Jonathan Dove & Alasdair Middleton’s Itch return to Opera Holland Park exhibits it’s greater than a rattling good yarn

Jonathan Dove: Itch – Xavier Hetherington – Opera Holland Park (Picture: Craig Fuller)

Jonathan Dove & Alasdair Middleton: Itch; Xavier Hetherington, Natasha Agarwal, Rebecca Bottone, Victoria Simmonds, Eric Greene, Robert Burt, James Corridor, director: Stephen Barlow, Metropolis of London Sinfonia, conductor: Matt Scott Rogers; Opera Holland Park
Reviewed 6 June 2025

Dove’s Itch returns with Xavier Hetherington efficiently drawing us into the participating mixture of household , heroes and villains, and mythic drama with actual emotional resonance

Jonathan Dove‘s Itch, with libretto by Alasdair Middleton primarily based on Simon Mayo‘s books, debuted at Opera Holland Park in 2023 [see my review] in a manufacturing by Stephen Barlow. This has now been revived as Opera Holland Park’s second manufacturing of its 2025 season. Matt Scott Rogers (assistant conductor in 2023) conducts the Metropolis of London Sinfonia, this time Xavier Hetherington as Itch (Itchingham Lofte), additionally new to the forged was James Corridor as Cake and Berghahn, plus Natasha Agarwal, Rebecca Bottone, Victoria Simmonds, Eric Greene, Nicholas Garrett and Robert Burt returning to their roles. We caught the second efficiency on 6 June 2025.

I’ve by no means learn Simon Mayo’s books, however Alasdair Middleton and Jonathan Dove have created a rattling good yarn that manages to bowl alongside, carrying you away with it, rooting for the nice characters and desirous to boo the unhealthy ones. Even second time round, once we knew what was coming, the work drew you in and the ending when Eric Greene’s Nicholas Lofte (Itch’s father) rescues his son, introduced a lump to the throat. That’s a part of Dove’s talent. 

Typically his music can really feel barely too near main colors (nearer to Sondheim than Britten), however right here he manages to provide many of the main characters moments of actual emotion, quick aria-like monologues the place we hear their private ideas. This helps so much as the fundamental characters are all stereotypes, which after all, makes the plot simpler to observe and implies that Middleton’s libretto does go away loads of area for Dove’s music.

That stated, there stay considerably unsatisfactory components. The opening scenes, the place Itch (Xavier Hetherington) expounds his obsession with the weather, characterising each, and counterpointed by extra life like feedback from his mom, Jude (Rebecca Bottone) and sister, Jack (Natasha Agarwal), are dazzling in the way in which Dove manages to carry to life what threatens to be relatively dry, helped by Stephen Barlow’s imaginative use of Frankie Bradshaw’s set. However the actual drama does take a bit to get going, after which within the second act, which actually does rattle alongside, you turn into conscious of the plot holes. In the end, the music carries you away. What if Eric Greene’s function as Nicholas is woefully underwritten with gaps in our data about his background, his last scene rescuing his son is transferring certainly. Equally, Rebecca Bottone’s Jude disappears from the motion relatively rapidly, however it’s because Bottone is doing double obligation as Roshanna Wing, one of many villains of the piece, and as Roshanna, Bottone clearly has the time of her life, so we do too.

Jonathan Dove: Itch – James Corridor & Rebecca Bottone as Berghahn & Roshanna Wing – Opera Holland Park (Picture: Craig Fuller)

Itch may be a teenage boy however his function is most positively written for an grownup singer and Xavier Hetherington [whom we saw last year in Gilbert & Sullivan’s Ruddigore at Opera North, see my review, and Handel’s Esther with Solomon’s Knot, see my review] introduced the right combination of nerdy introspection and tenorial heft to the function. Hetherington has the voice to make the extra dramatic passages soar, while making us conscious of Itch’s sheer deal with the weather as a result of, effectively, persons are troublesome when you find yourself a teen. Hetherington efficiently drew us alongside via the plot and carried us away in the direction of the top when the drama turns mythic (Itch descending into the earth to return the brand new ingredient to its rightful place).

