What do you get when you cross songs by Mika, Frank Sinatra, a-ha and Whitney Houston with Mozart and Verdi? This is not a setup to a joke, but rather the premise of the barmy, chaotic, The Opera Locos from Spanish theatre company YLLANA.
There is a loosely threaded plot that can be easily followed even if you are not a theatre buff, largely thanks to the sweeping inclusion of iconic pop songs, impressively woven into operatic numbers. It centres upon the characters’ pursuits of love, primarily through worn-out tenor Alfredo (Jesús Álvarez), whose life is going nowhere, as is his cough-spluttering rendition of Nessun Dorma until his eye is caught by the sweet soprano Maria (María Rey-Joly).
Meanwhile, Michaël Koné’s flamboyant counter-tenor wrestles with both his relationships with love and music, complicated by his growing affection for baritone Enrique (Enrique Sánchez-Ramos), while madcap mezzo soprano Carmen (Mayca Teba) just wants affection from someone.
It is a short production (bolstered by a questionable 20-minute interval) that is as mad as it sounds. Characters fly in and out with great vigour, propelled by a good blend of musical choices and neat physical comedy. This is elevated by a simple yet effective set design (put together by Tatiana De Sarabia, David Ottone and Yeray González) which helps to elevate the piece’s vaudevillian style.
The combination of musical selections, interweaved by musical directors Marc Álvarez and Manuel Coves, is in places an inspired choice, with the combination of pop hits with iconic operatic numbers working surprisingly well. This helps to draw out some of the piece’s humorous moments, but also its most macabre, too, as Alfonso desperately, goofishly, belts out Sinatra’s My Way.
That said, some other areas feel a little tiresome. An extended routine of call-and-response feels wasted time given the piece’s brevity, and a number of scenes feel like replicas, often dragging the production into the audience.
Nevertheless, as an entry into operatic theatre, this is a good starting point. The performers’ impressive physical prowess, combined with terrific singing skills, make the musical numbers enjoyable and accessible, and although there are a couple of missteps, these are few and far between and do not dent the otherwise fiercely fun production. The Opera Locos promises chaos, and it unquestionably delivers it.
This review was originally written for The Reviews Hub: https://www.thereviewshub.com/yllana-the-opera-locos-sadlers-wells-theatre-london/
