Composer: Errollyn Wallen
Director: Sarah Baxter
The Solstice Arts Centre celebrates the twentieth edition of Culture Night this evening with a free performance of Opera Collective Ireland’s Cautionary Tales. Written by the award-winning British composer, Errollyn Wallen, the opera cantata showcases five of the politician and poet Hilaire Belloc’s witty but terrifying, warning stories for misbehaving children.
A superb cast includes baritone, Dylan Rooney, soprano, Eiméar Harper, mezzo-soprano, Leanne Fitzgerald and tenor, William Pearson. We first meet the quartet in their gloriously colourful bedroom, dressed in eye-catching pyjamas. To a wonderfully eclectic score supported by just three musicians playing piano, cello, guitar, timpani, bass drums, glockenspiel and tubular bells, the singers marshal us through a series of unfortunate events.
Disruptive Rebecca, is an “aggravating” child who “would deliberately go and slam the door like billy-o!” She perishes “miserably” when a marble bust falls on her head. Mathilda tells “dreadful lies” and is “burned to death” when a fire breaks out and she is disbelieved. Jim never does as he is told. He is eaten by a lion when he runs away from his nurse at the Zoo. Henry King “who chewed bits of string” suffers an agonising death after painful knots form in his stomach. And finally, George proves that “little boys should not be given dangerous toys” when he causes an explosion and the house collapses.
This production is first-rate. A marvellously platformed hexagonal stage is edged with led strips whose colour change with every scene. Bulbs light up sequentially in conjunction with piano notes, and flash to accentuate loud bangs (Zia Bergin-Holly). Costumes (Jenny Whyte) and sets are dazzling and props, such as a fake moustache on a stick to denote a parent, are cleverly utilised and conceived. Direction (Sarah Baxter) and choreography are impeccable. Each of the performers is outstanding, both musically and dramatically, in their roles.
Through no fault of the cast, the show’s only weakness is a lack of coherency in the delivery of the tales themselves. Introducing children to opera through storytelling is a most worthy endeavour and I imagine OCI’s previous production of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was a great success, but I’m not sure Belloc’s poems, which were published in 1907, are an appropriate choice.
Despite the beautiful, multi-sensory extravaganza the younger members of our audience enjoyed this evening, the Edwardian satirical verse sung through the medium of opera may have been a little too sophisticated for them to fully grasp. A simple fix would be for parents to read the Cautionary Tales to their children in advance of the performance.
All in all, however, this is a wonderful theatrical outing for all the family.
Runs Until 21 Sept 2025.
