Rake's fall

A fat, lecherous knight gets his comeuppance when he is humiliated by two vengeful women — it is, of course, the story of the rakish Falstaff and the Merry Wives of Windsor, set to Verdi’s scintillating score and here given the Pimlico Opera treatment.

First unveiled by Daniel Slater at Grange Park, Hampshire, last summer, this production was revived earlier this year by Hazel Gould for the Nevill Holt Rising Stars programme, which offers performance opportunities for emerging young singers. Now out on tour, the opera comes to Chipping Norton next week for one night only as part of Pimlico Opera’s commitment to taking opera to the small-scale venues that are often bypassed by the mainstream opera companies.

“Our purpose is to get opera to as many places as possible,” Wasfi Kani, who founded Pimlico Opera in 1987, told me. “When we started there weren’t any small-scale touring companies; nobody was putting on operas in small venues. Our aim is that no one has to drive for more than 45 minutes to reach one of our productions.”

Early Pimlico productions were taken into some of the unlikeliest of places, from village halls to marquees, banks, castles and hospitals. But the unlikeliest venue of all, in 1990, was Wormwood Scrubs prison, which saw Pimlico Opera go behind bars to perform to the inmates. “At the end the prisoners stood up and cheered,” recalled Wasfi. “They couldn’t believe anybody would go to such trouble for them.”

It was the beginning of the Pimlico Opera prison project, which sees the company making annual visits to different prisons, where they form a rare collaboration with groups of prisoners who volunteer to appear on stage or work behind the scenes. For many prisoners, their involvement marks a turning point in their lives, as they discover new skills and new levels of self-esteem.

In 1998 Wasfi expanded the Pimlico portfolio by forming Grange Park Opera, a rural summer festival in the heart of Hampshire that uses well-known singers and is now an established part of the UK’s opera calendar. From this emerged the Rising Stars programme, which is based at Nevill Holt, the Leicestershire home of Carphone Warehouse co-founder, David Ross.

“Grange Park Opera is the main thing that we do, and it takes up a lot of our efforts,” explained Wasfi, “but we wanted to use younger singers as well, those aged around 30. Britain is brilliant at training singers but there aren’t a lot of opportunities, and the only way to get better as a singer is to perform and do tours. So these guys are still very good, but a bit younger than the performers at Grange Park.”

Heading the Falstaff cast is Swiss-born David-Alexandre Borloz, who began his musical training as a trumpeter before switching to singing. After training in Paris, he studied at the Guildhall in London and has recently been performing with Lausanne Opera.

“He has an incredibly classy, rounded bass-baritone voice,” commented Wasfi, “and he sings the role superbly.”

The Oxford-based tenor Patrick Ashcroft, who plays Fenton, came to singing comparatively late, after graduating with a first-class degree in maths and a PhD in astro physics from Cambridge. He then followed a rather more conventional path by enrolling on the post-graduate course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He is now particularly known for his love of the bel canto repertory, and has, according to Wasfi, “an incredible upper voice”.

Also in the cast are Emma Carrington (Mistress Quickly), Rebecca Cooper (Alice Ford) and James Cleverton (Ford), all recipients of the Susan Chilcott Scholarship, awarded in association with the Royal Philharmonic Society to enable talented young singers to continue their study.

“James is a very accomplished singer. He has to appear on stage wearing skimpy swimming trunks, so he’s not only got the trauma of having to learn this difficult role, but also making sure he doesn’t get fat!” laughed Wasfi.

“The girls have got very good voices, too. They’re all pro singers already, but they need the opportunity to take the next step in their careers.”

Gould’s production retains Slater’s 21st-century setting, which might deter the purists, but Wasfi insists that the idea works.

“It is quite a modern presentation — there’s not an Elizabeth ruff in sight! — but it sits with the opera perfectly. We often do very crazy productions, but to me it doesn’t matter how crazy it is, as long as the story is told clearly and the audience is able to engage emotionally with the performers. It mustn’t ever be trivialised.”

Pimlico Opera’s Falstaff is at The Theatre, Chipping Norton, on Friday, September 26, at 8pm, with a complimentary wine-tasting session from 7pm. Box office: 01608 642350. For more information about this and other Pimlico Opera projects, visit www.grangeparkopera.co.uk/ For a sneak preview, see clips on YouTube: www.youtube.com — enter falstaff + pimlico.