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The Guardian
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
County cricket: One-Day Cup off to a good start despite shameful neglect
You might not have heard of Garsington Opera, but you may have heard of its nextdoor neighbour, Paul Getty's celebrated cricket ground. Both are on the Wormsley Estate, simultaneously just off the M1 and a world away. Not all country house opera venues are as closely linked to cricket as this one, but there are other parallels. Both depend on weather to some extent – even the lovely Opera Holland Park is rather different in the golden hour if it's raining – and both aren't quite as middle-aged and middle class as you might suspect, especially if you look into their community work. And both play an important role in developing the superstars of the future. Country house opera survives, thrives even, because it accepts what it is (i.e. not the Royal Opera House or the New York Met); it provides a distinctive all-day experience, integrating festival elements with the main attraction; and it markets itself to its niche audience effectively. Watching the live streams of the One-Day Cup largely from out grounds last week, it struck me that there's a template to explore there. That's if domestic 50-over cricket survives at all. The loss of David Lawrence is still felt sharply at Gloucestershire and it's hard not to think that those beautiful photos of him with the Blast trophy last autumn may be inspiring his club towards another trophy this season. Perhaps that's for the romantics, but the One Day Cup is where we fools gather in August and Gloucestershire sit top of Group A with the only played three, won three record in the country. Zaman Akhter's pace has been key to those three victories, his four wickets between the 37th and 41st overs in the opener against Derbyshire destroying the chase just as it was about to launch. He's going to Essex next summer, quitting the club along with Ajeet Singh Dale (Lancashire) and Tom Price and Dom Goodman (Sussex). Tough times in Bristol. So lots of work to do in the academy and on recruitment, but might it just free the minds of those departing players? Eliminating the fear of failure has proved successful in Test cricket after all. The other 100% record in the group belongs to Hampshire, whose two wins have been built on centuries from Nick Gubbins and Joe Weatherley, but also on a less eye-catching aspect of white-ball cricket. In each of their matches, six bowlers have chipped in with a wicket, eight in total across the two games. Only one of them, 16-year-old Manny Lumsden, is going at above 7.5 per over and the kid got three of Glamorgan's top five out on debut, so let's cut him some slack. Having options in the field across the long stretch of 50 overs is crucial for captains and Gubbins has them. It's also a lot of fun for fans to see occasional bowlers and kids such as Lumsden given a proper go with proper fields and not just one before lunch, in hastening a declaration or when the opposition are playing out a draw. In Group B, Yorkshire lead the way with two wins from two, Warwickshire and Northamptonshire their victims. Their top scorer in both matches (55 and 159) is Imam-ul-Haq. That does raise a question – and I pose this as a longstanding supporter of overseas players in the domestic game. Should we praise Yorkshire for finding such a good player, one who provides a role model for communities with whom they desperately need to build bridges? Or do we lament the presence of a man with more than 100 appearances for Pakistan in a competition with so many young pros trying to make their way in the game? I tend to the former, but I'm unsure. If there was an easy way to ringfence XIs so such imbalances could be avoided, I suspect I could be persuaded otherwise. A fine game of cricket at Taunton saw Somerset lose after two wins and Lancashire notch a first win after an abandonment in their opener. All eyes were on the Rew brothers after their sparkling starts to the tournament. We all know that James is a huge prospect, but 17-year-old Thomas was spectacular against Durham, looking, already, to have everything a player needs to succeed at the highest level. But they couldn't make it three in a row, both failing as Lancashire, steered by skipper Marcus Harris and George Balderson, at 24, the experienced pro in the middle order, got the visitors over the line, eight down. What of Rocky Flintoff I hear you ask? Well, he's been wearing a hi-vis vest over adverts for crisps instead of developing his game. He'll likely be doing the same tomorrow instead of playing in a Roses match at York. Riddle me that. The media does not have its priorities right when it comes to cricket. At the time of writing, the BBC cricket page has two round-ups of the One-Day Cup action and 33 stories about The Hundred. It is not the only culprit, but it is the publicly funded national broadcaster, not a private cheerleader for a business enterprise. I've tried to avoid the regular articles published at this time of year that denigrate the standard of play and absence of stars in the 50-overs competition, but I have seen one. They are as tedious as the 'one man and a dog' pieces that used to greet the start of the County Championship – but you don't see so many of them now the online viewing and listening figures are available. Players, sponsors and, most of all, fans deserve a bit of respect. We'll be here long after The Hundred goes the way of the Stanford Super Series. This article is from The 99.94 Cricket Blog
