Opera North – Ruddigore or, The Witch’s Curse: Review

There are likely many reasons why Ruddigore is one of the lesser performed works of Gilbert and Sullivan. But audience enjoyment is not one of them.

There was a palpable lightness in the Lowry’s large Lyric auditorium for Opera North’s high energy revival, which packages absurdity and wit alongside some tongue-twisting patter songs and a stunning set.

While the staging doesn’t quite take us back as far as the Victorian era in which the operetta was written, the whole experience is like stepping back in time, which only enriches the escapist experience.

The 2010 production by Jo Davies, now revived by James Hurley, is set in the silent movie era of the 1920s. This makes for a clever explanatory device at the start, with a black and white projected prologue during the overture setting the scene for what is to follow.
The story itself, silly as it is, is easy to follow. The show is part speaking and part sung in English, with surtitles at the side of the stage allowing the audience to catch even the fastest of rhymes.

The witch’s curse of the title falls to the Baronet of Ruddigore, and all who hold that title after him. The family curse forces him to commit a crime every day – most of which are comical like poking a Punch and Judy puppeteer through the curtain – or else face an agonising death. The hero, Robin Oakapple (Dominic Sedgewick), let his family think he was dead to escape the curse. Soon the world is upside down as Oakapple is forced to reveal his true identity as Ruthven Murgatroyd and take on the villainous curse, which at one point even involves some topical lyrical changes with both main political parties in the firing line.

The action swiftly moves from bedroom to coast, chapel to stately gallery – an impressive scene where the ghosts of Murgatroyd’s ancestors climb from their frames to haunt him to more evil ways.

There are a host of other colourful characters from Rose Maybud (Amy Freston) whose swinging moral compass is directed by a book of etiquette, and Mad Margaret (Helen Evora) who can only be pacified by hearing the word, ‘Basingstoke’. All involved are excellent – singers and orchestra.

It is imaginative, cheekily wicked, and most of all fun.

Ruddigore was at The Lowry on 14 November 2024.