Under the guiding hand of Jack Furness, this new production brings out all the surreal joy of Gerald Barry’s operatic adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s celebrated satire. It’s a first for Garsington, though London audiences may already be familiar with this 90-minute makeover through performances at Covent Garden’s Linbury Studio (2013) and the Barbican (2016). Earlier, the work’s world premiere was in Los Angeles in 2011. If the opera still divides opinion, Stephen Fry once suggested it was the equivalent of “taking a machete to a soufflé”, one can only admire this staging’s level of directorial imagination and the sheer vitality of performances. Anarchic it all may be, but the fun factor is off the scale and, arguably, nowhere better for country house presentation.
Even if you don’t come away humming any of Barry’s tunes, you’ll remember those he’s borrowed, principally ‘Auld Lang Syne’ and Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’, both grafted on to his hyperactive score with its stylistic fusion redolent of Charles Ives. Barry’s radical score deliberately cocks a snook at operatic convention with its collision of serialism and Music Hall, its splicing of Schoenbergian Sprechstimme and Vaudeville, while players from the Philharmonia are required to whistle, stamp their feet and, at one point, shout “Where is that baby?” Yet this musical merry-go-round is the work’s rhythmic (if not melodic) motor underpinning all its parody. Maybe the notorious scene of 40 dinner plates being smashed with great solemnity during the frosty exchanges between Gwendolen (Holly Brown) and Cecily (Jennifer France), communicated via megaphones, was enough to goad Fry’s jibe. Or, perhaps it was the counter-intuitive vocal delivery where Barry wilfully upends our expectations in what some might consider an act of cultural vandalism by emphasising the weak part of a word with an abrupt stress or upward octave shift. But for all that, the musical absurdity brilliantly enhances Wilde’s social comedy.
And before anyone has sung a note, Francis O’Connor’s set designs lampoon upper class living with a ludicrously elongated chaise longue resembling a grotesque tongue, or a children’s slide, as it snakes its way around the stage towards the pit. The floor resembles a giant sand pit, further suggesting that the world in which adults live is more like a playground. If it brings reminiscences of Monty Python’s zany antics, the tomfoolery is amplified by an elevated grand piano perched on stilts with Algeron (a pyjama-clad Seán Boylan) poised to play at the beginning of the work. Stage left stands the manservant Lane – a poker-faced Peter Lidbetter – who inhabits his own ‘kitchenette’ to make cucumber sandwiches, tea and cake.
Then there are Hannah Wolfe’s outlandish costumes with Cecily looking like a frilly cupcake and then a pink blancmange. Gwendolen dons a lime green outfit, while Jack Worthing (Zahid Siddiqui) sports a tangerine waistcoat. Only Lane and Miss Prism (Susan Bickley) appear in sensible attire matching their position in the social hierarchy. Best of all is Henry Waddington’s bearded and imperious Lady Bracknell – morphing from charcoal grey trouser suit to a leather and latex number, not so far removed from a figure in a kinky movie – without a doubt the most inspired of Barry’s creations. Elsewhere, cabbages are hurled across the stage at the mention of the French Revolution, a kangaroo springs into action following a reference to Australia and Dr Chasuble (Kevin Whately) makes his first entrance as a beekeeper. Other madcap moments include Lane directing a hosepipe at Jack and Cecily and pouring tea into her bathtub.
With so much to catch the eye, the singing almost became secondary. But Barry’s formidable vocal demands are handsomely met, most astonishingly by Jennifer France for Cecily’s vocal acrobatics, her pure tones sashaying the coloratura with ease. Both Zahid Siddiqui and Seán Boylan make the best of their lyrical and declaimed passages, superbly skilled at Wilde’s one-liners and various platform stunts. Holly Brown fully persuades as Gwendolen and makes us think she really could be like her mother, while Susan Bickley’s gravelly Miss Prism subtly points to her guilty secret. Not least is Henry Waddington whose basso profundo growls through Wilde’s denunciations and Beethoven’s percussive setting of Schiller.
To one side of the stage Douglas Boyd directs a chamber ensemble of players from the Philharmonia, navigating with his customary precision the score’s constant changes of metre and texture, while enabling a seamless stylistic journey, its virtuosity deftly handled. This production is an absolute must for the first-time opera goer. You can decide for yourselves if a machete has been taken to a soufflé.
David Truslove
The Importance of Being Earnest
Music: Gerald Barry
Libretto: Gerald Barry adapted from Oscar Wilde
Cast and Production Staff:
Algernon Moncrieff – Seán Boylan; Lane – Peter Lidbetter; Jack Worthing – Zahid Siddiqui; Lady Bracknell – Henry Waddington; Gwendolen Fairfax – Holly Brown; Miss Prism – Susan Bickley; Cecily Cardew – Jennfer France; The Revd Dr. Chasuble – Kevin Whately; Actors – Nikki Cheung, Samuel Collins-Webb, Jonathan Milton
Director – Jack Furness; Set Designer – Francis O’Connor; Costumes – Hannah Wolfe; Lighting – Paul Pyant; Movement – Rebecca Meltzer; Philharmonia Orchestra; Conductor – Douglas Boyd
Garsington Opera, Wormsley Estate, Buckinghamshire, 10 July 2026
All photos © Richard Hubert-Smith