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DAVID MELLOR

It’s A Wonderful Life London Coliseum

Until Saturday, 2hrs 40mins ★★★★★

The way Jake Heggie (born March 1961) tells it, he was working as a PR at the San Francisco Opera, and composing a bit on the side, when the director called him in and offered him a commission to write an opera for them. Heggie says: ‘Everyone was stunned, but no one more than I… that he was offering a guy on his PR staff the chance to write a full-length opera when he could have had his choice of any composer on the planet.’

Heggie is now on his tenth opera. This one, It’s A Wonderful Life, from 2016, is based on the 1946 Frank Capra movie, that most people, including myself, have never seen.

Never mind; the story of George Bailey, a banker about to go bust, and commit suicide, is a charming one, where Bailey is given the chance to discover how many lives he has touched, and is thereby inspired to carry on.

Heggie describes himself as a theatre composer, not an opera composer. The music is unchallenging, derivative, though easy on the ear. It’s not at all memorable melodically, but a good production – and this is a good, and colourful production with charm, and period feel – can make it entertaining enough.

A motley cast, led by Danielle de Niese, are well schooled by director Aletta Collins and conductor Nicole Paiement. It’s a pleasant enough evening, but, although it’s only two hours long, there are moments when the action drags.

American Frederick Ballentine sings well as George. A lot of the rest of the cast, though, cannot cope with the size of the Coliseum, and overall their diction is pretty awful. Without surtitles, most of the audience would have been lost.

The night I went (the second), the theatre was less than half full, and there was little atmosphere. ENO is putting it about that this is a great pre-Christmas treat, but that’s well wide of the mark.

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2022-12-04T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-12-04T08:00:00.0000000Z

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