The Guardian
15-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Rodelinda review – powerplay and pig's blood in thrillingly energised Handel
Handel's operas don't stage themselves. In her new production of Rodelinda for Garsington Opera, the director Ruth Knight has to grapple, like those before her, with the need to balance the tone, taking the story and its unlikely curveballs seriously enough to make us care, and yet finding enough levity to entertain. By and large she succeeds – but even if not everything we see on stage convinces, what we hear certainly does. The cast, led by Lucy Crowe's powerhouse Rodelinda and Tim Mead's gloriously rich-toned Bertarido, is first-rate, the playing of the English Concert thrillingly energised. Conducted by Peter Whelan, they support the singers yet never give the impression of holding back. Leslie Travers' set brings the bones of the Garsington Opera pavilion on to the stage, with the same steel beams and glass panels that are all around us creating two levels of playing area. At the top there are three groves of green trees, one for each of the royal siblings whose power plays, depicted in the busy overture, have led to the opera's starting point; all have turned to ash by Act three. It mostly works well, but can feel cramped, with the tallest dancer's head missing the girders by only inches. Those dancers are the usurper Grimoaldo's staff: a dozen or so creepy ninja-like attendants who move like snakes or birds. Sometimes they fight; more often they lurk, staring – a pack of velociraptors who are not quite hungry yet, but will be soon. Crowe's Rodelinda takes several of them down in her first rage aria, whirling her sword like Uma Thurman as the Bride, but in gold silk trousers rather than a yellow boiler suit; later she'll drink blood squeezed from a pig's heart before popping out high notes like little explosions. What with those attendants and this heroine – not to mention the deliciously devilish villainy of Grimoaldo's ambitious adviser Garibaldo, smoothly sung by the bass-baritone Brandon Cedel – the feeling of menace and high stakes is taken care of. As for the counterbalance, there are surprisingly generous touches of lightness, the best of which come courtesy of Ed Lyon's Grimoaldo, a perfectly judged portrayal full of lightly worn swagger and increasing self-pity, or from the Unulfo of the impressive young countertenor Hugh Cutting, a kind of friend to all sides who slouches amiably around, ciggie in hand; at the end there's a cute but superfluous suggestion that he's a guardian angel who's just earned his wings. Why Bertarido's disguise should be quite so comically sparkly and camp is anyone's guess, though, and it rather undermines the opera's hero. Still, perhaps that is Knight's point: often this opera can feel like it should be called Bertarido, but this time it's definitely Rodelinda who is centre stage. At Garsington Opera, Buckinghamshire, until 19 July
Times
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
The Queen of Spades review — Tchaikovsky's chiller comes up trumps
A hall of foxed mirrors designed by Tom Piper enfolds the cast of Garsington Opera's new production of Tchaikovsky's chiller, the effect part Versailles, part haunted fairground. It's the first sign that Jack Furness's staging is something of a collector's item among productions of The Queen of Spades. We're actually in the period the composer imagined, the 1790s, in the St Petersburg of Empress Catherine the Great. Tchaikovsky venerated Mozart, and Furness's insightful and pacey show is in some ways a kind of nightmare Marriage of Figaro, with aristocrats and underlings jockeying for position, acrimony seeping through a society of snobs, hypocrites and chancers. 