Mitchell - Group! (Belfast, 2026)

Conor Mitchell - Group!

The Belfast Ensemble, 2026

Bob Broad, Conor Mitchell, The Belfast Ensemble, Rosie Barry, Matthew Cavan, Adam Dougal, Darren Franklin, Colette Lennon, Carol Moore, Brigid Shine

The Lyric Theatre - 25th March 2026

*Contains outrageous material*, the promotional information on the website for the Lyric Theatre production of Conor Mitchell's latest work warns us, along with what looks like the complete catalogue of "trigger warnings". Well it wouldn't be a proper Conor Mitchell Belfast Ensemble work if it didn't. Group! is the composer's latest musical and if it causes any offence, it does so with good intentions. Primarily with the intention to delight and entertain, but as with previous works in a variety of musical and theatrical forms, not least Abomination: A DUP Opera and The Headless Soldier, also with the intention of getting the audience out of their comfort zone and confronting subjects most other people steer clear away from.

Good intentions and helping people to confront and deal with difficult times they are going through is part of the agenda of Mitchell's work and here he confronts it head-on. And what better way to air those dark secrets than in a group therapy session, getting a bunch of fucked-up people together in a room and putting it all out there. Sorry for the offensive language - I'm sure Emmet, the 'facilitator' of the group would not approve (and he has 'issues' of his own) - but, like Chris in the group, wearing an ankle tag for stalking who feels his masculinity threatened by the failure of 'Gloria' to acknowledge him and the other women in the group getting preferential treatment - there is no time for any of this 'woke' nonsense, you just have to say things as they are.

Everyone's input is valued and what's said in the room stays in the room after all, but despite a number of sessions in the local community hall there haven't been any real breakthroughs. The group worry nonetheless that whatever dynamic exists between them is going to be upset when a new member is invited to join the 'circle of trust'. Amy would seem to have a rewarding job and a loving partner, but gradually the cracks in her story begin to show and identification with her problems stirs up feelings with the other members of the group. Painful feelings and anger, but surely it will help air those frustrations and open up a path to healing? There are a lot of issues that need venting and Emmet isn't sure the methods employed are strictly orthodox. Well indeed, and as a musical there's nothing orthodox about how Conor Mitchell chooses to express the issues that Belfast people - or just generally people in the modern world still clinging to the past - need to put behind them.

Group! sets the situation for a fun riotous drama, but does it gain anything from being a musical? Well, the nature of the story and how it unfolds provides a clue. It's all about communication (or maybe that should be sowing chaos), and while it could be a play in its own right, Conor Mitchell is a composer and music is his primary method of communication. The first half of the work might not have brought out any immediately catchy numbers as it accompanies the setting of the scene, but Mitchell can't resist the opportunity to throw in the odd swinging leg kicking routine to delight the audience (more like Fly Me to the Moonies here), but as Frank, Jean, Barbara, Chris, and Jackie each find a way to open up and confront their problems, there can be tremendous sensitivity and lyricism in the sentiments, in the phrasing, in the delicate playing and mood, the piano of musical director Bob Broad always catching those most affecting moments just before it hits you with a punchy revelation.

The musical element is clearly integral to the communication of the story, pulling it all together and providing another level of engagement and entertainment, but Mitchell - co-writing with Matthew Hurt - is no slouch either when it comes to expressing his ideas with words. And directing too, since the characterisation and progression of the drama here are exemplary and the all-round singing/acting performances from Rosie Barry, Matthew Cavan, Adam Dougal, Darren Franklin, Colette Lennon, Carol Moore and Brigid Shine ensure that the viewer is totally engaged throughout. There's no Propaganda-like elaborate stage set for this one, but the above named cast, a stack of orange plastic chairs arranged in a semi-circle and a few scattered self-help leaflets are as much as one needs for the purpose of Group!. Having said that, even those elements are pushed to extremes and the lighting and the brilliant choreography routines directed by Paula O'Reilly - all provide the necessary theatrical magic.

And it's magic that works wonders. On its own you might see Group! as a piece of fun light music-theatre entertainment, but it manages nonetheless to confront some challenging aspects of the world we live in today. The reason you can say this with any authority is just by casting your eye over the body of work of Mitchell and the Belfast Ensemble, and see how it manages to be quietly subversive under the guise of popular entertainment. It's an eclectic body of work, the musical (like the earlier Propaganda) proving to be just as a valid and expressive a medium as the composer's work in opera, mass and symphony to communicate subjects that few will express openly. It's his form of group therapy and we are all part of the group; an extended 'Belfast Ensemble' if you like. If that’s not inviting chaos through communication, I don't know what is.

