SPARKLE AND SPECTACLE IN THIS SOLID HIT OPERA

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THE RHINEGOLD

THE ENGLISH NATIONAL OPERA BY TACITA QUINN

Richard Jones’s tacky and triumphant Rhinegold is the most recent addition to the English National Opera’s Ring Cycle.

After a mixed and shadowy Valkyrie, Jones has reembraced his familiar droll kitschiness with a glorious slice of dramatic and comedic gold, complete with delicious Wagnerian weirdness.

Wagner’s opera follows the story of the Nibelung Alberich, who forges the ultimate ring of power from the Rhinegold he nicked from the beautiful Rhinemaidens. Alberich (Leigh Melrose) hits us with a snarly baritone, and along with his general unkemptness he strikes a creepy character, just the type to enact petty revenge after being caught perving.

In the godly realm, Wotan (John Relyea) employed the giants Fasolt (Simon Bailey) and Fafner (James Creswell) to build the gods a fortress, but they demand the payment promised to them: the goddess of love, Freia (Katie Lowe). The mischievous and clever Loge (Frederick Ballentine) ar- rives and helps Wotan barter with the giants, who agree to forfeit Freia in exchange for the Rhinemaidens treasure. The entire production whizzes past, despite the lack of interval. Jones has cleverly struck a balance between red hot drama and moments of charming amusement.

Balletine’s Loge is particularly responsible for the latter, hot-footing around the stage, his physicality is as enjoyable as his smooth tenor voice. He is well matched by Relyea’s stormy Wotan whose bass-baritone growled with authority, only humbled by a colossal, earth-shattering slap from the goddess Erda (Christine Rice).

The staging goes from strength to strength. Although the costumes are slightly underwhelming, Stewart Laing’s set design is playful glittery and gaudy. The shimmering rainbow that transports the gods to Valhalla is created through a waterfall of coloured confetti, showering the deities in heavenly light even as Loge warns of their impending doom. Visually, this Rhinegold is a complete thrill.

Conductor Martyn Brabbins starts unobtrusively but eventually finds his sparkle. As Jones’s production reaches its fever-pitch, Brabbins keeps the production marching.

Given the ENO’s recent battle for funding, their first new production of 2023 had to be a hit. Thankfully, Jones, along with his army of Nibelungs, has pulled it out of the bag.

Square Mile To Be New Home Of The Migration Museum

A multi-million pound development in the Square Mile will give a new home to the Migration Museum.

The space at 65 Crutched Friars near Tower Hill will be transformed into a 21-storey stateof-the-art site and has been granted 60-years rent-free space by the developer.

Dubbed “Britain’s gateway to the world for thousands of years” by the museum’s chief executive, the Square Mile was seen as the perfect place for the cultural institution, which tells the story of the movement of people to and from the UK.

Moving from Lewisham, the new museum will be based across three floors of the site and include an event space, cafe and shop.

The Migration Museum educates about how migration has shaped the country and capital right until today, with educational exhibitions and activities about modern British life.

The developer, a firm owned by Sukhpal Singh Ahluwalia who fled Idi Amin’s Uganda as a refugee, will also cover the museum’s operating costs and donate half-a-million pounds to support fundraising efforts.

The new site is estimated to cost £15m according to one of its trustees. It intends to remain in Lewisham until at least 2025/26, and the new site is slated to be ready from 2027.

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ROMEO AND JULIE

NATIONAL THEATRE (DORFMAN)

BY STEVE DINNEEN

Romeo and Julie is the tale of two star crossed lovers from Splott, Cardiff, whose forbidden love threatens to tear apart two houses not particularly alike in dignity.

We first meet the tragic hero elbowdeep in a soiled nappy. This Romeo is a working class, 18-year-old single dad struggling to raise the baby he couldn’t bear to put up for adoption, despite its mother wanting nothing to do with them, and his own mother being a chaotic alcoholic.

His life is transformed when he meets the precocious Julie, an aspirational working class lass from the other side of the tracks, who’s set on studying physics at Cambridge.

Clearly his intellectual superior, she nevertheless falls for the doting young