The many who love Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 American sisterhood novel will come with expectation and goodwill to Mark Adamo’s 1998 opera, here receiving a belated UK premiere after several outings in the US. Those feelings will carry them a long way in Ella Marchment’s production for Opera Holland Park, which always treats Alcott’s themes and characters with affectionate sensitivity and respect.
In the end, though, this is not enough to make Little Women into a successful opera. The root of the problem is partly that Alcott’s coming-of-age tale is not primarily theatrical, and Adamo’s setting struggles to overcome this narrative reality. Intelligently, he frames Little Women as a pared-down retrospective seen from Jo March’s adulthood, an approach which gives the piece dramatic structure but brings its own problems.
These are emphasised by the layout of the stage, which in this production encircles the orchestra. Several scenes turn into dialogues between the foregrounded characters – most often Jo – and the more remote ones behind the orchestra – including her parents, sisters and their suitors. The effect is to make the staging diffuse, with the secondary characters not given much chance to make an impression.
But in the end Adamo’s generic score is not strong enough to provide the evening with the musical character and momentum it needs. There are some nice touches when he subverts operatic cliches, such as the coloratura declarations of love between Meg and John Brooke. The cadences of Jo’s adamant “We are perfect as we are” scene in act one have echoes of Bernstein and Copland. It is neat enough, but all a bit middle-of-the-road and it is hard to grasp the particular personality of Adamo’s writing.
None of this can detract from the energy and commitment that conductor Sian Edwards secures from the City of London Sinfonia. On stage, the mezzo Charlotte Badham holds the evening together with her stalwart and expressive Jo, while her sisters Meg (Kitty Whately, especially good), Beth (Harriet Eyley) and Amy (Elizabeth Karani) combine well in their quartet scenes. Frederick Jones, Harry Thatcher and Benson Wilson make their marks as Laurie, John and Friedrich.
Opera Holland Park have indubitably done a service by finally bringing Adamo’s opera to Britain. As the programme book sets out, Little Women is one of a number of late 20th-century operatic adaptations of American novels and plays that deserve to be better known here. Admirably willing to explore the lesser-known repertoire, OHP should consider mounting some of the others in future seasons.