Clearly, part of the lesson in this mass group therapy session is that we should embrace our failings and see them as opportunities for growth, but Mitchell doesn't appear to have any worries on that score. Group! is a resounding success for the Belfast Ensemble, filled with the composer/writer's trademark humour, insight and his unapologetic urge to cause outrage and offence in following the course of his unique artistic expression. It's all in the cause of entertaining and finding a way reconcile all those diverse facets of dealing with our own personal issues in the midst of an increasingly insane world. That’s too much for one work alone, but as part of a diverse body of work, Group! is another wonderful addition to the catalogue. You'd need your head seen if you miss this.

External links: The Belfast Ensemble, Lyric Theatre

Mitchell - Propaganda (Belfast, 2022)

Conor Mitchell - Propaganda

The Belfast Ensemble, 2022

Bob Broad, Conor Mitchell, Joanna O'Hare, Darren Franklin, Rebecca Caine, Matthew Cavan, Oliver Lidert, Celia Graham, Sean Kearns

Lyric Theatre - 15th October 2022

Musicals are not something usually covered in OperaJournal as a rule, but there are exceptions to every rule, and I will certainly make an exception when it comes to Conor Mitchell and The Belfast Ensemble. In fact, there are apparently no rules as far as Conor Mitchell is concerned. Whether it's a symphonic mass, musical theatre, operetta, opera, or some undefinable cross between music, video and texts, Mitchell will use whatever means is best suited to the subject he is dealing with, permitting no distinction between what is high art and what is popular entertainment; all of them vehicles capable of putting across serious messages about social, personal and political issues.

I mean, for a start, when was the last time a Belfast composer wrote a musical? Has there ever even been a musical written by a Belfast composer? New opera is not unheard of here - NI Opera Shorts in 2012 provided a platform for several local composers, and Brian Irvine has had several successful new works produced (Least Like The Other). Mitchell, who also contributed Our Day to NI Opera Shorts, has also made a major impact and stirred up some controversy with the brilliant Abomination: A DUP Opera, but I don't think anyone has had the nerve to imagine that a musical would be the best way to present views on local topical issues.

Not that Propaganda 'A New Musical' deals directly with local issues. Set during the Berlin Blockade and Airlift in 1946/47, it hardly seems in any way connected with contemporary or recent Belfast, but indirectly it very much relates to local and more universal issues. It's not that difficult to see some parallels between Belfast and a city that will have its people divided by a wall as a consequence of the events that take place during this period, so that is at least a starting point for recognition, even though any such reference is not laboured or even made explicit, other than hinted at perhaps in one or two scenes and in the spoken accents.

The reason why it's understated - although understated is perhaps not quite the mot juste for describing any aspect of this production - is that the libretto or storyline keeps things simple and largely on a human level. The plot really involves little more than the difficulties for one family doing whatever is necessary while struggling to survive and keep on the right side of the authorities in a Berlin almost utterly destroyed after the war, living in the Russian sector of the city that is already in a precarious position. For Hanna, that involves being a model for some provocative pictures, although her photographer husband Stanislav/Slavi, has more artistic aspirations.

Even in that there is clearly some personal commentary on questions of popular entertainment and art, and that is reflected in the music, which bounds along with big melodies that would grace any great American musical. It is however actually also subtly layered, so you will hear Russian composers referenced and even Irish lilts that suggest other connections. There is something perhaps ironic with the opening 'New York, New York'-like swing of 'Like What You See, Boys?' being applied to war-torn Berlin (if you can make it there, you can definitely make it anywhere), but that opening song already reveals layers in the human struggle and freedom of sexual expression against repressive laws that is teased out in Hanna and Slavi's relationship problems and elsewhere.

There's definitely nothing romaticised about dressing up these personal, social and political differences in catchy memorable melodies. The central love story was born out of difficult circumstances, it lives through difficult circumstances and it ends in difficult circumstances. But change does occur over the course of the drama in the central figure of Hanna, who asserts the determination of the individual to refuse to submit to power of social, political and gender expectations and accept that the circumstances of her position should involve any compromise of her integrity. It's more than that even, Hanna in a way refusing to live the lie that she is the photographer to save Slavi, but becoming confident enough to choose her own way forward.

What is particularly brilliant about Propaganda is the way that Mitchell uses the format of the musical - as a popular entertainment with wonderful songs - as an almost subversive undercurrent to draw out these other underlying layers and issues. You could just enjoy this as a historical entertainment and it works brilliantly on that level, or you can dig deeper if you want. And as ever, Conor Mitchell fearlessly provides plenty of provocative material and is not afraid of courting controversy to make serious, relevant and meaningful social and political points. One scene even relates the struggle for Irish independence with the socialist struggle of Soviet Russia, with huge Soviet banners, the singing of the Russian national anthem, and large projections of Uncle Joe Stalin dominating the stage.

The production and stage design is critical in getting across both these elements, presenting the human story taking place against the backdrop of huge adversarial forces. The production design is simply just stunning. The central home of Slavi, Hanna and her mother is on a raised stage on a framework of scaffolding, representing very much that they are an island in the ruin of Berlin, while all around is the might and threat of Russia. Despite the adherence to period costumes and some projected footage and announcements, it still feels very relatable and applicable to anyone from Belfast who has struggled to assert their own identity within an intolerant society.

