Review: Marx in London! – Scottish Opera

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Jonathan Dove’s long-awaited Marx in London! arrives in the UK, delayed for obvious reasons since its opening at Theatre Bonn in 2018. It shirks 20th and 21st-century sensibilities, being both an overtly comic opera, and shading a little closer to tunefulness than most modern offerings. The result is both a refreshing and immensely satisfying outing for Scottish Opera.

Set over a single day in 1871, but drafting in strife from the family Marx’s pre-fame life in 1850’s Soho, Dove and librettist Charles Hart (after Jürgen Weber) pack in the action. Haunted by his unfinished masterwork Das Kapital and a lack of capital, our spendthrift and unfaithful Karl Marx (Roland Wood) absconds with his wife Jenny’s (Orla Boylan) family silver, intent upon pawning it. The bailiffs are at the door, and without funds the Marxes, including daughter Tussi (Rebecca Bottone) can say goodbye to all their furniture.

Into this chaos, strides young Freddy (William Morgan), a gunsmith (why not?) in search of his mother and father since a deathbed confession from an adoptive parent. All of the above takes place beneath the watchful eye of a Spy (Jamie MacDougall), seeking evidence of prosecutable dissent.

Under Director Stephen Barlow, Marx in London! lives up wonderfully to this premise’s abundant comic potential. Pitched somewhere between Mozartian farce, Ealing Studios, and – quite rightly – the Marx Brothers, the laughs start early, and keep coming. Marx’s enduring contributions to intellectual and social discourse are acknowledged, but this is a drama of wayward husbands, battleaxe wives, amorous youths, and unexpected offspring rendered in witty rhymes, puns, and jokes about boils on Marx’s backside. It’s not quite ‘Carry on Marx’ but neither is it a million miles away.

Dove’s score is bright, brisk and accessible, flecked with hints of Glass and John Adams but skirting closer to the melodic than either. ‘Drink and be Done’ for example, the bailiffs’ rhythmic work song summons memories of a certain Disney septet’s famous anthem. Elsewhere the well-lubricated duet ‘Another Little Drink’ sung by Boylan and the Marx’s housekeeper Helene (Lucy Schaufer) follows in the long tradition of operatic drinking waltzes. Then, calling back perhaps to Verdi’s Egyptian Slaves, Marx in London! indulges in a wonderfully resounding ‘Chorus of Workers’ which visits a sleeping Marx with a vision of the workers finally united. The Chorus of Scottish Opera under Susannah Wapshott makes a singularly fine-sounding protest group.

The Orchestra of Scottish Opera under David Parry accompany a truly first-class cast with real panache, making light work of some complex and challenging sections. Roland Wood turns in another superlative character performance as the dishevelled intellectual titan, almost unrecognisable behind bushy beard and eyebrows. In as fine voice as ever, his baritone is a fine match to every aria, his timbre cleverly adjusted to extoll Marx’s heroic side and expose his manyfold weaknesses.

The pick of voices on stage, however, might be Rebecca Bottone, whose agile soprano springs through the octaves, first with a girlish giggle, before graduating to the smoother notes of a young woman citing her first romantic conquest.

Buttone and Morgan’s first act duet is ambrosial, the two mounted upon the cart carrying away the Marx’s furniture, the latter pretending to be a piano teacher, the former delighting in his escalating travel sickness. When Designer Yannis Thavoris’s excellent set permits the cart to lift off, one can almost hear the woosh of a bed flying past to strains of ‘The Age of Not Believing’.

Such excellent and innovative staging holds true throughout, with backdrop projections of a sketched period London creating a stylish and stylised world. Physical walls and props conjuring locations from Marx’s home to a pawnshop, or the British Library are moved in and out of position with practised efficiency.

Whilst Marx in London! is by no means an activist piece of art, neither does it rubbish or minimise its subject’s contributions to social discourse. The ridiculous Marx zooming about London seeking his case of silver, purloined by the Spy, is transformed when given an audience to rally to new ways of thinking. Without extolling the more controversial virtues of communism, one subtext of the opera might still be ‘join a union.’

Any fears of excess moral instruction should, however, be put to one side: at one point Engels (Alasdair Elliott) rides to the rescue on a tricycle complete with wings and a sword. This Marx spends more time trying to seduce his housekeeper and save his financial bacon than rousing the masses. Which isn’t to say the opera lacks heart or substance, only that Dove first seeks to entertain. Accordingly, Wood’s political philosopher does eventually take to his soapbox with majestic visions of a workers’ paradise, but not before a Sondheim-invoking oratorical duel with tenor Paul Hopwood‘s buffoonish Italian anarchist Melanzane (that’s Aubergine in English).

“…the pick of voices on stage, however, might be Rebecca Bottone, whose agile soprano springs through the octaves…”

Yet, for all the comic tropes, Marx in London! is a modern opera. Be reassured, fellow plebians who yearn for tunefulness, for Dove’s score abounds with wonderful harmonies, moments of soaring glory, and rhythmic sequences to tap your programme along to. You might even find yourself humming something about ‘Another Little Drink’ on the way home. Elsewhere, the ever-escalating escapades of the historical caricatures offer plentiful sugar to help the non-melodic go down if needed.

So there we have it. More fun than you can shake a baton at, Marx in London! is a modern opera for all. If new audiences for the challenging modern works (which represent the norm) are truly desired, then companies around the world would do well to stage Jonathan Dove’s terrific slice of operatic silliness at their soonest convenience.

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Marx in London! will play the Festival Theatre Edinburgh until the 24th of February, 2024. For tickets, click here.

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