DGWGO’s RB was very kindly invited by Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival to their launch last Friday ( 16/5/14 at Easterbrook Hall , This was then Followed by Madama Butterfly ,Opera in the Round .
For those of you who know me in person , you may not think Opera was my bag . But Thanks to the fantastic Dumfries and Galloway Arts festival bringing opera to the region as part of their festival programme I have now been twice and loved it both times !
Last year the team at DGAF brought the team from Opera a La Carte to Perform ‘Carmen’ which was wonderful , colourful, loud and very gripping . This year they topped that with the beautiful but sad love story ‘Madama Butterfly’ by Giacoma Puccini .
The Easterbrook Hall is the perfect setting for this ‘In the round’ production , which basically means the audience surround a stage in the centre of the room and the Opera is performed on centre stage and the surrounding area , which really makes the crowd feel part of the production and makes for a very intimate show . On Friday the Hall was filling up very nicely with a capacity crowd of 350 folk coming to spectate at this years Performance . You could feel a wonderful atmosphere in there , with the chatter and buzz and the smoke machines starting to blow a mist onto the central stage . I loved watching the small orchestra preparing to start the musical extravaganza , which we were sat very close to .
With the opera being sung completely in Italian it is handy to know a little bit about the story , so you know the basics , luckily the programme does give you the outline , but myself and LC my guest for the evening ( who is Italian) had done our homework and knew the gist of what was going on . That’s all you need , even though the operatic singing is Italian , music is for all to listen to , and between the music telling the story , the tempo and rhythm carrying you away , the sound of the singing voices no matter what language let you know the mood, the tragedy, the joy , the sadness and the truth of the story.
The story of Madama Butterfly is a love tragedy , set in Japan in the early 1900’s ,based on the love story of Pinkerton a navy Officer and Cio-Cio-san a Geisha girl ( Madama Butterfly) , the story has everything , it has love , joy, drinking, partying , friendship , loyalty and betrayal ,birth and death . It’s a real emotional roller coaster of an opera , and will pull you in and grip you right to the very end !
The team and crew from Opera a La Carte travel the world performing , and really are something very special to see live . I do so hope that they come back next year , and show us another one of their very well presented and totally mesmerizing Operatic Shows .
For full Dumfries and Galloway arts festival listings please go to www.dgwgo.com/events
or http://www.dgartsfestival.org.uk/
Review by R.B
Pictures taken with kind permission of Opera a La Carte by R.B Photography