The writing, the music and the stage production are all top notch, and with Bob Broad conducting the impressive Belfast Ensemble orchestra everything flows beautifully between the music and drama. The singing and delivery is the other critical element that contributes to the success of Propaganda in its opening run at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast. Everyone gives an outstanding and fully committed performance, with Joanna O'Hare evidently carrying much of the duties in the central role of Hanna. It's very much an ensemble piece without a single weak element, but I was also impressed with Rebecca Caine as Hanna's mother, Magdalene von Furstenberg, who was perhaps the one true operatic voice on the stage. Just to show that this is by no means essential, actor and drag artist Matthew Cavan - who despite appearing in many Belfast Ensemble productions is not usually noted as a singer - was just superb here, singing with conviction and bringing personality and personal character to the role of Gerhardt.

As primarily an opera review site, I have nonetheless previously praised the Belfast Ensemble for being the true progressive musical force in Belfast, willing to push boundaries that NI Opera was failing to do in the post-Oliver Mears years, as they turned away from opera in favour of musicals at the Lyric Theatre like Sweeney Todd and Kiss Me Kate. Ironically, while opera is back on the NI Opera agenda, the scheduling of one opera a year - La Bohème in 2021 and La Traviata in 2022 - even with high production values (and equally high ticket prices) are by no means signs of a superior art form pushing a progressive musical direction. It's again the Belfast Ensemble and a musical at the Lyric Theatre this time that shows real artistic creativity and imagination.

Links: Lyric Theatre, The Belfast Ensemble

Mitchell - Abomination, A DUP Opera (Belfast, 2019)

Conor Mitchell - Abomination, A DUP Opera 

The Belfast Ensemble, 2019

Tom Brady, Conor Mitchell, Rebecca Caine, Tony Flynn, Dawn Burns, Matthew Cavan, Christopher Cull, John Porter, Richard Chappell, James Cooper, Tara Greene, Caolan Keaveney, Helenna Howie

The Lyric Theatre - 7th November 2019

Abomination, A DUP Opera couldn't come at a more opportune moment, although to be fair NI politics present so many that practically any moment would be opportune. As far as this opera is concerned, it comes a month after equal marriage legislation and abortion rights had to be imposed on the province in order to bring it up to the same status as the rest of the UK. The law was passed despite an impotent show of bigoted opposition from the DUP, the largest party in Northern Ireland among whom some members - as the opera notes - regard homosexuality as "an abomination".

Coming just a month before a general election moreover, it's a timely reminder of the party's stance, one that - along with their association with the Tory party and support of Brexit against the will of the majority of voters in Northern Ireland - will hopefully cost them dearly at the ballot box. Ah, if only socially engaged opera and the arts really could change the world! Even if Abomination, A DUP Opera plays out to a mostly sympathetic and progressive audience at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast for the Outburst Queer Arts Festival, Conor Mitchell and the Belfast Ensemble's opera makes enough of an impact that I think it's bound to create ripples outside.

Even from its title and poster image, the opera makes no bones about its subject or target, and that is the former DUP party MP Iris Robinson, the wife of the then NI Assembly First Minister Peter Robinson, in relation to comments she made in public interviews in June 2008 about homosexuality being "an abomination". The day after her comments were made, a young gay man was almost beaten to death on the streets of North Belfast, but rather than row back or tone down her comments, Robinson went further in interviews and on a live phone-in BBC Radio programme hosted by Stephen Nolan, comparing homosexuality to bestiality and describing the AIDS epidemic in Africa as being a curse from God for sodomy.

Her views were shared by other DUP politicians and Abomination makes sure that the voices and ignorant views of repugnance towards homosexuality expressed by Willie McCrea, Jim Wells, Jeffrey Donaldson, Ian Paisley, Ian Paisley Jr, Sammy Wilson and current leader Arlene Foster are all aired in the opera. Rather than invent a scenario around this, composer and director Mitchell uses the politicians' own words for the libretto; the music and lyricism of singing these words aloud and in chorus to an audience them only serving to highlight the absurdity of their homophobic pronouncements being directed and expressed unashamedly in such a way to the general public.

Of course the DUP were only expressing what many of their followers believe, but what is staggering is the arrogance of the DUP politicians believing that the Bible and firmly held Christian beliefs give them the right, the justification and the impunity to share these hateful views in public, Robinson even going as far as to declare that it's the duty of government to uphold God's laws. The tragedy of this position - if you want to see it as a tragedy - is that public opinion progresses faster than the DUP's regressive attitudes, showing them up not only for their bigoted views, but also the hypocrisy of their so-called Christian morals when involved in political scandals, expenses fraud, heating fuel corruption and - in the case of Iris Robinson - the revelation of a favours granted towards a young businessman she was secretly involved with in an affair.

