'La Fille du régiment' review — Donizetti's frothy comic opera is a total summer delight

Read our review of La Fille du régiment, featuring Sara Blanch and Tamsin Greig, now in performances at the Royal Opera House to 24 July.

Summary

• Donizetti's La Fille du régiment returns to the Royal Opera House
• The delightful comic opera centres on a girl who has been raised by the French army
• Sara Blanch is a sparkling Marie and Juan Diego Flórez is an endearing Tonio
• Tamsin Greig is great fun as the Duchess of Crakentorp

On its premiere in Paris in 1835, Donizetti’s historical opera Marino Faliero was overshadowed by Bellini’s I puritani (playing concurrently at the Royal Opera House). And when his comic opera La Fille du régiment premiered in 1840, its opening night was a disaster but it nevertheless quickly caught on. While I puritani takes itself very seriously indeed, La Fille is all delightful froth and frolicking. As a summer operatic treat, it slips down as easily as a portion of ice cream served in a cut-glass dish and eaten with a long-handled spoon.

The title character is Marie, who was discovered by the French army on the battlefields as a baby; she has been raised by 1,500 “daddies”, and now serves as their “mess girl”. She has fallen in love with Tyrolean lad Tonio even though she’s expected to choose a husband from the regiment – and then a noblewoman turns up with the revelation that she is Marie’s aunt and takes her back to civilisation.

Laurent Pelly’s production, receiving its fifth outing at the Royal Opera House (it has also been staged internationally and is conducted on this occasion by Yves Abel), is impossible not to warm to. The amount of spoken lines (Agathe Mélinand is credited for dialogue) is close to operetta and it often feels proto-Gilbert and Sullivan in the business with the chorus and the dynamics between the characters. The operetta feel is also accentuated by the fin de siècle/Edwardian costuming (designed by Pelly himself).

Sara Blanch makes a sparkling Royal Opera House debut with bell-like coloratura as Marie, and she showcases a flair for physical comedy like a regimental Annie Oakley or Calamity Jane. Although Marie is made to wear a dress in the second act, she never has a Cinderella-esque transformation and has no innate nobility despite her bloodline, remaining her hoydenish self to the end.

It isn’t easy to appear dashing in lederhosen, a sweater vest and knee socks, and there is something endearingly nerdish about Tonio as a hero (he enlists as a man in uniform to win his love). Juan Diego Flórez, who originated the role in Pelly’s production almost two decades ago, sings with a voice that is as youthful as ever, and his Act One aria with its string of high Cs received a rapturous ovation.

In the grande dame roles, mezzo Sonia Ganassi is amusing as La Marquise de Berkenfield, Marie’s “aunt”, who could be a character played by the late Penelope Keith (she regards war as a personal inconvenience for a lady of her standing). Actor Tamsin Greig shows her mettle as a future Lady Bracknell and plays the French dialogue straight in her guest appearance as the Duchess of Crakentorp, whose son (who we don’t see as he’s glued to the World Cup) is set to marry Marie. And Paolo Bordogna is a thoroughly good sort as Sulpice Pingot, Marie’s primary papa.

The chorus is convincingly fatherly and Chantal Thomas’s set design, with its stylised maps and washing lines with dancing long johns, wittily blends the militaristic and the mundane. A thoroughly charming end to the season.

La Fille du régiment is at the Royal Opera House to 24 July. Book La Fille du régiment tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Photo credit: La Fille du régiment (Photos by Tristram Kenton)