Last night I went to part of the Beggar's Opera. Contrary to the name, it is apparently a musical (Opera being defined as a theatrical production entirely in song). I was able to attend because of the generous attentions of my friend J., who has been mentioned here before.
We ended up missing the first act because we were late, but two in our party of five went in a separate car and made it barely in time. Those of us left behind waited the 45 minutes or so until the first intermission. When the other two got out, they had nothing positive to say. They left. The three of us then sat through the second act.
It was bad. Hideous, even.
There were some exceptions, but the acting was pretty bad. What really broke it for me, though, was the singing. There were several moments where the singing was out of step with the orchestra. This was bad enough, but during the one or two a capella bits, the songs were so out of pitch that I had to cringe.
The staging was pretty bad, too. During one scene which supposedly took place in a jail cell, two characters sort of came on to the stage at the far end, far from the action, and sort of looked on for a bit. Then they left. I don't know what it was supposed to mean, if anything other than, "there's some stage space, let's fill it."
Maybe part of the problem is that operatic singing is extremely challenging and there just aren't enough people with the skill around here. Of course, the skill necessary was nowhere near something like Aida, Il trovatore, or Rigoletto, but there were some challenging riffs the actors were clearly struggling with.
Frankly, I don't know what needed to happen in that production. More rehearsal? Better direction? More voice practice? All three? I'm not saying I could do it better, 'cause I couldn't. Of course, you don't see me up there on stage. Needless to say, I'll be cautious in the future. At this point, I just feel bad that my friend had to pay for the tickets. Maybe I can come up with something to make it up to her.
