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The Golden Cockerel

Company: Orchestra Vox | Venue: St John's Auditorium (Oxford)
Performed in Russian, with 'Active Surtitling'

Photos by Giacomo Giannelli

Director-Designer Jonny Danciger
Musical Director Hannah von Wiehler
Repetiteur 
Alina Sorokova
Producer/Russian Coach Anya Vlasenkova

Tsaritsa of Shemakha Holly Brown
Tsar Dodon Chris Murphy
Astrologer Javier Gonzalez
Golden Cockerel Antonida Kocharova
Amelfa Olivia Carstairs
General Polkan Ben Watkins
Tsarevitch Gvidon Archie Inns
Tsarevitch Afron Asta Mohapatra

An unexpected and startling delight. […] The words are inventively and exquisitely surtitled. Orchestra Vox are known for inventive staging, and this may be their most complicated and challenging piece yet.
Daily Info

Two hours of utter frivolity. Decisions in the production truly unlocked the joy of the opera itself […] this production knew how to have fun.
The Oxford Blue

Orchestra VOX’s performance wants to be more than just a rehashing of Rimsky-Korsakov’s early-20th-century criticisms. It pulls this censure into the present, using props and sets from across time to drive home the point that resistance to injustice should be universal. When audiences catch on to the glimmers of profound relevance that so often pop up throughout the opera, this relevance is reinforced by Orchestra VOX’s unique production choices.
ISIS Magazine

In Pushkin’s fairytale, a foolish Tsar and his brainwashed followers attempt to invade a neighbouring nation, calamitously losing their own kingdom in the process. Contemporary parallels are easily drawn, though the parable is much more than a critique of authoritarianism; it’s a statement about the transformative power of storytelling, music and comedy in adverse circumstances. As fits this message, it is absurdly hilarious.

This production creates a staged picture-book of Pushkin’s fairytale by projecting the surtitles onto the scenery directly around the performers. The action is presented as a series of dynamic tableaux, and since the text is so precisely placed around the singers, the comedy is able to punctuate with natural timing across languages.

As our ‘storyteller', the Astrologer appears as the leader of a boisterous touring theatre troupe. The stage is littered with unpacked flight cases and simple white fabrics; an empty space, awaiting a story. The flight cases and drapes are reconfigured to create thrones, tents, beds and battlefields, coming alive with projected text and colour as the story unfolds. From within the cases the costumes and props appear.

Embracing the act of ‘storytelling’ facilitates a non-specific approach to era, in which facetious visual references can be made across soviet and imperial Russian eras, contemporary society and traditional fairytales. This playful contrast of styles is heavily inspired by Monty Python (particularly The Holy Grail). The overarching device of the travelling theatre troupe ensures that the production remains cohesive despite such variations.

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