Following him nearly each step of the way in which and offering a perky commentary to his introspection was Natasha Agarwal because the splendidly participating Jack, Itch’s sister. Compulsively light-fingered, and all the time having Itch’s again regardless of the 2 bickering continually, Agarwal was pleasant but in her early solo offered emotional resonance too. 

As their mom, Rebecca Bottone was engagingly pure, her function as last arbiter within the debacle of Itch setting hearth to himself (the scene that opens the opera) was finely executed and we relatively missed her presence as Jude from the later elements of the opera. This was compensated for by Bottone’s assumption of the function of Roshanna Wing, trouser swimsuit, energy heels and killer excessive notes combining with a terrifically in your face efficiency that had you desirous to boo from her first moments. It wasn’t refined, however oh boy was this terrific music theatre. The way in which Bottone mixed her dramatic excessive notes along with her bodily presence made this music and motion of this highest order.

Jonathan Dove: Itch – Xavier Hetherington, Nicholas Garrett – Opera Holland Park (Picture: Craig Fuller)

The portrayal of Itch and Jack’s father Nicholas very a lot relied on the way in which Eric Greene was in a position to set up our sympathy for him from the phrase go. Greene sang the function with an actual sense of the non-public, he was invested within the function so we have been too. This constructed throughout Greene’s small appearances via the opera till the climactic and emotional last scene.

Victoria Simmonds was the eminently smart Watkins, Itch and Jack’s instructor, an everyday and sensible determine whose presence balanced the extra extremely colored villains. Simmonds sang her with sympathy and a excessive diploma of communicability so she by no means felt like a cypher.

Nicholas Garrett was the opposite key villain and like Bottone’s Roshanna Wing, Garrett’s Flowerdew was painted in robust colors. Relegated to instructing after overstepping the mark in Roshanna Wing’s GreenCorps, Garrett’s Flowerdew started with a solo which offered a lot wanted depth and background which helped to color our view of the character. 

James Corridor performed the twin roles of Cake and Berghahn. As seashore dwelling hippy, Corridor managed to create an actual sense of character in just a few quick scenes, helped by the truth that he gave the impression to be having actual enjoyable. Because of what have been in all probability just a few fast adjustments, Corridor doubled as Roshanna Wing’s vicious sidekick, Berghahn, and once more Corridor created a lot out of little.

Jonathan Dove: Itch – Natasha Agarwal, Rebecca Bottone, Xavier Hetherington – Opera Holland Park (Picture: Craig Fuller)

Robert Burt performed the proprietor of the native tin mine, now a heritage expertise, and his character benefitted from a solo the place he lamented the way in which his grandfather’s mine had gone together with the approach to life round it. That’s a part of this opera’s attraction, Dove and Middleton handle to combine an incredible deal in and it by no means feels indigestible. Burt returned as Flowerdew’s sidekick, Kinch. Once more a small function, however a key one significantly in a stand-out scene in Act Two the place Kinch’s monologue contemplating what he’ll do along with his winnings the place he fantasises a couple of bar on the Island of Mustique leads right into a terrific fantasy sequence for Burt and Garratt as the 2 villains get excessive on the Xenon fuel that Itch has let unfastened within the automobile.

In reality, there isn’t a automobile however that does not matter. Barlow’s use of Bradshaw’s set was consummate in the way in which the manufacturing conveyed so much with little or no. The fireplace results and explosions have been significantly efficient, you do not see these so typically in opera productions and every had robust affect. Jack Henry James Fox’s video sequences helped so as to add environment, however there was it too in the way in which the abbreviations for the weather have been used to spell textual content.

As may be anticipated, Dove makes his 12 devices work laborious and there was by no means a second when something felt undernourished. In Matt Scott Rogers’ succesful arms, the music flowed admirably, the orchestral writing contributing to the multi-layered really feel of the emotional texture while having occasional hints of movie scores. 

Jonathan Dove: Itch – Nicholas Garrett – Opera Holland Park (Picture: Craig Fuller)

In a means, it’s clear that this opera was created for a particular objective, to attract in those that may not often go to the opera and supply one thing household pleasant. But, Dove’s talent with the rating means that there’s a lot extra emotional resonance than you would possibly count on. He and Middleton have drawn on different iconic operatic myths in order that we have now a rattling good yarn designed to hold away households, but with deeper musical dramas that attract outdated stagers like myself.