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A night at the opera: That Bastard Puccini! (Park Theatre)

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It’s hard to imagine that it’s only been 130 years since Puccini first premiered La Boheme. Nowadays, it’s a revered classic, and guaranteed to be on any opera company's annual programme if it needs to stay afloat. It’s a crowd pleaser with its melodrama of poor, impoverished artists loving, starving and dying in Paris. But Puccini’s La Boheme had a less auspicious beginning, with one of his contemporaries accusing him of stealing his idea and being poorly received on its first outing. And that’s at the heart of That Bastard Puccini! Currently playing at Park Theatre , writer James Inverne uses the friendship and rivalry between the two composers, Puccini and Ruggero Leoncavallo, to weave a comic tale of creative frustration with an awful lot of facts and tidbits about the opera scene at the time. It’s part comedy, part music appreciation.  It opens with Leoncavallo (Alasdair Buchan) at home with his wife Berthe (Lisa-Anne Wood), cursing about Puccini’s latest work, which is drawn ...

Brief awakenings: White Rose The Musical @MaryleboneTHLDN

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A fascinating and daring act of defiance in Nazi Germany by a group of university students in Munich is given a slightly perplexing rock musical treatment in White Rose, the musical. Something seems amiss in this earnest and occasionally tuneful show. It lags more than it inspires, which is surprising given the tragic and compelling history of the real-life characters the show depicts. Given that young people are increasingly likely to vote for far-right parties across Europe, it’s an opportunity to look at a time when they had a different perspective on the future. Perhaps something has been lost in the translation or the larger space of the Marylebone Theatre where it plays. 

The White Rose were a group of university students in Munich who sought to undermine the Third Reich through publication of a series of pamphlets urging passive resistance to the Nazi regime. Over a brief period between June 1942 and February 1943, they distributed their pamphlets across campus using whatever means necessary. Their pamphlets were a frank and direct appeal to the German people to resist the regime. When caught, they were subject to a show trial and executed by guillotine.

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The songs in the show attempt to capture the mood of the young students in the piece. It feels like a Spring Awakening for the undergraduate generation. While some may find that this slows the action, this is not necessarily bad. The performances, particularly by Collette Guitart and Tobias Turley as Sophie and Hans Scholl, are also admirable. 

But too often, the characterisation is two-dimensional, which kills the dramatic tension. While most shows about the Second World War staged in London seem to do the same, that doesn’t mean they are particularly watchable. And given how intriguing the real-life stories of the characters were and how their attempts to appeal to others got under the regime’s skin, it seems like a missed opportunity. 

The somewhat generous space of the Marylebone Theatre may not help here either, as you feel detached from the action that a more intimate space would not allow you to do. 

Directed by Will Nunziata, White Rose The Musical is at the Marylebone Theatre until 13 April. 

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Photos by Marc Brenner


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