As part of The Belfast Ensemble, a company that is very much concerned with opera, theatre and musicals being relevant to the times and the place we live in, Conor Mitchell then is not wrong in finding this a fascinating subject for an opera. Still, it's unquestionably a challenge to find a way of setting it to music and drama and present it to the public in a way that perhaps serves as some kind of social commentary, but it has to be said that the results are magnificent, and Abomination: A DUP Opera is far and away the biggest and most accomplished piece of work from The Belfast Ensemble to date, genuinely engaging with local matters and social issues with great musical and lyrical finesse.

Since it was indicated beforehand that the opera was using the actual words of Iris Robinson herself for the libretto, I suspected that the Abomination might follow the Ensemble's most recent piece, Lunaria, using actors reading rapid-fire news reports over recent political developments in Northern Ireland, with Mitchell's insistent rhythms matching the flow of projections of newsreel footage. In reality, Mitchell displays a full range of musical pieces in a variety of styles, moods and tempi. Abomination is an opera in the truest sense, with individual singing, some operatic in nature - Rebecca Caine as Iris and Dawn Burns are outstanding - others semi-spoken, with choruses and even a musical dance sequence presenting Iris's illicit affair with an 'angel' lover.

The narrative thread of the work is centred on and continually returns to Robinson's infamous talkshow interview with Stephen Nolan; Nolan here not a singing role but played by an actor, Tony Flynn. Nolan's position is firm on holding Robinson to account for what she says, being careful not to accuse her of being responsible for the beating up of a young gay man, but implicated through words that might have incited or at least given licence to others to similarly express their views. In-between almost anything goes as far as musical arrangements and dramatic enactments are concerned, Mitchell's direction putting the position of the DUP voices in an almost fantastical setting - detached from reality certainly - using projections showing the person in question, with newspaper articles reporting quotes of what they said, while they are sung almost rapturously.

Although it's hugely entertaining there is a serious side to the work and it may lead to accusations of Abomination being nothing more than a DUP bashing, or worse, an invective more directly aimed at Iris Robinson. Mitchell is careful however that there is nothing in the opera that is not actual direct quotes from the people concerned, so he cannot be accused of misrepresentation. Letting the protagonists speak in their own words and make a laughing stock of themselves, and giving them voice in operatic declamation only highlights the absurdity, ignorance and arrogance of their position on matters of homosexuality and gay rights (a mindset that persists within the DUP).

Whether it's fair to treat Iris Robinson as the focal point of the opera or not, she at least is the person who brought these attitudes out into the open with her designation of homosexuality as "an abomination", and she epitomises this sense of belief that their religion gives them divine endorsement or some kind of god-given superiority over others. By the end of the opera however, Abomination, A DUP Opera seems to come around to apply one of the Christian sentiments that appear to be lacking in Robinson's own words and actions, to love the sinner and hate the sin, her own downfall from public office leaving a somewhat tragic figure alone on the stage with a phone and no-one to listen to her any more.

Links: The Belfast Ensemble

Mitchell - The Belfast Ensemble Bash (Belfast, 2019)

Conor Mitchell - The Belfast Ensemble Bash

The House of Usher
The C*** of Queen Catherine
Lunaria
Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance

The Belfast Ensemble, 2019

Conor Mitchell, Tom Brady, Alison Harding, Darren Franklin, Matthew Cavan, Gavin Peden, Rebecca Murphy, Marcella Walsh, Ciara Mackey, Tony Flynn, Abigail McGibbon, Marie Jones

The Lyric Theatre, Belfast - 28th June 2019, 30th June 2019

Founded in 2016 by Northern Irish composer Conor Mitchell, it's difficult to categorise exactly what it is that the Belfast Ensemble do. Music-theatre is the catch-all term that can include everything from opera, operetta, musicals and spoken drama with musical accompaniment, but even that is too restrictive for what Mitchell and The Belfast Ensemble do, as the balance of music and singing to theatrical drama can vary considerably from piece to piece. What remains a more consistent philosophy is that whether it's a new piece or a gala performance of The Pirates of Penzance, the works are performed in a popular medium with an eye on current affairs, keeping the music relevant as a response to the world we live in. And, just as importantly, it's a response from a Belfast perspective. This isn't a company that sits and works in isolation writing little pieces of abstract experimentation but wants to be in the middle of things and finding popular means to connect music to developments outside.

As a birthday celebration and in preparation for a visit to London, bringing some of their works to the Southbank Centre as part of the PRSF New Music Biennial, The Belfast Ensemble put on a weekend Triple Bill Bash! at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast, performing two of their extended music theatre pieces - The C*** of Queen Catherine and The House of Usher - along with a new piece Lunaria, to give a collective overview of what they are about and give some clues as to possible future directions. To round it off there was a one-off gala performance of The Pirates of Penzance, partly to keep the audience on their toes guessing, partly to consider a post-Brexit UK as a pirate nation (maybe, maybe not), but mainly to touch base with popular music and its primary purpose to entertain.

