La fanciulla del West

Bluebeard

At the start of a new season in the wilds of Hampshire, Grange Park Opera has struck gold. Not only has the company impressively staged Puccini's La Fanciulla del West following every last stage direction of the original Girl of the Golden West, but they have found in Cynthia Makris a truly golden girl.

Makris, with her 22-carat soprano, extraordinary stamina and minutely expressive face, has been for too long absent from Britain. As the vulnerable Minnie, she has a compelling way of handling both the Puccini female self-abasement arias and the high voltage of triumph. And, with the resonant Icelandic baritone Olafur Sigurdarson as a smouldering Jack Rance, the robust tenor John Hudson as an affecting Dick Johnson and a vivid cast of goldminers, this production truly celebrates Puccini's masterpiece. The English Chamber Orchestra makes a huge difference and Rory Macdonald, conducting, does a superb job.

This Fanciulla is a joy to look at, too. A saloon lined to infinity with golden whisky bottles, the interior of Minnie's forest hut, like a Peter Doig canvas, and a lonely railroad for the final manhunt: three evocative tableaux created by Francis O'Connor for Stephen Medcalf's movingly detailed production.

Meanwhile, it is the purely visual aspects of Stephen Langridge's production of Offenbach's Bluebeard that offer effective distraction from its sometimes excruciating lack of truly Offenbachian style and satirical wit, both in the pit and in Kit Hesketh-Harvey's tired English version. A pop-up picture book Arcadia is created by the designer George Souglides for Fleurette (Yvette Bonner) and Daphnis (Eamonn Mulhall); frogmen's flippers flap in time to the music; and a steely submarine interior, reminiscent of Diamonds are Forever, forms Bluebeard's mausoleum.

And, yes, James Bond is the reference - even to the extent of the conductor Richard Balcombe introducing the Goldfinger theme in the most wince-making lapse of taste. Bluebeard's former wives are the Bond girls; and quite what the gloss adds to Offenbach's conflation of tales is hard to perceive.

Nothing could add to Philip Langridge's immaculate personification of Bluebeard. He takes centre stage with absolute command, sonorous song and wicked wit. Elena Ferrari gives her all as Boulotte; Janis Kelly as Queen Clementine and Rob Butt as King Bobeche flesh out a hard-working - if clumsily stage-managed - cast.

Box office: 01962 737366

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