'What is our life? A game!' the tormented antihero Herman will conclude at the tragic close. A game of cards, but also a game of dress-up, role play and buried identities. • The best musical, dance and theatre shows to book now Furness's show — excuse the pun — really shows its hand in the Pastorale, a play within a play at the midpoint of the opera, featuring an increasingly risqué ballet (clever choreography by Lucy Burge) in which all kinds of seduction are on the cards. The cast start to reveal their true colours too: Robert Hayward's powerfully empathetic Tomsky — a character who usually is the wry, grizzled type — clearly has unfinished romantic history with the bottled-up Prince Yeletsky (Roderick Williams). Stephanie Wake-Edwards's forceful yet thwarted Polina is pining for Laura Wilde's Lisa. And who knows what the old Countess really means when she starts reminiscing about her youthful fraternising with Madame de Pompadour? Tchaikovsky (and for that matter his librettist brother Modest) both wrestled with repressed homosexuality, but whereas Covent Garden's last production of The Queen of Spades turned the entire show into a nightmare Freudian autobiography, Furness pulls these strings far more subtly. So much for rococo spice. For all the Mozartian tints to his opera, however, Tchaikovsky's score practically throbs with anguish and ardour, and the propulsive playing of the Philharmonia — particularly its velvety strings — add the essential heat. Douglas Boyd's perceptive conducting is full of disconcerting details, including the eerie threnody that opens Act III. The tormented Herman is a beast of a role. The forceful Aaron Cawley certainly chews into it — and then some — though by the end of the night the tenor was tending to wiry and strident. Wilde is an affecting, vocally polished Lisa, and (replacing Diana Montague at this performance) Harriet Williams caught the acidulous ennui of the Countess. Nobody sounded more polished, however, than Roderick Williams's heartfelt Yeletsky, who delivered his noble aria with memorable and moving grace. ★★★★☆ 270min (includes dinner interval) To July 4, To be broadcast on Radio 3 in October
Telegraph
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
The Queen of Spades, Garsington: Romantic despair and mad obsession – with a strong whiff of sulphur
After the bright daylight and saucy flirtations of Garsington Opera's season-opener The Elixir of Love, their second night plunged us into romantic despair and mad obsession, with a strong whiff of sulphur. The titular Queen of Spades in Tchaikovsky's great opera is an elderly Russian countess who has the secret for winning cards, but it's a secret that will bring death to anyone who learns it. For the opera's bitter anti-hero Herman the way to that secret lies through the Countess's niece Lisa. But perhaps love for her will rescue him from his mad obsession? That's the intimate heart of the opera, but as this fabulous new production makes clear the story is rooted in the tensions of Russian society. Director Jack Furness and designer Tom Piper summon that world's luxuriant, telling detail as well as its huge epic sweep and barely concealed brutality. In the barracks at the very beginning we see some lads playing soldiers. It's charming, and the excellent Garsington Opera Children's Chorus savour the Russian words. But when one of them falls down the others give his head a good kicking. Later, when we see Herman explaining his infatuation with the socially unattainable Lisa to his good friend Tomsky, he gets contemptuous looks from the strolling St Petersburg high society, who admire themselves in the mottled mirrored detachable walls that make up the set. These spin round to reveal previously hidden worlds. It might be the make-believe of a Rococo theatre-in-a-theatre, or the grim cramped barracks where Herman dreams his dream of infinite wealth. This picturesque but fundamentally grim world is enlivened by the dancers in the ball scenes and above all by Garsington's lavish 32-strong chorus, breathtakingly vigorous whether they're playing eager gamblers round the gambling-table or the Countess's chattering servants. Tchaikovsky's blazing score, which ranges from Mozartian pastiche to Russian charm to the tremor and shriek of the supernatural is brought to vivid life by the Philharmonia Orchestra under Garsington's musical director Douglas Boyd. However the couple at the opera's heart are not quite so strong. Laura Wilde as Lisa has an impressive flaring voice but her performance felt rather dramatically tepid, and though Aaron Cawley's dark-grained baritone seemed right for Herman's obsession one missed a sense of that countervailing tenderness for Lisa that might have saved him. The circle of army friends around Herman were more convincingly portrayed, above all gravel-voiced Robert Hayward as the jovial, ever-optimistic Tomsky. Roderick Williams as the stuffed-shirt Prince Yelestsky who loses out to the romantically fascinating Herman provided the subtlest singing of the performance, in his aria of dignified heartbreak. However the evening's most spell-binding moment came from Diana Montague as the Countess, alone in her bedroom, recalling her young days in Paris when she learned the secret of the 'three cards'. On opening night, when the lights fell and the orchestral sound dropped to a whisper, you could feel everyone lean forward to catch the old witch's secrets. Sometimes the best moments at the opera are the quietest.