Adapted from the famous Edgar Allan Poe story, (with some debt to the equally famous Roger Corman movie) The House of Usher is primarily a study in the nature of fear and madness. That would seem a natural response to the world today, and even if it doesn't make any explicit reference to the fall of the Stormont Executive in Northern Ireland that was happening at the time work was written, it's easy enough to draw parallels should you wish to do so. Or again, maybe not. What is so great about the narration and performance however is that it leaves the work open to whatever is going on that is currently generating fear or concern.

The fear that afflicts Roderick and his sister Madeline comes from within, from a family curse, from an insular existence with no outside perspective, a solipsistic obsession, paranoia and fear of the world outside. There's also a terror of being locked up within oneself, buried in those obsessions, not understanding the world, unsure of one's own reactions, fearing them to being abnormal or judged abnormal.

The primary purpose of the Belfast Ensemble's theatrical approach of The House of Usher is to present the heightened tension of that fear-inducing obsessive insularity as effectively as possible, and the company use more than just traditional musical and theatre techniques, involving movement, rhythm, projections and movie clips that bring in not only clips from the 1960 Corman film, but also footage of 9/11. As an exercise in what can be done with theatre it's effective, but it's more than that. It might only use a voice-over narration and no singing, but it is operatic in terms of its musical dimension and incorporation of multidisciplinary elements, similar to what Philip Glass or Michael Nyman do in this genre - the propulsive downward spiral rhythms of Mitchell's score doing much to establish that connection - with a more experimental element that you can find in Michel Van der Aa or in Donnacha Dennehy's work with playwright Enda Walsh and the Dublin based Crash Ensemble.

The C*** of Queen Catherine tries out a different balance of its theatrical and music elements and, as far as I'm concerned, it isn't quite as successful. It's largely an actor's monologue with occasional musical accompaniment from a string quintet. The circumstances of the Spanish Queen's marriage to Henry VIII is related by Catherine of Aragon in an archaic poetic style and aligns itself with a vague commentary on current affairs in Northern Ireland in relation to the impact of Brexit on NI, “what happens when Europe divides in two, Tudor-style” according to the company, but clearly there are no such overt references and no allegorical element is alluded to in the production design.

Despite a great performance from Abigail McGibbon delivering a difficult 50 minute monologue, the piece is however far too long to sustain interest or connect to the elusive, fragmentary imagery of the words. Mitchell's score again evokes mood and drama well, and the theatrical elements provide another dimension to the work through projections and sound and lighting effects, but the piece is not successful in getting much across.

A new short piece, Lunaria consolidates the approach of the Ensemble, concentrating it really with an approach and delivery that thoroughly matches the subject. Brexit is again to the forefront. It's like it is trying to compress all the madness of the last couple of years down into 15 minutes with rapid fire soundbites. Three actors read overlapping headlines and extracts from speeches with video projections looping clips of the main protagonists (Boris Johnston, Arlene Foster, Theresa May) and victims like Lyra McKee that have dominated the headlines and concerns in Northern Ireland in recent times over Brexit and the backstop. Mitchell's music is again propulsive, urgent and rhythmic, based on repetition and escalation towards madness.

Lunaria concentrates the climate of fear of The House of Usher and its directness has the necessary impact and context that the Catherine of Aragon piece fails to achieve. In terms of presentation, the improvised set-up in the Lyric Theatre's studio, the musicians arranged in a circle around the three performers/newsreaders on tables with video clips projected behind certainly got the full impact of the work across, but you could imagine that the finished theatrical presentation will be further developed and no doubt only enhance the impact of the piece.

The weekend performances of The Belfast Ensemble Bash! Triple Bill were followed by a one-off gala performance of The Pirates of Penzance. Mitchell's justification for doing a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta - not that any is needed - is that he sees it as a good way of touching base again with the roots of popular music theatre. Well that's one reason, another is that he confesses that this was the first music theatre he performed in, but Mitchell also raises an interesting point in the introduction that a survey identified that most people's first experience of live music is in the theatre. And that's true for me too, the first musical performance I saw live was a school production of Man of La Mancha, and it did indeed made a singular unforgettable impression.

Whatever intentions and justifications you want to give - and you'd really be stretching it to impose any contemporary current affairs reading - The Pirates of Penzance was about really was just an excuse for the musicians and performers to enjoy themselves and let the audience enjoy it as well. On that level it certainly succeeded. It wasn't the slickest of Gilbert and Sullivan performances, half the cast were actors singing and half were singers acting, but that's a fair medium and characteristic of The Belfast Ensemble approach to mixing and matching. Of the singing performers Rebecca Murphy's Mabel was superb, but all the female roles were impressive. Actor/singer Matthew Cavan tried to bring a little bit of Captain Jack Sparrow-like fun to the rather slim comedy, but his natural flamboyance was limited by the standing and reading nature of the gala performance. Another notable bit of casting was celebrated Belfast playwright Marie Jones (Stones in their Pockets) taking to the stage herself as Chief of Police.

