After Dido (English National Opera / Young Vic)

"After Dido" is the English National Opera's latest venture into the "trendy" territory so beloved of our national opera companies. Last year's brought a "Punch and Judy" that will never be bettered but also a "Lost Highway" that will never see the light of day again (thankfully). "After Dido" is the brainchild of Katie Mitchell, a director who's produced a very mixed bag over the last few years; Her "Jenufa" is superb, almost everything bankrolled by the National Theatre has been absolute tosh. Disappointingly this is effectively a redux of her "Waves" production, one of the very few shows I've ever failed to stay for the second half of. To compound this, where "Waves" attempted to use flashy technology to enhance Virginia Woolf's novel, not entirely successfully, here Mitchell simply throws some images on the screen with little concern for conveying the opera. I know the work quite well, if only because I've seen it at the Royal Opera twice in the last week; had I not, I'd be none the wiser about even the basic themes after this mess of a show.

In fact, visually this is even less interesting than "Waves" was. The central gimmick is the use of live video, the action being played out on film sets below whilst the film is projected above. They do this with startling skill, technically it's amazingly well done with some gorgeous cinematography and clever Foley artists, but it remains a gimmick and it gets old fast. The crux of the problem is that for all the prettiness of the framing, the picture inside is a vacuous one. Each with their own little set, three people look miserable on camera for the duration of the opera (which is playing on their radios). It would seem they are all miserable because they have lost a loved one, although everything is left elliptical for the sake of pretension (and possibly to cover the lack of real ideas). This is more or less the extent of the connection to "Dido". The use of naturalistic sets has eliminated some of the wit that held some of the interest in the more economical "Waves", this all looked po-faced and leaden.

The performance of the opera itself, whilst not on a par with the Royal Opera production currently running, is fairly strong (albeit totally sidelined). The orchestra is paired right back to seven players but they make a very lovely noise and little is lost in the simplification. Less wholly satisfactory is the doubling of the central parts. Susan Bickley made for a solid if uninspiring Dido but didn't have all the low notes of the Sorceress. It was a pity as I suspect her Dido would have been stronger without the distraction of this second part but I can't imagine Mitchell much cared as nothing about the evening was designed to create a substantial performance of the operatic work. Adam Green makes for a fine Aeneas, it's a difficult role to make seem substantial but under the circumstances he did very well. Katherine Manley produced some pearly notes as Belinda, an accomplished performance and she almost conveyed character as well which was downright amazing in this production.

Since the opera is short, the whole evening is mercifully brief and even then sustained only by the beauty of the music. Mitchell has tacked on her trademark visuals but brought very little vision with them. The musical side is not badly served although not to the extent this show is worth attending just for the aural experience. Not offensively bad, but tedious and ultimately amounting to absolutely nothing.