Coraline
June 24, 2018
Show: Coraline
Type: Opera
Venue: The Barbican
Date: Wednesday 4thApril 2018
Seen with: Tout Seule
Ticket: £57
View: Middle of the stalls, so pretty darn good!
Cast: The Royal Opera; the woman playing the Mother/Other Mother had lost her voice so she walked the role and it was sung by another lady off to the side of the stage. I think they said something about her learning the music in an afternoon or a day or something like that. In any case, it was very impressive.
Verdict: Coraline was one of the shows that I was so excited for that I didn’t really do any research, I just bought a ticket. It booked out pretty quickly, so I ended up paying more than I usually would for the ticket, but did end up with a pretty great seat.
I struggled with the show at first, but that’s completely on me. See, for some reason, I went in expecting the same or similar music to the Coralinefilm, which is composed by the wonderful Bruno Coulais. He composed some of my favourite soundtracks, not justCoraline, but Les Choristes, The Secret of Kells, and Song of the Sea. His music is full of children’s choirs, made up languages, building harmonies, and it’s melodic. Above all, it’s melodic. It may contain strange and unsettling melodies at times, but it’s melodic.
The Royal Opera’s Coralinewas not melodic. Thanks to one of my past students (Hi Glenn!) who insisted on doing his exam program on music one year, I know enough to say that the music was dissonant. Which is to say, sounds that don’t seem to fit together and kind of sound wrong together. Sounds that you want to move or change so that they do sound right together. At least, that’s my understanding. If anyone would like to offer up a more clear explanation, please feel free!
Anyway, the music was dissonant, the whole way through. Which was fine, and I certainly see why – Coralineis a dissonant kind of story. It did just take me till part way into the first act to get my head around it. Once I did, I could see exactly how and why decisions about the composition had been made. And I enjoyed it, I did! The set was great, swinging from one side to the other to let Coraline through the doors. Miss Spink and Miss Forcible were very funny, played to the hilt by their actors even though one of them was suffering from a cold at the time. The Other Mother’s hand was properly terrifying when it got severed and came out to chase Coraline around the room. The mirror world in which the other children were trapped was appropriately spooky, and the stage effects showed a professionalism and restraint that comes from an experienced production team, which is always nice to see.
And yet… I don’t know, I just felt that there was more that could’ve been done. If the music had switched from dissonant to melodic when Coraline entered the Other Mother’s world it would’ve been an appropriately eerie touch. Obviously Coraline couldn’t have been played by a younger singer, the role was too challenging for that, but the result was someone playing a child who didn’t appear to have ever interacted with a child in real life. Every stereotypical pout and stomped foot pulled just a little at that feeling of reality that a really good show maintains effortlessly.
Overall, a very interestingproduction, and I do use that in all senses of the word. I know a lot of people took their children to see Coraline, and there were certainly a lot of children on the night that I went. I don’t know that I would’ve enjoyed it when I was a child – I don’t think I would’ve understand what they were trying to do with the music. And seeing as the Other Mother’s hand properly freaked me out at 28, it’s probably a good thing I didn’t see it as a child after all…
I struggled with the show at first, but that’s completely on me. See, for some reason, I went in expecting the same or similar music to the Coralinefilm, which is composed by the wonderful Bruno Coulais. He composed some of my favourite soundtracks, not justCoraline, but Les Choristes, The Secret of Kells, and Song of the Sea. His music is full of children’s choirs, made up languages, building harmonies, and it’s melodic. Above all, it’s melodic. It may contain strange and unsettling melodies at times, but it’s melodic.
The Royal Opera’s Coralinewas not melodic. Thanks to one of my past students (Hi Glenn!) who insisted on doing his exam program on music one year, I know enough to say that the music was dissonant. Which is to say, sounds that don’t seem to fit together and kind of sound wrong together. Sounds that you want to move or change so that they do sound right together. At least, that’s my understanding. If anyone would like to offer up a more clear explanation, please feel free!
Anyway, the music was dissonant, the whole way through. Which was fine, and I certainly see why – Coralineis a dissonant kind of story. It did just take me till part way into the first act to get my head around it. Once I did, I could see exactly how and why decisions about the composition had been made. And I enjoyed it, I did! The set was great, swinging from one side to the other to let Coraline through the doors. Miss Spink and Miss Forcible were very funny, played to the hilt by their actors even though one of them was suffering from a cold at the time. The Other Mother’s hand was properly terrifying when it got severed and came out to chase Coraline around the room. The mirror world in which the other children were trapped was appropriately spooky, and the stage effects showed a professionalism and restraint that comes from an experienced production team, which is always nice to see.
And yet… I don’t know, I just felt that there was more that could’ve been done. If the music had switched from dissonant to melodic when Coraline entered the Other Mother’s world it would’ve been an appropriately eerie touch. Obviously Coraline couldn’t have been played by a younger singer, the role was too challenging for that, but the result was someone playing a child who didn’t appear to have ever interacted with a child in real life. Every stereotypical pout and stomped foot pulled just a little at that feeling of reality that a really good show maintains effortlessly.
Overall, a very interestingproduction, and I do use that in all senses of the word. I know a lot of people took their children to see Coraline, and there were certainly a lot of children on the night that I went. I don’t know that I would’ve enjoyed it when I was a child – I don’t think I would’ve understand what they were trying to do with the music. And seeing as the Other Mother’s hand properly freaked me out at 28, it’s probably a good thing I didn’t see it as a child after all…
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