Musically the expanded Ensemble were delightful, the catchy melodies infectious, the performance sounding fresh and invigorated perfectly suited to the Lyric stage, Conor Mitchell conducting with verve and energy. It's easy to be sniffy about operetta and music theatre (particularly in this opera blog when it starts to become the staple of the local opera company, NI Opera), but being able to experiment, test the limits and extend what is considered to be lyric or dramatic theatre is right there in the ethos of the Belfast Ensemble, showing the range of possibilities open to a musical ensemble who refuse to be pigeon-holed into one category. And it's not just about being able to switch from avant-garde to Gilbert and Sullivan on the same bill, but the enthusiasm, musicianship and production values that they apply to them equally.

What the Belfast Ensemble are doing is great and very worthwhile and not just from a purely creative or music experimentation viewpoint. There's great potential in the music-theatre medium they have chosen to work within that is under-represented not just in Belfast, but anywhere in Europe. The choice of subjects that are responsive to the changing Northern Ireland situation within Europe and the wider world however is another important part of the Ensemble's ethos that ensures that that the works presented should always be it fresh, relevant, progressive and popular, not insular academic works for a small audience. With a huge talent base of artists and creatives in Northern Ireland, there is also plenty of capacity for further growth, expansion and collaboration. Exciting times indeed.

Links: The Belfast Ensemble

Sondheim - Sweeney Todd (Belfast, 2019)

Stephen Sondheim - Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Northern Ireland Opera & Lyric Theatre, 2019

Walter Sutcliffe, Sinead Hayes, Steven Page, Julie Mullins, John Porter, Anthony Hope, Jessica Hackett, Jack Wolfe, Mark O'Regan, Richard Croxford, Elaine Hearty, Matthew Cavan, Dawn Burns, Christopher Cull, Enda Kilroy, Jolene O'Hara, Tommy Wallace

The Lyric Theatre, Belfast - 3rd February 2019

I'm facing a bit of a dilemma here, since Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd doesn't really belong in an opera blog, or at least not in my personal definition of an opera blog (which is a blogger's prerogative of course), but this is a co-production of Northern Ireland Opera with the Lyric Theatre in Belfast and I've been closely following pretty much every NI Opera production since its inauguration in 2011. Which makes the dilemma two-fold; it's not just a question of what should be covered in this blog, but also how to give credit where credit is due. If I were to review this for another outlet this would undoubtedly be a more positive review of a very competent, well-performed and entertaining music theatre production. As an NI Opera production however, this is fairly vapid material that falls far below what we have come to expect.

I've no doubt that there are practical and financial considerations that have to be taken into account, and I'm sure I couldn't underestimate to the kind of compromises have to be made and the practical decisions that have to be faced by any arts funded company. I can imagine however that serious consideration needs to be made between the viability of putting on what might appear to be an elitist obscure opera for a couple of nights to a half-filled Grand Opera House and running a three-week sold out popular show at the Lyric Theatre that will reach out to a younger if not necessarily any more socially diverse audience. I realise that these decisions have to be made, but it doesn't mean I have to like them.

Compromises have to be made in Belfast as much as with the English National Opera at the Coliseum in London; that's the economic reality in a time of reduced funding for the arts. Walter Sutcliffe's first season as director of NI Opera balanced that well however with a reduced season of works that can have popular appeal to bring in new audiences but still have artistic merit. On the one hand we had a fine production of Così Fan Tutte (not seen as often in Belfast as other Mozart operas) and a Rigoletto of impressive singing, but also a successful co-production between NI Opera and the Lyric Theatre of Brecht and Weill's The Threepenny Opera. It's rather dispiriting however this has been downgraded this year to a line-up that consists only of a popular Sondheim musical, three performances with high ticket prices for an operetta (Die Fledermaus) and a formal dress gala concert for local big-wigs. Shockingly, Northern Ireland Opera are not producing a single opera this year.

Perhaps there are additional financial and boardroom pressures on Northern Ireland Opera, but it's a bit of a come-down from Oliver Mears' more open, diverse and adventurous tenure where we had the first ever fully staged Wagner in Belfast (The Flying Dutchman), where Richard Strauss (Salome) was programmed rather than Johann Strauss, where there were newly commissioned work from local composers (NI Opera Shorts), where you could see a work as boldly innovative and uproariously entertaining as Gerald Barry's The Importance of Being Earnest and where the cross-over works with local theatre were by Benjamin Britten (The Turn of the Screw) and Thomas Adès (Powder her Face). Bolder choices are also being made south of the border by the newly formed Irish National Opera, most recently with Duke Bluebeard's Castle and an ambitious Aida. Thank heavens too for Opera North's visits to Belfast.

