal put downs. There was a bit of slapstick around the fountain and people hiding in the gardens but not too cringe. I didn’t realise it was a comedy! It almost felt like something Noel Coward would write. It just came together much more than Act 1, even the schoolmarm au pair delivered a killer solo. It was really good apart from one toe curling error where two of the five stooges came on in the middle of Send In The Clowns to lurk around behind Desiree and Fredrik, the only apparent reason being to take their chairs off at the end of the song. Unforgivably distracting.

Every time I see a Sondheim (I’ve seen very few) I leave reflecting on how good it was and wanting to see it again. Sometimes it takes a few days of thinking about but this was pretty instant. I’d like to see a take on it without the opera element which I found a bit distracting sometimes in the way some songs were delivered (the five stooges were VERY opera) but I’m not complaining about that, it was an ON production. 

So scores:
Act 1 ⭐️⭐️
Act 2  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Edited to add: completely white cast, which these days looked a bit odd. 

Oh burly bear, I was at the same performance, and felt that this was the finest sondheim I have seen in forty of years of seeing Sondheim. To be four feet from Josephine barstair was a thrill indeed. I loved the stooges as you call them. The whole thing is a memory piece, perhaps taking place at the moment of Mme Armfeld's passing. I found it witty, sensual, inventive, sophisticated, glorious, and I came out giddy with the joy of theatre. The structure of all the songs continues to take my breath away, especially the opening trilogy of songs, and Weekend in the country. Loved the cast and the visual updating - no fills of parasols, hurrah. Every second, and every syllable worked for me. I'd say rush to Leeds in the next two weeks.