Around the World in Eighty Minutes

Around the World in Eighty Minutes (and a bit!)

newLOG Spring Concert – Riverhead Theatre, Louth – Saturday, 28th February 2009

The New London Opera Group achieved another great Louth success with their latest spring concert at the Riverhead Theatre on Saturday, February 28th. Despite the economic gloom, the audience was larger than for recent spring concerts and they were warmly appreciative of newLOG’s latest offering.

Unlike previous concerts, which have been based around particular repertoires (Viennese or French operettas, or G&S), this year’s concert was based on the concept of an operatic circumnavigation, very much in the manner of Jules Verne’s hero Philleas Fogg. This allowed for a very broad range of repertoire, ranging from nineteenth and early twentieth century operettas, through musical comedy to the musical theatre of the 1950s. A number of composers were featured, many for the first time by newLOG, including Sigmund Romberg, Edward German, Sidney Jones and Lionel Monkton.

The route of this musical journey began with the patriotic “Yeomen of England” from Merrie England, before crossing the channel to Paris, the Riviera, over the Alps to Vienna, the Tyrol and Venice, including a sneak preview of this summer’s tour of The Gondoliers. The audience was then taken down through the Balkans to Greece and across the Mediterranean to North Africa and Egypt, ending the first half in old Persia. The second part of the concert began in China with the old warhorse “You are my heart’s delight” from The Land of Smiles, before taking in Japan, the South Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean; finally ending with an upbeat medley from The Arcadians to celebrate our safe return to London.

The six singers performed the entire concert off book and most numbers were semi-staged with props and items of costume. The singers were Graham Rogers (bass), Chris Cann (baritone), Robert Felstead (tenor – in his first Louth spring concert), Kirsti Whitlocke and Kirsty Bennett (mezzo-sopranos) and newLOG debutante Katherine Graham (soprano). The concert was accompanied by Paul Guinery, who also introduced the numbers with witty spoken links. The audience clearly enjoyed the programme and each member of the cast had their share of highlights, including Katie’s serene “Roses from the Tyrol” (from Zeller’s The Bird Seller); Kirsty’s heartfelt “Vilja” (Lehár’s Merry Widow); Kirsti’s bravura fan-work in “I’m the smartest little geisha in Japan” (Jones’ The Geisha); Rob’s nostalgic “Vienna mine” (Kálmán’s Countess Maritza); Graham’s deliciously cheeky “Cleopatra” (Julian Slade’s Salad Days) and Chris’s bitterly cynical “Lagoon Waltz” (Strauss’s A Night in Venice). The concert closed with a sequence of numbers from Lionel Monkton’s hit Edwardian musical comedy, The Arcadians, in this its centenary year. The rousing final chorus of “All down Piccadilly-dilly-dilly” proved a thrilling conclusion to the concert, and at the curtain, the audience demanded an encore. Staying “at home”, the cast obliged with the comedy sextet “There’s no place like England” from Offenbach’s Robinson Crusoe.