A review of Sweeney Todd therefore has no meaningful place here; the work itself has little of substance or subtext, certainly not in the context of the above. Full credit however to the team for making an effort to sell this as something more interesting that it really is in the theatre programme. In the programme a Queen's University lecturer considers the rights and wrongs of a fictional character who takes revenge on society by homicidal barbering and cannibalistic culinary, while an interview with conductor Sinead Hayes points to certain operatic qualities, complexities of leitmotif and dissonance in the musical composition. The musical performance was certainly of the usual high standard from the assembled musicians, and it was superbly paced and conducted to bring all the colour and vigour out of the songs with wonderful clarity and precision.

As a theatrical performance it also more than delivered. Regardless of musical tastes and definitions of what constitutes 'quality' or 'worthy' music, Sondheim comes alive on the stage in live performance and it can even have a bit of an edge (as with the recent Assassins at the Gate Theatre in Dublin - again, more adventurous programming than Sweeney Todd). The combination of music, lighting, colour, costume and (amplified) voices creates its own magic just as effectively as any live opera production, and even at this early preview stage in the run, the production was clearly well-rehearsed and ran relatively smoothly, even with all the little compartments and doors to be managed. Particular credit should be given to Dorota Karolczak of the make-up and costume department for making this look absolutely terrific.

The singing was of the highest quality; Steven Page as Sweeney Todd, Julie Mullins as Mrs Lovett and John Porter as Anthony Hope all superb singers who are equally as good at characterisation. They were well-balanced alongside Jack Wolfe and Jessica Hackett who give the kind of fresh-voiced delivery you want from Tobias Ragg and Joanna, but there was little that about the direction to bring anything original or exciting to give this a bit more of an edge. Ultimately Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street remains a Victorian Penny Dreadful horror tale that has nothing realistic or relevant to say about life, justice or morality; it's just a colourful treatment of a bland entertainment.

Only Matthew Cavan managed to really bring some spirited individuality and unpredictability to the production (as he did also in The Threepenny Opera) as the outrageous Signor Pirelli. If Belfast's great pantomime dame May McFettridge ever calls it a day (heaven forbid!), we have a potential replacement here. I mean that as the highest compliment to the Belfast stage, but unfortunately it's not much of a compliment for Northern Ireland Opera.

Links: Northern Ireland Opera, Lyric Theatre Belfast

Weill - The Threepenny Opera (Belfast, 2018)

Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill - The Threepenny Opera

Northern Ireland Opera, Lyric Theatre -  2018

Sinead Hayes, Walter Sutcliffe, Kerri Quinn, Matthew Cavan, Orla Mullan, Tommy Wallace, Jolene O'Hara, Paul Garrett, Richard Croxford, Jayne Wisener, Brigid Shine, Maeve Smyth, Mark Dugdale, Steven Page, Gerard McCabe

Lyric Theatre, Belfast - 30 January 2018

An opera that isn't really an opera is an interesting choice for the directorial debut of Northern Ireland Opera's new Artistic Director, Walter Sutcliffe. His predecessor, Oliver Mears however opened his tenure in a similarly non-traditional and low-key fashion with Gian Carlo Menotti's The Medium - also in a theatre rather than the opera house - the indication being possibly that opera has much more to offer than La Traviata and Madama Butterfly, and that it can and should be accessible to everyone. Indeed Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's street-theatre piece The Threepenny Opera has precisely the same ideal of breaking down traditional barriers, and if anything that's the real beauty of the work, and not a bad statement of intent either if you want to see it that way.

Brecht and Weill's The Threepenny Opera is just one in a long tradition of works that have brought a taboo-breaking common touch to opera. The Threepenny Opera was modelled on John Gay's The Beggar's Opera (1728), putting a glamorous criminal 'Mack the Knife' and the low-life of society at the heart of an opera, filling it with popular accessible music and bawdy scenes. If you want, you can go right back to Monteverdi's The Coronation of Poppea for similar daring shifts in the subject of opera to appeal to a wider audience, and you could take it right up to Thomas Adès's scandalous Powder her Face, a work which indeed has also recently made its mark in Belfast at the Lyric Theatre in an NI Opera production. In that respect, Walter Sutcliffe's production of The Threepenny Opera continues a tradition of exposing audiences to opera that challenges and entertains.

It's difficult then to judge a production of The Threepenny Opera by traditional standards. It has to be judged on its own terms, and perhaps its aims - to challenge and entertain - aren't so different from those presented to its original audience in Berlin in 1928. Leaving aside whether it really meets the criteria of opera - where boundaries are flexible and are still being pushed forward in works like Evan Gardner's Gunfighter Nation, where the musicians are also the dramatic and singing performers - the basic principle of putting on a show with musical numbers that tells a story is there in place in The Threepenny Opera, and it can be used as a means of expressing or exposing social attitudes or issues in the world today. Some things - money, greed, criminality, corruption - never change or go out of fashion, it seems.

