NZ Opera New Zealand Opera's production of Mansfield Park April 2024. Photo / Lewis Ferris
NZ Opera New Zealand Opera's production of Mansfield Park April 2024. Photo / Lewis Ferris
What: Mansfield Park
Where: Settlers Country Manor
When: Sunday
Reviewer: William Dart
Jane Austen herself might well have enjoyed NZ Opera’s Mansfield Park, Jonathan Dove and Alasdair Middleton’s clever operatic take on her novel, presented in the faux baronial hall of Waimāuku’s Settlers Country Manor.
It is a delicious piece;a Regency drawing room intrigue, accompanied by the four able hands of pianists David Kelly and Soomin Kim; and a showcase for 10 singers, all local apart from Australian mezzo Ashlyn Tymms, who brought her own resolute presence to the “Cinderella” role of Fanny.
Rebecca Meltzer’s incisive direction makes every movement count, as the action drifts from various ensembles through to its stirring, choral-strength finale.
Sarah Mileham (left) and Michaela Cadwgan in NZ Opera's Mansfield Park. Photo / Supplied
Jonathan Dove writes music with its own challenges and rewards. Joanna Foote, as Mary Crawford, totally at ease in coloratura heights, paints her character with wit and delicacy when pitching is lower.
Andrew Grenon combines deft comic timing and strong communicative singing as the bumbling Rushworth; and two younger members of the company, Sarah Mileham and Michaela Cadwgan, are the memorable Bertram sisters, Maria and Julia.
Robert Tucker brings a sonorous authority to Sir Thomas Bertram, while Kristin Darragh, as Lady Bertram, makes the most of the puppet pug in her arms, and reveals the darker side of the period’s cruel class system in just one small scene with Fanny.
NZ Opera's Mansfield Park. Photo / Supplied
Andrea Creighton’s fussy, flustering Aunt Norris, with a few extraordinary vocal flourishes, benefits from her decades of stage experience.
Mansfield Park is a big sing and a varied one — even if occasionally one wants a good solid aria or song to burst forth from piano underlay that could have slipped out from a Sondheim musical. Joel Amosa and Taylor Wallbank’s short Handelian vocal sparring is particularly appreciated.
NZ Opera’s use of out-of-the-way venues took its toll, alas, in restricted sightlines and surtitles available only on mobile phone. A mid-city venue with raked seating might have resulted in this excellent production sustaining a small season.