Walter Sutcliffe makes perhaps only a token effort at any contemporary political or local social reference, but the nature and structure of the work itself with its Brechtian theatre innovations can be the best vehicle for making us think about what The Threepenny Opera tells us about the world today; ie. there's a lot of theatre involved. The focus then is rightly about making this an engaging piece of musical theatre with grotesque exaggerated characters, bold sets, colourful costumes, colourful language too and swinging musical numbers that, thanks to it becoming a swing standard over the years, even has an instantly recognisable bona-fide classic hit in its repertoire, the wonderful 'Mack the Knife'. If that doesn't draw you straight into The Threepenny Opera, nothing will.

There were perhaps just a little bit of self-consciousness and nerves early in the preview shows of the NI Opera production at the Lyric Theatre, but then director Walter Sutcliffe doesn't make it easy for the cast by making practically the entire stage a steep cabaret staircase with narrow steps for them to teeter down on heels while singing the famous opening number. Dorota Karolczak's sets and costumes however are entirely appropriate, telling us - as if it isn't already apparent from the garish costumes, heavy make-up and colourful wigs - that this is purely a theatrical confection; don't be expecting any hard-hitting social realism here. This is a show, and we're here to entertain you.

And although it might take a little while to warm to the exaggerated and unfamiliar form of 1920s German jazz-cabaret theatre, entertain it does. By the time we get to the conclusion, we've been caught up in the sordid little dealings and womanising polygamy of 'Mack the Knife' Macheath, the money-making exploitation of the poor beggars by Jonathan Peachum, the mistreatment of the Wapping prostitute Jenny Diver and her girls, the bribery and corruption of police superintendent Jackie 'Tiger' Brown and his officers, and even the compicity of the church is called out in Reverend Kimball's blessing of the union of Mack and Polly Peachum. There's plenty there played out in broad strokes to entertain, and if it no longer shocks in the same way, it's at least a shock that such goings-on are now nothing more than we've come to expect from celebrities, politicians and the establishment.

Other than the inclusion of the local vernacular, Sutcliffe is probably wise not to draw any obvious comparisons to current affairs and political events in the world today, in this particular work anyway. There's only one overt contemporary reference where the famous image of Syrian refugees marching into Europe is displayed. It's a reminder, in the spirit of the original, that even behind the fiction and glamour the dealings of this little group of individuals relies on the exploitation of the less fortunate masses whose fate is casually ignored. Mack being saved from the gallows at the final moment may be a moment of Brechtian theatre drawing attention to the artificiality of dramatic narrative, but in its own way it also points to the truth that those with power, money and influence write their own story and, unlike the people whose lives they destroy, they tend to come out of such scandals relatively unscathed.

Judging it by the casting alone, which is made up more of actors more familiarly seen on the Lyric stage than the Grand Opera House, The Threepenny Opera is more musical-theatre than opera in the traditional sense. That doesn't mean however that the standards that need to be met aren't just as high, nor that they weren't indeed met.  Even if there's a measure of musical-theatre belting it out, there were some very impressive singing performances. Jayne Wisener's Polly Peachum has a light voice, but it's sung in a way that was a perfect match for her character's delightfully ambiguous moral outlook, her calculated ruthlessness and casual indifference to all manner of criminal activity and moral depravity masked by a disarming sweetness. Brigid Shine's Lucy Brown showed an impressive range and control in her singing, again matching the feistiness of her character. Mark Dugdale has plenty of experience in music theatre and carried the role of Mack with a confident swagger and charm. Where caricature and exaggerated counted more than singing ability, Matthew 'Cherrie Ontop' Cavan's Mrs Peachum and Richard Croxford's scouse Jackie Brown all delivered wonderfully entertaining performances, and in baritone Steven Page's Jonathan Peachum you had the best of both disciplines.

Behind all the exaggeration and caricature, fleeting moments of human sentiment and character emerged, principally in the character of Jenny Diver, sensitively performed and well sung by Kerri Quinn. If The Threepenny Opera is to deliver that kind of range between crowd-pleasing belters and moments of quieter reflection it needs to be well managed from the point of view of the music. The musical rhythms are vital, charming and engaging, with unusual instrumentation and harmonies to throw us off and hint at an underlying unease and sleaze. Sinead Hayes brought that out with a somewhat more refined arrangement, the restraint allowing for greater emotional expression and sensitivity than you might expect from the smoky swagger of Kurt Weill's score. The placement of the orchestra to the wings of the staircase - all dressed in character - also provided a perfect balance and stereo separation between the music and the singing. Look out, old Macky is back.

Links: NI Opera, Lyric Theatre